Settling in near Fort Myers–Franklin Lock

Click for trip plans and map

On Sunday we checked into our reserved campsite at a Corp of Engineers campsite on a little island in the Caloosahatchee River just east of Fort Myers. We plan to stay for 2 weeks.

Since the price is only $15/day including full hookups and each site has a covered picnic table. It is very popular and very hard to get a campsite. You must call exactly 6 months before your first night to get a site and you can only stay for 14 days.

Bob Nicholson is still camping with us and has been having fun on his SUP.

Our site is right on the end of the island and sometimes some yachts may use the docks near our site. Last night no one was docked there.

The weather for the past week has been warm and dry but clouds move in everyday about noon. It looks like next week may cool off, looking at the long term forecast which is seldom correct.

Yesterday Bob discovered some nice single track bike trails about a mile away at the Caloosahatchee Regional Park.

We  paddled upstream to the little scenic Hickey Creek today. It was 3-1/2 miles each way, half the paddling was in the big Caloosahatchee River where you had to watch out for big power boats setting up a big wake because I guess they don’t slow down for small boats. Novices could easily be knocked over.

There is a little park with hiking trails half way up the creek. The creek got a sheen on it that was some kind of pollution as we went further upstream, so we turned around and went back. Didn’t see any alligators but we did see a bunch of turtles, Also saw a few birds, we think they were Limpkins.