Coastal Breeze News

By Coastal Breeze News Staff Sandy Boy collects hats! Lots and lots of hats! She knits them. She crochets them. She gathers them from others who, like Sandy, want to use their talents and hobbies for a good cause. This year, Sandy’s goal is 2,400 hats for Bedtime Bundles. At this time, she has 800 and that doesn’t include the 109 that were distributed with bundles during Impact Day held at Lely High School. The 109 children were determined to be in the highest need category, ages 3-12.” Imagine the hours of time and the skeins of yarn needed for ... Read More »

By Coastal Breeze News Staff Julie Cruikshank from Lee Memorial Health Systems led second and third grade Tommie Barfield students on a safari. Instead of looking for animals, their maps had clues leading them to different parts of the body. A body system safari! A treasure chest was filled with lifelike examples such as the hipbone Julie is shown holding. In this class students were learning about bones and the skeletal structure of human bodies and how several groups of organs work together to make one body system. The interactive program then shows students how to keep these systems running ... Read More »

By Coastal Breeze News Staff The Kiwanis Club has diligently worked the Reading is Fun (RIF) program three times per year. Many area parents learn about the program when their child comes home, proudly holding out a book and announcing, “Look what I got today!” The students choose their own book from a wide array of age appropriate titles and interests, put their name in it and receive a free bookmark. The RIF program is in its 47th year and, most likely, this past Monday was its last. The government funded program could very easily be a victim of across ... Read More »

Patricia Huff  Lots of things to do this weekend in the Everglades area! On Saturday, November 19, two events will keep you busy. The traditional Fall Festival will be held at the Chokoloskee Church of God beginning at 9:00AM until 4:00PM. A fish fry plate lunch will be served and this year the festival will feature pony rides, plant sales, games for children, an auction, sweet sale, yard sale and clothing, plant sale, cake walk and car wash. Then, just down the street at the end of Mamie Street at the Smallwood Store & Museum, Pamela Fernandez will have a ... Read More »

Marco Island played grateful host to the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball team at Winterberry Park on November 12. Appropriately enough the Warriors showed they are heroes on the diamond, as well as the battlefield, by thrashing a Police-Fire Rescue squad by 21 to 9 in the morning and following up with a 17 to 14 beating of a Marco Island Senior league team. Watching the Warriors running on one or two prosthetic legs, and fielding or batting with one prosthetic arm brought admiration and a tear or two for the indomitable soldiers and marines. It’s nothing short of astonishing to ... Read More »

Jane A. Marlowe Dr. Daniel I. Wasserman, MD FAAD, is a Board Certified Dermatologist with Riverchase Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery with offices on Marco Island and Naples, Florida. He is a fellowship-trained laser and skin cancer surgeon. Dr. Wasserman, following his residency, did a one year extra fellowship in lasers and light medicine at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Richard Rox Anderson, who invented a laser for removal of vascular malformations. It is called Pulsed Dye Laser and the process is selective photothermolysis. Dr. Wasserman considers Dr. Anderson a giant in the field of dermatology and laser light surgery. Dr. ... Read More »

Nancy Richie For a developed, man-made island, Marco Island is fortunate to have a large diversity of wildlife. Once made up of approximately 6,000 acres of mangroves, this island was developed into over 100 miles of dredged “finger” canals that are fortified with seawalls. As the largest of the 10,000 Islands and surrounded by the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Marco Island benefits from this natural environs that supports furred, finned, feathered and scaled wildlife. Just walking to the mailbox, it is not hard to spot a native species in the neighborhood such as a White Ibis, American Kestrel ... Read More »

This column is the opinion of a 3-year-old African Grey Parrot named “Simba” who has an extremely high intelligence level. While he does not possess a degree from any college or university, he does have a strong opinion of himself and feels that he is the best candidate to answer the complex questions of today’s discerning pets…and the humans they own… As response to Bailey from page A/6 Dear Bailey, Thank you for your letter and comments (found on page 6.) “Kindred Spirits”…yes we are that to our humans and vice versa for that matter. Even though I tend to ... Read More »

Tara O’Neill  A different sort of beast was roaming in full display at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on Tuesday, November 15. Rare and wonderful Florida Artists were out in numbers for the opening reception of the Rookery Bay Annual Painting Exhibition sponsored by the United Arts Council of Collier County and the Friends of Rookery Bay. (While the Florida Artist is not on the endangered list, it is often considered a threatened species, especially in these times of economic uncertainty.) Since 2004, the UAC (which I have told you to join about a million times) has teamed with ... Read More »

Diane Bostick    A Jesse Stone Novel  Author: Michael Brandman  Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011.  What do V.C. Andrew and Robert B. Parker have in common? The obvious answer is that both are well loved authors who have written for years and still have new books being published as recently as this year. The less obvious answer is that both are dead! V.C Andrews died in 1986 with over 24 million books in print in many languages and has had over 29 books written by others, but published in her name, since her death. Another author suffering somewhat the same ... Read More »

