How about a Second Chance?

Heading north up the west coast of Florida we were planning on stopping for the night in Marco Island, the same place we stopped coming south a few weeks ago.  But then we noticed a small anchorage just south of Marco in a shallow area off Cape Romano.  We decided to give it a try.  Wow, it turned out to be one of our more memorable anchorages.  There is a large exposed sandbar called Second Chance Sandbar.  The area is constantly shifting and we had to maneuver very carefully watching our depth gauge.  We ended up anchoring close to the Second Chance sandbar but we were way out in the middle of a very large bay with gorgeous views 360 degrees.  Second Chance Sandbar turned out to be a “CWA” or Critical Wildlife Area that is a nesting habitat for a variety of seabirds.  The other interesting feature of this area is a group of bizarre looking dome houses out in the water that look like they are right out of a Star Wars movie.  For an interesting read, Google Cape Romano Dome House and read the Wikipedia  page.  They were built in the 1980’s as a vacation residence on a small island, but they have been abandoned since the 90’s and the rising sea level is now taking them back.

Second Chance Sandbar from Google Earth

Cape Romano Dome House

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