Rialto means heaven in Florida

We found the bestest, bestest marina of all time; a luxury hideaway in a rustic Florida setting. And I am not telling. Nope. No details about location. Suffice it to say the name Rialto is a little bit of heaven.

One September’s friends Peggy and Jim, our new friends, know everything about living around Southwestern Florida. They are Gods to us. We had a great time with them in Sarasota, then in at the beach in Sanibel and walking downtown Fort Myers. Finally we headed up the Calahoochie River to their home territory and they introduced us to Rialto, a manatee park, and a tour of the Everglades. We can’t wait to see them again in Everglade City so they can show us the Everglades.

They retired from Virginia Beach and now do a lot of environmental work in the swamps. They are naturalists. Jimmy has pictures of a mama black panther with her two cubs. Everyone says they are no longer in south Florida but Jimmy has the pictures to prove they are. They live in the back of a development far from anyone else surrounded by lots of critters. They go out for long walks armed with a pistol to protect against wild boar, alligators, and other mean critters. They are the perfect people to show us around south Florida. They are always up for something new and we love it!!

Jimmy and Peggy drive up and down streets to find interesting things to see. That is how they found Rialto. They just drove down this sleepy street and found this marina. It is a combo marina, guest home, family home, boat broker, and horse farm owned by Bus and Nifty. No kidding. Bus and Nifty are their real names. They are the nicest people in the world. On the property are homes for Nifty’s mom, a caretaker, and a guest house that can be rented by the week.

Bathrooms are VIP rooms with VIP signs on the outside. These green houses have a potty, sink, and shower along with a chair, books to read, and pictures on the wall of guests who quickly turn into friends. I stood under the shower for an indecently long time. I don’t know how a small outpost like that can get better water pressure than almost any place we have been on this trip. It was heaven.

There are only 11 slips here. “Slip” is a misnomer. There are 11 places that boats can tie up.

Rafting is allowed. Each space has its own dock with its own electric and tie-up posts. It is landscaped and screened from direct view by other boaters so you feel like you are all alone.

Landscaping is amazing. There is a couple that does all the cleaning and landscaping. You can see plants staged for planting in the back. I think they grow stuff here for planting around the facility. You can tell everything is designed to look carefully rustic groomed. I know that sounds odd.

For example, there is a dove coop with plantings around it. It looks like the dove coop sprang from the earth and grew right on the spot just that way. There is a shell at one corner placed strategically to show it off but look very natural. I bet this is what resorts try to do but fail in comparison to this place.

dove coop with the shell
strategically placed

Bus helped us dock. The docking setup is sufficiently large that we needed our extension electric cords for the first time on this trip. Then Bus shows you around the entire property himself as if you were his new best friend and a guest in his home, which of course you are.

Let me take you on a tour of the property. We step off Good Karma down the wide sturdy steps provided by our host.

Off to the right is the VIP room tucked behind pretty landscaping.

Next to our slip is the slip Bus keeps two of his boats, rafted off each other. He has at least four boats tied up here plus other boats he brokers at other places in south Florida. The other day he told us he just signed on another broker boat, an 80 foot Berger that would sell for about a million. Brokering boats is just one of Bus’s many business ventures, all of which seem to be very successful.

One September in their first space, at the end by the big river.

Good Karma’s slip is the third down from the Caloosahootchie River. Bus has the two boats in the second slip and the first slip is reserved for big boats. One September docked there the first day then had to move to raft off Bob and Shirley on the second day so a 120 foot yacht could tie up. FYI they tied up at about 5pm and left at 8am the next morning. They paid $3.00 a foot for the priviledge of tying up for that short period of time.

You should have seen that captain dock. The slip is about 12 feet long with pillons at either end. His ship is 120 feet long. You can imagine how silly the ship looked. It stuck out into the main river by about 50 feet!

If you continue to the right you can walk to the Caloosahootchie River and sit in the swing and watch the river flow. Rusty and I did. It was heaven.