Capt. Pete Rapps Fall is here in the 10,000 Islands and with cooler water temperatures and the change of seasons, comes the migration of the Sheepshead fish. These fish begin to arrive in big numbers about this time each year to spawn. They inhabit many of our near shore structures, oyster bars, and the deeper mangrove pockets in the back county river mouths. In addition to being called Sheepshead, they are sometimes referred to as the convict fish, Seabream Sheepshead, and Southern Sheepshead. They are distributed in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, with the densest populations ... Read More »

Doug Browne  As a working tennis coach, it is common-fare for me to watch hours of competition each week. Without a doubt, a player’s stroking deficiency affects his ability to implement solid strategy during match play. In other words, even though the doubles alley is left wide open and it is clear that the opponent should place his shot in that direction, too many times recreational players simply cannot find the mark. Here are a few stroking problems that I am referring to: • Player ‘pokes’ instead of strokes the tennis ball. • When the player sets up for the ... Read More »

Coastal Breeze News Staff Timothy Dwyer, local businessman and Junior Governor of the local Moose Lodge, along with Bill Miller, Governor, presented a $500 check to an appreciative Surge Soccer team. This is the second donation made by the Moose Lodge to a local sports organization in the past few weeks. “We gave the Marco Island Optimist Club’s Football team a check for $500 and the City Kids Tennis program, too. We have made an effort this year to be more proactive in the community. We want people to know what being a member of the Moose Lodge represents. The ... Read More »

Crystal Manjarres  Q. Thanksgiving is here! How can I avoid gaining weight? A. The fall season is littered with opportunities to fall off the fitness wagon: Halloween festivals and “fun-size” candies, November potlucks and the inevitable Thanksgiving Day feast, plus the holiday parties galore in December with Christmas, New Year’s Eve and so on. It is no wonder the holidays make fitness devotees apprehensive with weight-gain worry. After surviving many holiday seasons successfully, I can give you some tips that I have used to prevent the dreaded belly bulge. Rule number one: workout first thing in the morning! Seriously–pump some ... Read More »

Chef Bob Aylwin  In the Aylwin household we are not very complicated in our daily food routine but we do enjoy a variety of worldwide cuisines every week. We have always enjoyed teaching our children about different cultures and culinary styles of many different nations. Whether it is a simple dish of Bavarian style meatballs on Monday, or French Beef Burgundy (Boeuf Bourguignon) on Tuesday, or possibly some andouille potato crepes of French origin on Wednesday, we try to include many cuisines in our diet. We love Dominican style coconut tres leches (creme brulee) for dessert on occasion and it’s ... Read More »

Camden Smith The business of branding is a serious business calling for more fun. They market. You buy. Important in today’s economic climate, branding is what gives your business legs, to keep it running through consumers’ minds. Oddly enough this basic sales principle seems to be stumping both start-up and established organizations. The fear of failure is shading business owners’ ability to properly brand their companies. By creatively sending messages about a company’s strengths and explaining why a business should be your first choice, business owners brand their way into your mind calling you to action to buy. You are ... Read More »

Frances Diebler We arrived at last. No more movement up and down or side to side. We were securely tied up at a dock in order to prepare the boat for when we go back to the states for a visit with our family for a few months. We had to prepare Grendel so she could be hauled out and put “on the hard,” as it is called, while we are away. That means out of the water and onto the land. We removed the Genoa sail, staysail, and all other venerable equipment which was on deck and stored it ... Read More »

By Mike P. Usher  Tonight, just after sunset we have two planets in the east. Venus shines brightly in the twilight, but if you happen to be on the beach you can catch a glimpse of Mercury. If you can check the sky out a week earlier than the date on the chart Mercury will be quite a bit closer to Venus and thus somewhat easier to locate. From our point of view in the Solar System Mercury is dropping towards the Sun and will soon pass (nearly) in front of it. This is the time of year when everyone ... Read More »

Vickie Kelber  Moscow is a busy city where East meets West and hustle and bustle surround a scene that seems to have come from a fairy tale. Most of the wealth in Russia is concentrated in Moscow. The metro with its richly decorated stations is fast moving and crowded. Traffic is a problem. Grocery stores stay open 24 hours because, as a local guide explained, “we are used to shopping in the middle of the night because we work from 9 to 5 and then sit in traffic.” The walled 68 acre Kremlin fortress combines religious structures with the seat ... Read More »

Richard Alan I tend to come across a bit on the sarcastic side, (In case some of you haven’t noticed.) I will try to control that emotion as I write this serious column. For me celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving was for most of my life a day I dreaded, in those days my family was spread all over the state and I ended up on the road with a car load of kids going from dinner to dinner, it was far from being a thankful day. But today things are very different; I never leave the island and my ... Read More »