One of the great things about living aboard at Salty Sam’s Marina is that we get a front row seat to the staging of the annual Fort Myers Beach Christmas Boat Parade. Every year the parade starts at Salty Sam’s with boaters adding their last minute decorations or checking the lights before heading out on the water to follow the parade route. The parade returns to Salty Sam’s where we get to view all the boats as they return to Christmas parade party central.

Since moving to Salty Sam’s, we began inviting family and friends over early for drinks and food and watch the boats as they leave. Once the boats are headed back to the marina, it’s our chance to get a glimpse of all the fully lighted and decorated boats as they come in. It’s so much fun to see how creative these boats can be with large blow up flamingos to live singers belting out holiday songs.

This year was the 31st annual parade and it had a record 31 entries. It was also recently awarded 5th Place in USA Today’s “Top 10 Holiday Parades”.  Even though we haven’t entered Blue Turtle in it yet, it’s still cool to be a part of this festive cheer that is our local Christmas boat parade.