We heard the whir of the helicopter before we ever saw it. The sound was unlike the Virginia based military choppers practicing and patrolling up and down the east coast. When they fly by hugging the shore on a summer day, we often wave. They make me think of the young men who throughout our country’s history, go off to fight in far away places like Vietnam or Afghanistan. It’s crazy to think that I can be filled with pride and gratitude when I hear them, while someone thousands of miles away might feel fear and grief at their approach.
It’s also crazy to think that someone sitting on the same beach as me, perhaps a recently discharged veteran suffering from PTSD, could feel fear and grief from those sounds right here in America. While someone else, perhaps a young interpreter working to free his village from the Taliban, thousands of miles away, could be filled with pride and gratitude at the approach of these mechanical birds of war.
The helicopter we heard on Captiva Island, the sister of Sanibel Island, was totally different. It was high-pitched and sounded more like a highly advanced piece of garden equipment rather than a weapon of destruction. It was fast, small, and seemed straight out of a James Bond movie. This chopper did not have marines aboard flying off to battlefields like in Full Metal Jacket. It was more likely that the dastardly villain JAWS was piloting it, smiling with a mouth full of metal chasing 007.
The helicopter returned again and again every few minutes to buzz over the restaurant where we were having lunch. Doc Ford’s, on Captiva Island, is the kind of restaurant you dream of in the middle of the coldest, darkest days of winter. Its open air layout welcomes you with cold drinks and warm tropical breezes. The friendly, relaxed wait staff, a healthy combination of young and old salts, helps you to turn the switch to island time and take it easy. Doc Ford’s is just the cure needed for Vitamin D deprived northerners and southern sunbathers desiring nourishment, hydration, and shade.
The helicopter’s repeat runs created quite the chatter amongst the staff. Each time it passed by, a few waiters or bussers would look toward the sky with smiles on their faces. The laughter and small talk between them told us something unusual or mysterious to outsiders was happening. To be in the know about it could only be earned through some kind of local currency exchange: social knowledge built up overtime by living and working on the island.
Of course, after the chopper’s 5th pass, we were dying to know what was going on. When we finally asked one of the waiters, he said “Oh, that’s just Harrison Ford taking his chopper out from his private island.” Really? THE Harrison Ford? That sounded too good to be true. The waiter walked away with a wry smile on his face and we weren’t sure if we had been fooled or not. After some debate, we decided as a family it was definitely NOT Harrison Ford.
The next explanation we heard seemed a little more logical. One of the waitresses told us that each day at this time, a helicopter flies down low over the beaches near the resort on Captiva Island to scare the sharks away. The winds and the sounds created by the helicopter pushes the creatures further out into the water so they don’t mess with the high paying, beachgoing customers. We weren’t sure if her explanation was true either but it sounded pretty good. The chopper’s repeated passes felt like something out of a Doc Ford novel and we finally concluded that with all the fiction in the air from Randy Wayne White’s books, we would never get to the truth about the helicopter.
The one thing we did find 100 percent verifiable, was a delicious meal at Doc Ford’s on Captiva Island was worth the long drive to Florida. The cheesy bread, the strawberry daiquiris, and the marinated shrimp more than satisfied after a lovely morning collecting shells, snorkeling, and swimming. Memories of Doc Ford’s stay with you long after you’ve left the islands.
With lunch settled and no fear of sharks swimming too close to shore thanks to Harrison Ford or JAWS perhaps, we put on our masks to see what else we could find in the beautiful water surrounding Captiva and Sanibel. On this side of the Gulf of Mexico and in some of the connected waterways, the fishing is world class. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison both spent time on the western Florida Coast catching tarpon and dozens of other fish. I wasn’t sure what we would discover, but I was sure it would be cool for the kids.
As we walked out about 40 yards from shore, I spotted a large shadow and what I thought was a huge tangled net coming our way. It was moving in strange ways in the water and my immediate thought was the net must have a large fish, perhaps a shark, tangled inside. I grabbed my youngest son Henry and got ready to put him on my shoulders as the net and the fish came closer and closer to where we we stood. I knew I was too far out to make a panicked run or swim back to shore so I decided to go with the frozen statue approach. Maybe, the huge creature would just pass us by.
As the shadow came to within about 10 yards of us, I could see it was not a net and it was not a shark. It was a large manatee. My fear immediately changed to awe for this fellow mammal gliding right beside us on its way to who knows where. It reminded me of seeing a hippopotamus underwater at a zoo but with more grace and ease.
With a check in the box on our Bucket List for nature encounters in the wild, our fun times with Floridian fauna and wildlife continued. Back on Sanibel Island, we decided to drive through the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge before returning to the hotel. Feeling like we were driving through the set of a Jurassic Park movie with Henry poking his head out of the sunroof, our nervousness about what we might discover returned. In parts of Florida, it seems like the wildlife could take over civilization in an instant; that a deadly bite is just an unguarded moment away from happening.
With our imaginations running wild, we waited for a pterodactyl or some other prehistoric creature to swoop down and snatch Henry. Of course, the pterodactyl never materialized but we did get to see the beautiful rose colored Spoonbills, mohawked iguanas, and a gator, or two.
When you are in one of the many Florida wildlife refuges, you come to respect the men and women who had the vision to preserve such wonderful places not just for the animals but for the humans. Without their intervention, without their money, without their hard work, these areas could so easily be filled with houses or condominiums or hotels or even strip malls. Instead, there is a natural balance between man’s wants and needs and the necessary requirements to keep the animal kingdom in place. Sanibel and Captiva provide the perfect combination of man made refuges like Doc Ford’s serving cold drinks a few miles up the road and a timeless wildlife preserve where the animals can still gather to get refreshed as well.