Exploring Sanibel Island
When the sun rises on Sanibel Island, after the night and early morning high tides, you’ll find a pristine beach covered with seashells – the delicate treasures scattered in galore. Just as with snowflakes, no two shells are alike, and the most common stance on the beaches of Sanibel Island is the beach-combers “stoop.” The variety of shells on Sanibel Island is amazing, from the lace murex with swirls of intricate ridges and designs, to the calico scallop that bears purple-red markings on a pinkish-white background. The lettered olive is a beautiful tan cylinder, and the turkey wing fits its name perfectly. The shells are everywhere: lion’s paws, whelks, fighting conches, juvenile horse conches, figs, pear whelks, cockles. Spend peaceful hours roaming the soft sands of Sanibel Island and reaping the beauty of the sea.
Biking or hiking on Sanibel Island is the best way to discover many hidden spectacles. With large pieces of the island marked as nature reserves, the seaside creatures are abundant and easy to sight from trails designed to allow visitors to explore the wildlife close up. The J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Reserve is home to an endless numbers of birds and other types of wildlife. The reserve on Sanibel Island was first founded by editorial cartoonist and conservationist Jay Norwood Darling, who led efforts to create a lease of land known as the Sanibel Refuge. The route through the reserve leads past tidal mud flats and mangrove forests where you can find roseate spoonbills, white ibis, little blue herons, reddish egrets, brown pelicans, and other colorful birds resting, feeding, and preening.
The sightings throughout this reserve are endless, and each bird has its own unique beauty. The snowy egret has a long black beak and slender white body, and the great egret is all legs and neck, balanced by vast wings. The glossy black cormorants can most often be spotted in the branches of trees, stretching their wings and sunning. Big brown pelicans bounce in the waves near the shoreline, nonchalantly ducking for dinner, and red-shouldered hawks with mottled brown bodies and rust-colored shoulders perch in regal majesty in the highest and barest tree tops. The osprey is startling, with a bright white belly, a dark back and wings, and a chocolate band across its eyes. You will easily find a gallery of feathered friends in these skies, but don’t forget to look down now and then to spy an alligator lazing in the murky swamp canals. Towards the end of the route through the reserve, a small tropical forest rises over an old Calusa Indian shell mound with a trail leading around it.
After a day of exploration, the end of the day on Sanibel Island is marked each night when the sun begins its slow descent below the glass water rim of horizon. To the East the sky turns from blue to a layered mosaic of pale green, blue-violet, and rose blush. To the West the brilliance of the sinking sun is too much to look at directly – colors of rich radiant gold, gentle orange, brick red, and lavender. The sky undergoes a metamorphosis from one moment to the next. The hues and blends and tints shift constantly – a slower, softer kaleidoscope of design.
People gather on the beaches of Sanibel Island to watch the sun sink under, breathing in the transition as it occurs. The sun ball becomes an amazing tangerine orange that suddenly, without warning, vanishes far more quickly than expected behind a slender blanket of purple clouds that gathers to hug the horizon. The last slice of orange turns into a speck and is gone then, night crawling over the water, growing from purple-blue to black. The tall umbrella palm trees have thick spindle leaves that in the wind sound like brooms, softly sweeping the sky. The white sand meets the ghost of tides in the sudden darkness, so deep, and the sound of the waves rushing to land fills the night.
The beauty of Sanibel Island goes beyond sunrises and sunsets, seashells and birds. You will find many excursions that travel the sea in search of dolphins, as well as opportunities to explore other nearby treasures, such as boat rides to remote Cayo Costa Island, canoe adventures, fishing trips, and visits to the winter estates of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Every nook and cranny of Sanibel Island holds something to savor. From the time the sun rises, to the time it melts into the horizon, your days will be filled with wonder, beauty, and enchanting fun.
