Alligators and crabs in paradise
“An average, full day’s work will bring in about 166 pounds of claws,” says Howie Grimm. We were standing in the warehouse and market of Grimm’s Stone Crab in Everglades City, Fla., the self-proclaimed “Stone Crab Capital of the World.” The Grimm family has been fishing the waters here for more than three generations; today, they work with three crabbing boats, hauling 650 biodegradable traps a day on short lines.
“One boat’s my son’s, one’s my brother’s, and one’s my friend’s,” Grimm said.
Seems like everyone in this end-of-the-highway, throwback town, with a population of about 350, knows someone who’s a stone crabber. There are about 15 boats operating out of Everglades City, crabbing the warm waters that stretch south to the boundaries of Everglades National Park. And while crabbing boats operate all along Florida’s West Coast into the Panhandle, Grimm maintains that Everglades City stone crabs are the best. “Ours are meatier and sweeter,” he said with conviction. “Crabs like our warmer waters.”
In Florida, stone crabs, a coveted delicacy, are harvested from Oct. 15 through May 1. And here’s the cool part: They aren’t killed, at least intentionally, in the process. If a crab claw meets legal size requirements, a crab fisher snaps it off and tosses the crab back into the water. Stone crabs can survive losing their claws and can regenerate new ones. “In perfect conditions, crabs can regenerate claws in 12 to 18 months,” Grimm said. Once harvested, claws are immediately cooked in boiling water, on the boat or dockside. This prevents the meat from sticking to the inside of the shell.
We leave Grimm and his wife. Kathleen. to the day’s weighing and sorting, but not before he talks a bit about his town. Did we mention that Howie Grimm is also the mayor of Everglades City?
“We don’t want condos here,” he said. “You can go east or west for that. We want to offer that quaint village experience.”
Set on the Barron River, the historic town, once home to the Calusa Indians and later a frontier outpost for yachtsmen and fishermen, is surrounded by the 729,000-acre Big Cypress National Preserve and the vast 1.5 million-acre Everglades National Park.
“We’re protected all around,” says Grimm. “The town never grew, but the national park and preserve grew around us.”
Honky-tonk, old school, rustic, and authentic are some of the words that came to mind as we drove around town. There were crab traps stacked in backyards, and boats, ropes, nets, and poles along the river, and a handful of souvenir shops and seafood shacks. The tiny Museum of the Everglades was closed, but we popped into the Everglades Fishing Company, a popular general store filled with outdoor clothing and gear, souvenirs, sandwiches, bait, and staff and customers sharing fishing tips and stories. We also visited the famous Everglades Rod and Gun Club. Barron Gift Collier, a wealthy entrepreneur and at one time the largest landowner in
Florida, purchased the Rod & Gun in 1922 and turned it into a well-known private sports club attracting the rich and famous, dignitaries, and US presidents. It still operates as a hotel and restaurant, filled with original woodwork and memorabilia, and walls of taxidermy heads and bodies of fish and animals.
Though an interesting option (and we found the town quite charming in its old-fashioned, down-home way), that’s not where we stayed. Everglades City is part of Florida’s Paradise Coast, including Naples, Marco Island, and the Everglades. We stayed at the posh J.W. Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort, a sprawling luxury resort facing 3 miles of beach, with pools, 12 restaurants, bars, two golf courses, and a fitness center and spa. Rooms are modern, clean, and crisp, decked in soft white and beige hues, some with private balconies. It was a cushy base for exploring the area, located about 30 minutes from Naples and 30 minutes from Everglades City. That evening, we enjoyed a memorable meal at Ario restaurant, sharing tuna tartare with green papaya and salmon roe, a platter of impossibly fresh jumbo stone crabs, mushroom rigatoni, and a 35-day dry-aged cowgirl ribeye.
’Gators galore
The next morning, we met Chris Thorn, a master naturalist and guide with Everglades Area Tours, for a kayak tour in the Everglades mangrove forests. We paddled a narrow, twisty tidal creek through a dense canopy of mangroves. It was an eerie, primordial-like world, a wet, dense forest filled with orchids, mosses, and bromeliads and gorgeous tangles of mangrove branches and roots. We saw herons and egrets, and lots of birds we didn’t recognize, and resting alligators, sometimes too close for our comfort. “No worries,” Thorn assured us. “We’ll keep a respectful distance, and they’re not going to go after a kayak that’s bigger than they are.” (We’d just seen a video of an alligator attacking a fishing boat!) But Thorn was knowledgeable, quiet, and respectful, and kept himself between the ’gators and us. A thrilling point in this threehour trip was seeing a mama ’gator and her babies resting on the banks of the river.
In the afternoon, we visited the lush and beautiful 13,450acre Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, walking the extensive boardwalks through grass and cypress swamps and the largest remaining, virgin bald cypress forest in the world (approximately 700 acres). It’s a natural zoo, filled with birds and fish and reptiles. We saw red belly turtles, nesting anhingas, black-headed herons, white ibis, and alligators!
Dinner that night was at the lively Deep Lagoon Seafood and Oyster House on Marco Island, with an encyclopedic menu, including raw bar offerings and lots of fresh seafood entrees. We opted for the platter of fresh stone crabs, of course.
How the other half lives
If we were to pick a Florida destination that’s the exact opposite of Everglades City, Naples would be a contender. This wealthy enclave is filled with upscale restaurants, posh boutiques, and oversize mansions. It’s also home to the beautiful 170-acre Naples Botanical Garden, a lush oasis with themed gardens featuring plants from around the world. The orchid, water, and Asian gardens were particularly stunning. We joined a guided tour of the garden and had lunch at the Fogg Café on an outdoor terrace, surrounded by trees, flowers, and sculptures. No stone crabs this time, but the fish tacos and sweet potato tostados were fresh and delicious.
We rarely pass up a chance to get on the water, especially when the sun is out. We boarded a motorboat cruise of Naples Bay and Gordon Pass with Pure Florida. We cruised past opulent private homes lining Naples Bay, as dolphins followed our wake and osprey flew overhead. The tour included a stop on Keewaydin Island, where we walked the beach and collected shells.
We’d seen both sides of Florida’s Paradise Coast, from the nature-rich Everglades to the wealthy Naples — with Marco Island in between. No matter how you define paradise, you may find a piece of it here. For more information, visit www.paradisecoast.com.