A GIRL AND HER BOARD

Cape Romano Dome Home, Marco Island

2/7/2017

14 mile SUP Adventure to the Cape Romano Dome Home

In April 2016 we headed to the West Coast of Florida to venture out on a 14-mile paddle boarding adventure to the Cape Romano Dome Home located south of Marco Island. This home was built in 1981 by a developer who wanted a self-sufficient ECO friendly home. The home was 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, kitchen and even a Jacuzzi located off to the side. When the Dome Home was built it sat 50 feet from the high tide line. Years later in 2016 the home is 25 ft off the land completely submerged in 6ft of water. The dome home was constructed to stand through hurricanes and Florida’s severe weather. In 1992 when Hurricane Andrew blew through the home suffered a lot of damage to the windows and floor causing the family to leave. In some of our pictures taken you can see shells stuck in the structure from the high winds during Hurricane Wilma.

For our paddle we left from Caxambas Pass Park located on the south end of Marco Island. We studied the winds and decided this would be the best route for us (SE 5-10 mph to start). We departed for our journey at 7:45 am riding the tide out the pass into the Gulf of Mexico. Right as we were leaving the park we encountered a pod of dolphins catching fish as the tide was rushing out. Hugging the land on the east side we ventured into a very calm Gulf of Mexico allowing for an easy paddle south towards the dome home. Along the way we made a few stops, doing a little bit of shelling; we all know the West coast has the best shelling!! If we saw an area that looked interesting we would cut in to the backwater check it out, and pop back out to the gulf. The marine life was plentiful!! We encountered dolphins, a manatee, sharks, a sawfish (first time), swallow tail kites, ospreys and a few other marine birds. We would stop and take water breaks as needed. We made it to the dome home around 11 am and set up our hammock for our lunch. The incoming tide was ripping!! Once we set up or hammocks and were preparing our lunch we looked out to the dome home and there was a pod of dolphins cruising by. We also saw a large manta ray jump out of the water. After we finished our lunch we paddled out to the dome home to check it out close up. It was a very quiet day with only a handful of boats coming and going. One of the boats drove up to us and chatted with us about the island to the south being a bird sanctuary in the spring.

After a couple hours resting and exploring we made our trek back to Caxambas Pass Park. The winds picked up a little bit on our way back in causing the Gulf to get a little choppy. We decided to cut into the Blind Pass and paddle board the backwaters back. While back in the mangrove channels of the backwater we spotted many manatees and white pelicans. The current pushed us most of the way until we reached Caxambas Pass where we had to fight the incoming current to get back to the park. When we returned the dolphins were there to greet us!! The total paddle took us about 7 hours. We went at a very leisurely pass stopping to enjoy the scenery. It’s an amazingly beautiful place and we can’t wait to return!!! Are you planning a paddle board trip to Cape Romano dome home and have questions? don’t hesitate to ask.

UPDATE: We completed this paddle again on January 1, 2017 and had another amazing time. This time we brought a friend and our drones. :)