The temperatures may feel like summer, but the holiday festivities have certainly arrived in Southwest Florida. And what holiday season would be complete without the annual Fort Myers Beach Boat Parade? This year marked our fourth year in attendance and second year as Salty Sam’s residents. It’s such a fun and festive reason to invite our friends and family to Blue Turtle for a holiday party to watch the parade.

With the parade being held earlier this year (on Dec. 1st ), we had to clean the boat and hang our lights the weekend after Thanksgiving. With our boat lights done, we were ready to party.

As we waited for friends and family to arrive on parade day, I walked the marina to take a few photos of several groups of people in the process of decorating their boats for the parade. These folks go all out on the lights and decorations and every year I’m impressed with the new additions. As I was walking I came upon the El L Sea crew decorating the beautiful sport fishing boat. Owners Lawrence and Leslea (who follow our blog) introduced themselves to us. It was so great to finally meet them after connecting on Facebook many times. With the sun going down, the marina lit up with many colors of holiday lights.

Once our guests arrived, we watched as the boats left the marina to line up for the parade. Food, drinks and great conversation were had as we waited for the parade boats to return to the marina where we could get the best view of them. This year we heard there were 27 boats in the parade and they were all spectacular! It was a fun and festive way to welcome the holidays.