- November 27, 2024
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Selby Gardens in January will offer a trial run of a boat tour between its downtown Sarasota campus and its Historic Spanish Point location near Osprey.
“Selby Gardens by Boat” is planned as a narrated round-trip tour of “Old Florida” sights along with access to both Selby sights and lunch at Historic Spanish Point.
The initial tours are planned for Jan. 8, 15, 22 and 29. General admission tickets are $125 each and $115 for members of Selby Gardens. Capacity is limited to 36 people per trip.
Highlighting the full-day experience is roughly three hours of leisurely cruising with educational narration from Sarasota Bay to Little Sarasota Bay and back. “It’s 10 miles of beauty—a kind of aquatic garden, if you will,” said John McCarthy, Selby Gardens’ vice president for the Historic Spanish Point campus. “Then you’ll arrive at our Historic Spanish Point campus the way people did 100 years ago—by boat.”
The boat tour will initially launch on Saturdays with the potential of expanding to Saturdays late in the winter season, according to a release from Selby.
“Selby Gardens’ two sanctuaries are so significant and beloved in large part thanks to their bayfront locations,” said Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. “The water is central to the history and appeal of our two campuses, so it only makes sense to connect them by boat. This tour is going to offer an immersion into native nature, our regional history, and the ecology of the area.”
Rominiecki said that Selby Gardens anticipates adding more tours after the pilot month, as well as the option of private bookings on other days based on boat availability. “This is the Gulf Coast of Florida—who wouldn’t want to experience it by boat?” she said. “These two beautiful, historical sites evolved to what they are today because of our waterways. We see boat connectivity as part of Selby Gardens’ legacy and its future sustainability.”