The exit to the main road is directly opposite Good Karma. When we arrived we met the yard dog, Lulu, a funny looking rescue dog with a lot of Australian Shepard. Maybe she is all Australian Shepard. They rescued her because she was so funny looking she was going to be put down. She immediately started herding Rusty with little nips on his hind legs. Rusty was confused. Eventually they got along very well, to Nifty’s surprise.

If you turn to the left after you leave our slip you come to the main part of the compound. The dove coop is on the right. Then you come to the office and buggy barn. See Bus and Nifty train and race buggies. I am not sure what it is called but the sport involves several very expensive looking buggies that require constant cleaning and polishing.  I counted at least four buggies in one state of repair or another, most gleaming and beautiful. Bus has an office in this building.

Next to the office/barn is the main house, a tourquoise sprawling house that looks like three Florida houses were attached to one another. The complex has fireplace chimneys and a shiny metal roof. Like everything else here, it is perfectly landscaped to look casual and rustic.

Across from the main house is a gathering place for guests around patio furniture with a big Weber filled with hardwood for a fire. We grilled steaks one night. MMMMMM….. there is nothing like a hardwood fire for grilling. Most every night folks would gather around the fire with cocktails and chat. The fire provided just the right warmth for chilly 40+ degree evenings.

One September rafted off Bob and Shirley in Persystestence. Bob and Shirley are friends of Mike and Judy and Peggy and Jim from Virginia Beach. Another great couple! That must be some club. The eight of us ate our steaks on Bob and Shirley’s Grand Banks. Delightful!

Continuing past the grilling/patio area you come to the pool.  This is not a pool in the local KOA campground or even like a pool at any of the marinas we have visited so far. This is a luxury deck landscaped with tile and waterfalls and a hot tub. It is the most serene and peaceful pool we have ever seen. We sat out there two afternoons with books and took in the sun and quiet. Yesterday there were three other couples including someone swimming laps and it was still quiet and peaceful.

Kermit and I walked Rusty around the pool trying to avoid taking him on the pool deck when Kermit encountered a black snake. The snake and Kermit noticed each other at exactly the same time and jumped exactly the same height off the ground before each ran in the opposite direction from the other!! We walked/ran back the way we came!!

Across from the pool is the guest house, a cozy yellow cottage with a big porch. Every afternoon the folks in the guest house sat on the porch with cocktails and chatted watching the river.

Walk past the guest house to the paddock. Bus and Nifty have six horses. The two big males live in the barn on the big paddock. We got to be friends. They wear coats in the morning, did you know that? Consistent with the rest of the property, the horse barn looks rustic but it is well maintained. 

There is a grass track around this big paddock that they use to train the horses in the buggies. We saw this but were not able to take pictures.

Around the corner is the mother-in-law house. Next to it in the bushes are a couple of goats. I didn’t realize they were there until I heard them discussing the need for immediate food early one morning.

this is the important end of a pony

Keep walking to see the two female horses kept in separate yards plus a pony kept in a third yard. We never got to pet the horse furthest away but we met one female and the pony.

Rusty liked the horses very much.

On the backside of the second paddock is the plant staging area. There are hundreds of different kinds of plants waiting to get planted or get sold to someone else for planting somewhere else.  This is also where they store the horse moving equipment – big and small trailers and the farm equipment needed to maintain the property.

Tucked into the middle of this complex is a chicken coop. With chickens!! Now, maybe you are unaware of this but I think chickens are exotic creatures. I grew up in the city. I rode the subway alone at 12 years old. As far as I was concerned, chickens could be found in two places: the Lincoln Park Zoo Farm-i-the-zoo and in the refrigerated section of my local grocery store. I am amazed on those few occasions when I see the little critters walking around loose.







And these critters were adorable. They were special Chinese chickens with furry pants. They had feathers all over their legs down to the ground, like they were dressed up for a party of something. And they talked constantly. The roosters were cockadoodling all day long. Like a background tape of whale sounds, we heard chickens and roosters all day long all over the property.

