Back Bay

Since Fort Myers Beach is a narrow island that stretches down the Gulf coast of Florida, there are two bridges to get on or off the island. This morning one of those bridges is closed, to vehicles, for the Shrmp Parade.

This is the height of the "season" in Florida. This means that in this month there are the most tourists here. This includes snow birds, like us, college and university students on March break, and any other visitors. As a result the FMB town council puts on the Shrimp Festival, complete with a parade. This creates a traffic back up that is unbelievable. The cars, bumper to bumper stretch for miles. No one is moving for the whole morning. BUT the Shrimp Festival is worth it, with the wonderful small town parade, an arts and craft market and plenty of Gulf shrimp. These shrimp are world famous and definitely worth the effort to get here, in spite of the traffic. Walking is the best means of transportation, esp. during the Shrimp Festival!

But, back to the bridges. The northern bridge is very long and high so that the shrimp boats and many yachts who use back bay as an anchorage, can get in and out. There is a very large yacht basin under the bridge and south into back bay. It must hold hundreds of yachts, all tied up to buoys, with a dingy moored to the yacht. The people live on board for the winter and use the dingy to go back and forth to the many dingy docks when they need to come ashore. Sailing, needless to say, is another great way to come to the Shrimp Featival. When we were painting out this Wed., we were on back bay. We painted at an artists home which is situated on the shore in Ft. MYers Beach. I had a view of Bird Island in back bay with a yacht tied up close by. This painting on11x14 board is the result.