Running Southwest Florida Beaches By Eddie Underhill Intro: 1. For years I have been running Fort Myers Beach. I live at Fairview Isles, so I start at the beach here in front of the Gullwing Hotel and run north to the pier. This is 4 miles. I can then take the trolley for $.50 and ride back home. 2. One can extend this run by continuing past the pier for another Mile to the North end of the island. Or One can start at the pier and run to the North end of the island and back for a 2.0 Mile run. 3. Sometimes I would start at the Gullwing and run south to the Big Carlos Pass Bridge. One would start by going in front of the Holliday Inn and taking the path behind the Lagoon. If you run along the beach you have to cross the lagoon outlet and might get rather wet. This path through the dunes is rather scenic. This was about 2.1 miles. I would walk home from there along Estero Boulevard, stopping at Santinini Plaza to window shop and pick up the free papers and bulletins. Recently several owners on the above path have put up no trespassing signs so the path is a bit blocked. However the inlet to the lagoon has filled in so a path on the beach exists that does not require wading through water. So now I just run along the shore line. 4. There two courses were my main paths for years. Then I thought, what about farther south. So I went to Bonita Beach and parked in the public lot at the north end of the island. This costs $2.00 per hour. Here one walks north ½ mile and then can run 3 miles to Doc s restaurant. One can easily run this in reverse. One can return to the car by walking the beach or walk along Big Hickory Boulevard. 5. Next I parked at Doc s restaurant (Bonita Beach Lot) and ran south to Wiggins Pass. This is 4 miles to the end of Bare Foot beach. At the south end of Bare Foot beach is a park. Lots of Gopher Tortoises. I have run the beach and then walk back though the park. Have always seen tortoises. 6. By now I am thinking why not keep running all the beaches in south west Florida. So I got a nautical map from Wal-Mart (#25-Ten Thousand Islands North to Fort Myers and Boca Grande) and plotted my future adventures. The next path was a step backwards since I had jumped over Lovers Key. This is just south of Fort Myers Beach. I parked at the north end and paid the $2 admission fee. This is a 2.4 mile path and needs to be run at low tide to avoid the mangroves growing close to the beach edge. Lovers Key is a state
park so again a walk back can either be along the shore but better to cut through the park and see the nature and the wildlife. In 2014 Lovers Kay beach was renourished so it is much wider. 7. Continuing south one goes out to the end Immokalee Road to Wiggins Pass State Park. ($2 per car and $2 per person). This a beautiful long park with lots of parking and picnic tables. Go to the North end of the park. This is Vanderbilt beach. It is 2.5 miles to Vanderbilt beach road access. There is a beach entrance here and a vendor. It is another.5 miles to the end of the high rise buildings, so this makes a nice 3.0 mile course. The walk back along the beach and through the park is very pleasant. 8. Next take Vanderbilt beach road to the beach access referred to above. Parking here is at a Collier county garage and costs $8. Run south 2.4 Miles to Clam Pass. This is south Vanderbilt beach. The south part of this route is Pelican Bay. There are some very large houses and at the very end is the Pelican Bay beach club. Some of the high rises are high end resort hotels.
9. Next take Seagate Dr (Pine Ridge Rd) to the beach. Park in Clam Pass Park. Again this is a Collier County park and costs $8. When I went there was no attendant to you needed $8 exact change. Here you walk (or ride a tram) on a wooden walkway over a nature preserve (swamp). It is at least.5 Miles. This takes you to Clam Pass. There is a very nice rental building with food and refreshments if you want to take a break. Run south 2.4 Miles to Doctors Pass. This is North Naples. As you jog south you can spot a tall lone palm tree at the edge of the beach. This is a good marker for Doctors Pass. 10. Now we have finally got to Naples. I split Naples beach in two parts since the easiest parking is in the center. One could run both parts in one session. I started at Naples pier which is located about 12 th ave south. There is lots of metered parking and a large lot at $1.50/hr. If you get a few blocks from the beach there is on street parking that is free. I first ran North 3.1 Miles from the pier to Doctors Pass. Again look for the lone palm tree sticking out at the pass. Again there are a lot of very nice houses along the Naples beach. Even in these depressed economic times large houses are still being built. On the way back you can stop at Naples s Loudermilk Park. It has picnic benches and a nice fishing lake. The Naples beach had a lot of foreign visitors in Dec. and probably all winter.
11. The second half of Naples beach is south from the pier 2.7 Miles to Gordon Pass. This is mostly through the Port Royal Neighborhood. Very large houses here. Half way you pass the Port Royal Club. There were a lot of people there on the day I went by. There were also very large boats passing through Gorden Pass. In addition to just running the beach, sometimes a little speed work is desired. I go to the Lovers Key boat ramp. Here parallel to the road is a nice ¼ mile sprint opportunity. I do 6 repeats going one way resting and returning. 12. Another non beach run is to run the streets of Fairview Isles. This course is running up and down every street in Fairview Isles completing a loop of about 3 Miles. This is a paved course with little traffic. Do run on the left side of the road though. You get to say hello to the neighbors as you pass.
