We first visited Sanibel and Captiva Islands just after the spate of hurricanes in 2004, really bad timing on our part. It looked like a war zone; roofless houses, utility poles snapped in half and trees uprooted. The few people we saw walked around like zombies.
Palms, it seems, can be replanted and the gumbo limbo trees, mangroves and other vegetation must grow quickly. This time the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge was a tropical paradise complete with thousands of birds and we visited twice daily, never getting our fill or enough photos. We even saw our first manatees. Darling, by the way, was a political cartoonist who stands with Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold and John Muir as heros of the environmental movement.
We spent the heat of the day either at the Shell Museum (amazing) or at the air-conditioned Sanibel Public Library (even more amazing.) How a town of 12,000 merits a college style library is beyond me, but it was a great place to download books, catch up on magazines and access the internet. Thanks.