Rusty thought they were exciting too. We had to put him on a leash when we got to this part of the property because he thought it was a great game of tag. Only the roosters were not playing. They moved the hens around in circles trying to avoid Rusty or chase him off.

Between Lulu, the horses, and the chickens, Rusty had a very good time.



We left the property a few times, although we would have been just as happy to sit on the dock or at the pool and enjoy the view. We went to breakfast at this great local restaurant with huge meals and lots of locals.

We visited a manatee park where Peggy and Jim volunteer.
This is near an electric plant where the manatees congregate to get warm. Evidently they cannot live in water less than 60 degrees. Fortunately it was chilly in the morning so there were a bunch of  manatees hanging out. This section has no sea grass, manatee food,  so they only come in here to get warm.

This manatee has scars from boat propellers

They had a microphone underwater so we could hear them clicking and whistling at each other. Manatees are not much to look at and they don’t do much. They sort of hang out, occasionally lifting their nostrils to take a breath. We were thrilled to see a couple of tails lift slowly out of the water. Watching manatees is only a tiny bit more exciting than watching paint dry.

The next day we went on a dinghy ride. We left our marina, went out into the man river for a tiny bit then down a side river. This was a nature exploration trip.

We were in a dinghy with Mike and Judy and the other four were in Bob and Shirley’s dinghy. They saw an alligator but he disappeared before we could see him. We saw lots of interesting stuff. The landscape was very rustic. The houses were also rustic. We beached the boats near Peggy and Jim’s house and walked for quite a while to see more stuff on the nature preserve they volunteer at.

We went to this neat restaurant, The Hut, where the entire restaurant was painted in a beautiful mural about southwest Florida. In the corner of each section next to her signature is the word "LOVE" painted in the scenery somewhere.

We liked Rialto best so far. Quiet, pretty, not full of itself, accepting.

Unfortunately we had to leave. We planned to leave on Wednesday to go to Naples. Tuesday morning Kermit was chatting with Bus about the buggies and Bus’ comments sparked a thought in Kermit. The buggies are hand made or at least hand upgraded to fit Bus and Nifty’s requirements. Part of the buggy is stainless steel. Could his stainless guy fix our railing? Sure enough he could! So the guy came out around lunch time on Tuesday and said he could do one side on Wednesday. The side that was “repaired” by ZZ Top and his cousins at Green Turtle Bay KY is a total  mess. Drastic steps must be taken to repair it. The railing must be sheered off at the plate and the entire weld plus the plate, which amounts to about ½ inch of railing, must be removed and attached to new plates. That would take a week or so because the plates must be ordered special. But he could and did repair the starboard railing with brand new, perfect welds.

He came early on Wednesday morning, removed the railing with his brother, took it away to weld, and reattached the repaired railing in the early afternoon. By 3pm it was fixed. The entire project, done correctly, cost about $350. The port side welds, done badly, cost about $350 too. Another reason I am glad we came to heaven in Rialto.

One September left on Wednesday for Naples. They scoped it out for us. We left on Friday and had a great trip to Naples. We left at 7:45am and arrived at about 4pm. The conditions were perfect. No wind until we got close to Naples. We had to run in the Gulf for quite a while but it was flat as a pancake. It was warm enough for naked boating, so we did!

Lots of dolphins on the way over. I was on the phone with Jen Coy from Trinity and cried out when I saw a dolphin a few feet away jumping out of the water right in front of me!!

Kermit swears these dolphins were playing in a more intimate way in Naples harbor. I can't swear he is right but there are two dolphins doing a lot of splashing.

 This one is having a cigarette afterwards!

Next a few days in Naples. Our plan is to get to Fort Lauderdale by 2/14 so we can cross to the Bahamas with Bunny and Evan Evans. We are meeting the Vellucci's and Lipkas in Treasure Key Bahamas on 3/1. We will keep you posted!