4 La Belle, Florida

Cruisers should love this place.
The town dock, which has power, water and garbage disposal, is free. The library, with its smiling librarians and internet, is right on the dock. And all this is courtesy of Captain Barron, skipper of the Caloosahatchee river ferry, who brought livestock and people up here in the twenties before there were roads. He bequeathed his dock and his large riverside property to the town on condition that they provide free dockage to passing sailors… in perpetuity. La Belle is small rural town in the citrus belt. Trucks piled with oranges lumber down the main street all day. You can pick up nice fresh oranges on the sidewalk at the traffic lights where the trucks turn onto highway 29 for the juice factory. The quiet back streets are lined with ancient Live Oaks covered in bromeliads and Spanish moss. Their muscular limbs reach right out over the street as if each of these hairy giants was about to wrestle with its partner on the opposite side. In a cottage under this spooky canopy two ladies run the “Free Secondhand Bookshop.” Two rooms are packed with books all nicely classified. “Just help yourself.”

The town was never French and is not particularly beautiful. An early pioneer named it after his daughters Laverne and Belinda.

This will be the last stop on this cross country ramble. The next lock will drop us into the tidal estuary of Fort Myers.