Hey, did you see the smoke rising up last week over part of our Sanibel Island?

Maybe you knew exactly what it was, maybe you didn’t.

If you’ve lived on Sanibel for more than a couple of years, then you realized that we were witnessing yet another of our perfectly-timed, perfectly-controlled “prescribed burns” on the island by our very own “Sanibel Firewise Task Force”.  This task force is made up of the City of Sanibel, the Sanibel Fire and Rescue District, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Division of the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge and they are focused specifically on the safety and wildland fire issues on Sanibel Island.  You can download and read their press release for last week’s fires here.

A “prescribed burn”, or “controlled fire” as it is sometimes called, is a preventative technique utilized by forestry and wildfire experts to mimic natural fire patterns and prevent conditions that could cause a natural fire to be much worse due to overgrowth and dried vegetation.

Prescribed burns also contol non-native plant species from taking over the island’s natural foliage, as well as the natural habitat for several different animal species.

You can read some very interesting articles about “prescribed burns” at the links that I’ve provided below:

• J.N. “Ding” Darling Wildlife Refuge (page 9)
• The Florida Division of Forestry through the Forest Protection Bureau
• Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation
• FEMA for Kids

If you have any questions, you can contact refuge manager Paul Tritaik, as well, at 239-472-1100 ext 223.

Hope this has cleared up (pun intended) your wondering what all that smoke was about last week!

That’s it for this week, have a good one!

Guess what?

There’s a company called McGraw-Hill Construction that I would have to say is a monster corporation of engineering, construction and design with its multiple national divisions, and they are really shining a light on stimulating the economy with job creation and especially, “green” (eco-friendly) technology.

Every year, each regional division chooses construction and design projects based on certain criteria and awards them as “The Best of…” for that particular year!

Well, our very own “City of Sanibel Recreation Center” won the award this year for the “Best Recreation/Sports Facility in 2008″ for the Southeast Division.

Quite an honor!  It was chosen out of 129 different projects in the region, pretty cool!

So, congratulations go out to all of the people involved in the project!

You can read all the details about the criteria that they used, as well as the other category winners, at the links that I’ve provided above.

Also, if you haven’t ever been to the Recreation Center on Sanibel Island, you need to stop by and congratulate them for winning because it really is a beautiful and highly functional facility that we all should be very proud of!

That’s it for this week…

Have a great weekend,

Hey there,

It’s that time again…

Time for another Blind Pass update!

Things are lookin’ good… we all know that it’s a slow process, but step-by-step they are making great progress!

Have a look below…

Do you have any stories to share regarding the project?

I’m sure all of the readers would absolutely love to hear from those of you out there who do…

Jump right in and click the “Comments” link below to give us your take on it…

Here’s the link to download the entire PDF report:  Blind Dredging Update: February 7, 2009

Have a great weekend!

Are you a golfer?

Me?  Not so much.

But I have a lot of friends who are and so, I do know a bit about the golf “scene” on Sanibel.

I’ve also found that many tourists and potential real estate buyers want to know about the golf courses here, so I thought I would just put up a post about the three courses that I know about and point you in the right direction.

First of all, it’s important to know that there’s “Tourist Golf” and then there’s “Locals Golf”, if you know what I mean.

The Clubs that I’ve listed below are all more for “Locals” really than for “Tourists”, per se, however, the courses at The Dunes and Beachview are open to the public and tourists and non-member locals alike, love to play these gorgeous links.

The “social factor” of belonging to a private golf and tennis club here on Sanibel is very appealing to those living the island life.  These places are really beautiful and completely respect the natural environment that they lie within.

They are also a really nice place for meeting people and participating in their social events (golf or otherwise).

So, if you’re thinking about moving here, or if you live here already and are thinking about becoming a member, have a look below and see if it’s a right fit for you.

I’ve supplied the links for these clubs below, so that you can check them out on your own and read all the details.

The three most popular membership courses here on Sanibel are:

• The Dunes Golf & Tennis Club
• The Beachview Golf and Tennis Club and
  
• The Sanctuary Golf Club

Enjoy your weekend!

Yes, slowly, but surely the task at hand of dredging Blind Pass and Wulfert Channel between Sanibel and Captiva Islands is finally starting to take shape.

We have reached the one-third mark of dredging approximately 40,000 cubic yards of the approximate 127,000 cubic yards needed to be dredged in total.

As you can read below, the “work efficiency” rate, which is the ratio of dredging time to total work time,  for this update is running at 70%, versus the average 46% for the project to date, which has been mostly due to mechanical breakdown and/or needed repair of the dredge machinery.

You can download the entire pdf document here if you would like to have it to read later.

Well, not much else to say, except that we are making progress!

Until Friday’s post, have a great rest of the week…