The final event of the Fort Myers Offshore season, last weekend’s “Fun Run” from the Sanibel Bridge—the starting point for most FMO events—to Cayo Costa Beach in Boca Grande, Fla., attracted 25 boats and 100 participants to a cook-out/picnic on the protected inner shores of the sand spit. While the 60-mile roundtrip run wasn’t a fundraiser for the nonprofit organization’s college scholarship fund, it put the finishing touches on whatwas  by all accounts an outstanding year for the group.

The last event of the season for Fort Myers Offshore attracted 25 boat and 100 participants. Photo courtesycopyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image.

“I think this is our best season ever,” said Bob Barnhart, one of the club’s founders. “We raised enough money, $42,000, to raise our individual scholarship awards from $1,500 to $2,000 and we were able to provide 21 of them in Lee and Collier Counties. Our membership continues to grow, some of our members got new boats and we have some new things planned for next year.”

“Everybody in the club appreciates the work the board members for their work,” he continued. “Everybody is so supportive, and everybody works together.”

Though the official FMO events are done for the season, Barnhart and some of the club’s members aren’t heading back to their homes up north—in Barnhart’s case near Toronto, Canada—right away.

A drones-eye-view of the FMO’s beach party on Cayo Costa Beach.

“I’m supposed to take 12 center consoles over the to the Bahamas this week,” he said, then laughed. “Even though our official club season is over, I’m not done just yet.”

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