Another beautiful day greeted us on our final day in Port Charlotte. I could quite get used to this. Sitting on the patio, quietly listening to Radio 2, dealing with emails, admin and writing this blog. Not a bad way to start the day.
After a while, I took Karen a cuppa in bed, where she was already busy reading her phone.
The morning passed with us both pottering around and taking it easy. I continued reading one of the books left in the villa, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. I was enjoying the story as it developed.
At 11.30 am, as planned, we had an early lunch and then got ready to go out for the afternoon to Punta Gorda.
It only took 20 minutes to get to Fishermen’s Village, from where we had booked a harbour tour for 2 pm. As we drove through the historic part of the town, we remembered what a quite lovely place Punta Gorda is. Everything is very clean, organised and upmarket.
Fishermen’s Village was a revelation as well. A lovely double row of boutique shops, bars and restaurants. We immediately liked the place. After checking in for the boat tour, we spent some of the time before boarding having a drink from the harbourside coffee shop. Karen was impressed with the quality of the coffee, which is always a good start to any outing.
It amused us that the whole village was already completely decorated for Christmas.
We went into a shop called ‘Laff Out Loud’, which immediately became my favourite shop I had been in for many a day. It sold all sorts of games, toys and fun things. We may have ended up making a purchase or two or three. I was clearly in my element.
We learnt that the whole area had been almost completely wiped out two years ago when a 9½-foot storm surge from Hurricane Milton took out the marina and the village. The locals were very proud that the last restaurant to be restored had finally opened just three weeks ago, and everywhere was now open and functioning again. Work on the still-damaged marina was scheduled to start next week. It was impressive to see how much had been achieved in the meantime.
Eventually, we wandered out just as boarding was about to start and, probably to the annoyance of those already sitting waiting, we were first to board. Naturally, we took what we hoped would be the best seats on the top outer deck.
The boat was called Miss Elise and was run by King Fisher Tours. It was a big boat, but we only had 14 other passengers plus the crew for company. I think the captain said we could all have ten life belts each, which seemed a generous allocation, although I wasn’t planning on testing the need for them.
It was a narrated tour and the captain was very informative. It was very hot, but the breeze as we cruised along made it all rather lovely. The captain even allowed me to have a go steering.
The captain explained that, depending on the season and conditions, we might see dolphins, sharks and gators. We were still enjoying the tour but had almost given up on seeing anything when he announced that he was heading towards a pod he could see.
He hoped they would want to come over to see us and play in the boat’s wake.
We were delighted when they did.
There were a couple of family groups, and they were soon swimming at quite a pace alongside us and seemed to be having great fun jumping out of the water next to the boat. Apparently, they were turning as they jumped so they could get a better look at us on board. It was very special, particularly as there were some quite small youngsters among the group, swimming and jumping alongside the adults.
We could see them underwater, where they almost looked like torpedoes before launching themselves sometimes a long way out of the water. It was quite magical to watch, and one of those experiences that makes a boat trip worthwhile. We could have happily stayed there watching them for much longer.
Almost all too soon, the tour ended. We wandered around for a while, browsing some more of the local shops before Karen announced that she needed a drink. We settled on the bar at the end of the village, overlooking the harbour. It was happy hour, which made me happy, as they also gave me my Diet Coke for free. It doesn’t take much to keep me happy.
We had a great table and eventually decided to stay and have dinner there. However, they suddenly got rather stroppy about the table we were sitting at and said that if we wanted food, we would have to move because our table was booked. Not really sure what was going on, we decided they had lost our custom.
Their loss, or, as Julia Roberts once said, ‘A big, big mistake.’ Well, perhaps not quite that big, but you get the idea.
Instead, we ambled back along the village and went to the Village Brewhouse, which had perfect positioning for watching the sunset. We got a great table with a view and ordered our food.
Karen had shrimp and chips, while, feeling adventurous, I went for the Piggy Mac Grilled Cheese. It was just OK, and it was tonight that I realised I should have ordered the burger. Another perfectly avoidable food-related disappointment. I really must learn to trust my first instincts.
Karen was enjoying watching the birds around us until what we initially thought was a mynah bird, but which was in fact a boat-tailed grackle, first tried to land on her shoulder while she was eating and then audaciously swooped down and took a chip straight off her plate.
It was quite a performance, and the bird clearly knew exactly what it was doing. Karen was less impressed, although I suspect the bird considered it a successful dining experience.
We decided to stay for the sunset but left shortly after the sun went down, as it became obscured by clouds just above the horizon. Even Florida can’t guarantee a perfect sunset every evening.
Punta Gorda had been great, and we would have liked to come back another day, but we had now run out of time as we were moving on tomorrow.
Soon back at the villa, we bustled around for 30 minutes getting our things organised for the drive in the morning. Neil was already at Heathrow, ready for his flight out.
Karen watched what I thought was a terribly anticlimactic end to Celebrity Traitors, while I occasionally looked up from my book. It seemed to just fizzle out. I had never seen the ending before and thought it would be far more dramatic.
And with that, plus another couple of episodes of The Bear and a few messages exchanged with Ellie, we finally retired to bed for the last time in Port Charlotte.
It had been a lovely final day. A beautiful morning, a very enjoyable town, a boat trip with dolphins, a few purchases from my new favourite shop and a rather cheeky bird. Not a bad way to say goodbye to Port Charlotte.
