Pine Island Sound - Archaeological Expedition

May 14, 2017

For the last two weeks we have been in Pine Island Sound, first at 'Horseshoe Bay' near Sanibel and most recently Pelican Bay near Cayo Costa.

These places go back to our earliest cruising days; in fact Pelican Bay was our first destination on our first Island Packet charter out of Burnt Store in 1991.  Writing that date, it doesn't seem possible that that much time has passed.  But it has been great to spend some quality time where it all started.

Not much exciting to report that has not been covered in posts over the years.

Except that recently I went on an 'archaeological expedition' to attempt to find some traces of the early settlements here.  Cayo Costa and Punta Blanca islands both hosted active fishing communities going way back.  I have long been interested in these settlements and their remains and after finding some internet resources on their location, I finally went on an expedition.

A great resource showing the locations of parts of the Punta Blanca settlement is on page 7 of http://nsgl.gso.uri.edu/flsgp/flsgpm02003/flsgpm02003_part2i.pdf  I was unable to extract it to present here, but if you are interested follow the link.  The Punta Blanca settlement was a fishing community but also included a boat building operation and the school for the area. Another great resource if you are interested in the area is a book titled "The Fisher Folk of Charlotte Harbor".

I must say that the identification of these features is fairly shaky  and may be nothing related.  But they are interesting and in locations very close to the locations shown on the map on the above link.

For what it is worth:

Location of the school house
Remnants of trees cut down to make room for school house

Cut in mangroves near the boat basin
Formerly a dock?  Outhouses were also listed in this area.

Public dock on the south shore.
One of my more positive identifications

Remnants of the fish house that was south of the island.
Fisherman would bring their catches here to be put on ice and later transported to Punta Gorda for processing.
This house burned in 1995 shortly after Florida instituted a 'gill net' ban that virtually killed any remaining commercial fishing in the area.  We saw this building before it burned on our charters in the area in the early 1990's .

Possible remnants of the marine waterway used to skid boats to and from the boat building operation.
I was unable to go inland where the boat shed and general store should be because of the dense second-growth underbrush - Florida has some 'mean'  briars and other prickly things

Tomorrow we plan to head to Boca Grande for a 3-night marina stay.  This was also a 'stomping ground' in our early cruising.  Also, after 2 1/2 weeks out, we are out of virtually out of  fresh food, so a trip to Hudson's market will be nice.


Tom
Anchored Pelican Bay
Cayo Costa Island, FL