Captiva Island, Florida

April 16-20: We will be travelling to Captiva Island, Florida, where I am attending the 24th American Real Estate Society Meeting. Captiva is one of many barrier islands off the cost of Southwest Florida. Folk lure has it that Jose Gaspar, the Pirate, held his women captive on the island, thus the name Captiva.

photo: Captiva Island, April 2004

This is not our first time visiting the island. We were in Captiva in 2004. The weather, vegetation and atmosphere are almost like Sentosa, Singapore. So, you can bet that there will be mosquitoes at night. Hence, we are going prepared with insect repellant.

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We will be staying at the South Seas Island Resort, which has been rebuilt following the extensive damage it suffered from Hurricane Charlie. For our stay, we booked a one-bedroom Bayside Villa, which come with a large screened balcony facing the bay, .a separate living room and a fully equipped kitchen (But I doubt we will be doing any cooking). The 800 square feet villa costs US$ 169/night.

Besides presenting & discussing research papers and meeting up with fellow real estate academics and professionals from around the world, I am looking forward to swimming in the Gulf. My swimming trunk and goggles are already in the luggage.

The sun can be very intense and glaring. But we remember enjoying a relaxing walk along the beach. Although we heard that one could pick sea shells on the beach, we didn’t managed to find any on our last trip. Perhaps, you have to rise early as per the saying, “the early bird gets the sea shells”.

So, I will not be posting any blog entry this week! It's vacation time!