Swimming at Boca Grande

This week we took a trip north to swim at the beaches of Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island. It’s an enjoyable car ride of about 1.5 hours from Pine Island. The Boca Grande bridge is new and the views in all directions are of amazing tropical blue waters. Once on the island, we parked right at the very southern tip of the island at the scenic lighthouse & museum. There is self-serve public parking for $3/day and beautiful changing rooms that overlook the ocean. We saw up close and swam with about six or seven manatees as they travelled up and down the crystal clear shallow waters. Off in the near distance, in this photo you can see some fishing boats and waves, which are likely Tarpon “flipping”- Boca Grande is the tarpon fishing capital of the world.