Just for completeness, I should include some precautions that I used on my outings. You need to have money for parking or perhaps refreshments. For parking you may need to feed the meters quarters. For the ticket machines singles may be required, the machines do not always accept credit cards. I also always carried my cell phone. This was in case there was an emergency. I also used it to take the pictures in this article. Since I left my wallet in the car, not wishing to carry it on each route, I needed to plan in case the car was not where I left it when I returned. I thus carried a credit card and usually $20. I put these items along with the phone in a plastic zip lock plastic bag in case I needed to swim. When I had a question about where I was or what I was seeing, fishermen were always easy to talk to and seemed happy to share information. I always checked the map mentioned above to have an idea of the route. I would sometimes check the internet to get the history of an island or the area. I would try to stop at each of the parks on my walk back just to see what they had to offer on a possible future visit. 13. Marco Island Beach. Here I parked at the South Marco Island Parking. $8. One walks a short distance to the south end of the beach and jogs north. This is a big Crescent beach with lots of
high rise condo and hotels. As you approach the last of the high rises you can stay along the gulf front, which will end at the 3.5 Mile point. Alternatively stay to the right by the last high rise and run behind the lagoon, and you will enter Tiger tail beach. You can stop here at the 3.0 Mile point or continue on. To continue on it needs to be low tide. For the next mile you are jogging on the edge of Mangroves. Finally you get to Hideaway beach, private expensive houses. You can continue on to the 5.5 Mile point at which point you are going along the Marco River and the beach finally ends. You have to walk back at least to tiger tail. At tiger tail you can continue along the beach or exit and walk back along Collier Boulevard to your car. 14. Now going north of Fort Myers Beach one comes to a small beach called Bunch Beach. From Summerlin heading to Sanibel go south on John Morris Road. It is small but nice. It has limited free parking and a great view of both Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel. It is only one mile long and the water is very shallow. A new parking lot, with restrooms and a kayak launch, has just been completed about a quarter mile north of the beach. This is only a one mile jog so not much of a work out unless you do several laps.
15. Next we are on to Sanibel. Since this is about 13 miles long I will break it into three sections. As one enters Sanibel after going over the bridge turn left and proceed to the light house. The Sanibel Bridge costs $6 and parking is $2 per hour. So if you run for 1 hour and walk back in two hours with some time for sightseeing you will need about 3 hours. This course starts at the light house and proceeds North 4 miles to the Gulf side Beach Park. One can then either go back down the beach or use the streets to return to the light house. I usually chose the street route for more interest. The beach is fairly flat and fairly shell free. Most of the buildings on this stretch are resorts. They are the height restricted three story flat roof building so common on Sanibel. There is about a 100 feet of vegetative covered dunes separating the beach from the resorts. 16. This is mid island Sanibel. Starting at the Gulf side Beach parking lot off of Algiers Rd. precede north. The beach in this section is very shelly. Makes jogging a bit harder. The first part of the run has more three story resorts. These eventually give way to nice and expensive private single family homes. The second half of this route is both very shelly and eroded. There is a two foot drop off at the high tide level so at high tide one would be running in the dune growth. So run this at low tide until they renourish the beach. Again like the south part of Sanibel there is about a 100 feet of dune
vegetative growth between the beach and the buildings. I went four miles, exited the beach at beach access 7 and walked back on West Gulf Drive 17. The North end of Sanibel Here I went all the way to the north end of Sanibel via Periwinkle Dr to Sanibel Captiva Dr and parked in the Turner Beach Lot. There are actually two lots on either side of blind pass. Here the course was 4.8 miles south to the same point that I had gone north to on the last run at beach access 7. There was no good road path back to Turner beach so I just walked back along the beach. Way less chance of getting lost this way as I have done on some of my walk backs. Two miles south of the starting point is Bowmen s Beach Lot. This is much bigger that the Turner Beach Lots and has showers and picnic tables and play facilities for children. This could be the start point for a shorter course going either north or south. Most of this part of the beach has an estuary between the beach and houses so the houses are quite far from the water. The north part of this course is quite set back and does not have many people except at Bowman s beach and Turner Beach. The south part of the course did have expensive houses right on the beach. 18. Captiva Picture below is from Blind Pass looking north. The fisherman is at the three foot drop as described below.
Here I started at Blind pass and ran north to the end of the island which was 4.9 miles long. This was one of the worse sections of beach in the entire southwest Florida area. There was a three foot drop from the soft dry sand to the wet sand. If the tide were high, one would be running on the loose dry sand the entire length of the beach. The wet sand did not pack as the sand on other beaches but gave way adding considerably to the effort. The sand was brown and very grainy with very few shells. Maybe the beach had been renurished and will get better. The very north end of the beach bordered on a golf course and was very nice. I walked back on the island roads. The north end of Captiva is owned by the South Seas Resort. The houses and building and landscape of this area are just beautiful. In between the beautiful landscape the area has been left as natural which is mangrove swamps. I guess they spray a lot and when I was there, there were no Mosquitoes but it could be a problem. The south part of Captiva is also magnificent with almost all the houses, mansions. They may have done some renourishment since I ran this last so it may be better.
Golf course bordering the beach at the north end of Captiva. Two stretches of beach down by Marco can be visited, but both require a boat to get there. First is Kise Island south of Marco. This would be about a 4 mile jog ending at Cape Romano. Last time I was there, there were sill remnants of old houses that had been built there in the early 60 s. North is Marco is an 8 mile stretch of beach called Keewaydin Island. Most of this island is a state park and is closed during part of the year. Again a boat is required to get there. Of course one does not need to jog to visit and enjoy all of the above beaches. A short walk or even just a picnic can be lots of fun. We at Fairview Isles have the best beach in South West Florida, but it is fun to enjoy some of the other beaches.