Calusa Spirit Offers Intimate Backwater Adventures

Shawn Peters, Captain of the 45-foot, 49-passenger Calusa Spirit, shows no trepidation as he winds his way through the shallow waters of the Ten Thousand Islands with the ease one might expect from a flats boat charter captain. 

He’s done it before—on the 8,300-plus miles of Calusa Spirit tours he’s logged in the past year alone.  

Peters’ experience provides passengers aboard the well-appointed—and immaculately-maintained—sightseeing and shelling boat an intimate tour of the world’s third-largest mangrove forest. Intimacy is something you may not expect aboard a boat this size, but the crew of the Calusa Spirit delivers just that. 

They say the shifting sands of time can be difficult to navigate. Well, they have nothing on the shifting sands of the Ten Thousand Islands. The depth of the water Peters navigates changes constantly as the sand shifts. He effortlessly weaves through two-and-a-half-foot deep water in a boat that remarkably has a draft of only two feet. 

“I can navigate in two feet of water without trimming up my engines,” he stated matter-of-factly. 

“The water we navigate through changes weekly—if not daily,” Peters said of the underwater landscape. “About a month ago—this is Morgan Bay behind us—this used to be a little pass, we call it, or inlet. Now it’s completely closed off. We used to bring our Waverunner Tours through here. But just in the last month all of this sand has moved in here. As many years as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen that. It’s great. It’s replenishing itself.” 

The 2005 Calusa Spirit, a fiberglass beauty built by Corinthian Catamarans in nearby Tarpon Springs, the famous Greek enclave near Clearwater Beach, still looks new. That’s not by accident. 

“Upkeep is everything,” Peters said. “With our maintenance program, we have great luck. We bottom paint regularly and paint the deck every year. This boat still shows new,” he added with deserved pride. 

However, what allows the Calusa Spirit and Marco Island Water Sports to maintain a perfect 5–star rating on TripAdvisor, with 1,662 reviews and counting, is not just the boat itself—although it is impressive. It’s the performance of the two-person crew of Captain Shawn Peters and First Mate/Naturalist Sonia Schnitzius that earn the top scores.  

The Captain’s deportment reflects the 34 years of experience he brings to the job. He’s done everything from captaining parasailing boats throughout the U.S. to sailing 70-footers in Hawaii. Peters presents a calm and confident presence that passengers—many of them who undoubtedly don’t take to the seas every day—are bound to respect. 

Schnitzius, on the other hand, is quite outgoing and spends most of the trip bonding with passengers while sharing her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of all creatures in the sea, on the ground and in the air. Schnitzius is a Master Naturalist, but probably even more importantly, has a gift for quickly bonding with passengers, regardless of age. 

“We have lots of families who come out with us year-after-year,” Schnitzius beams. “The kids give me shells they find, and I keep them and write the date on them. I show them when they come back, so they know I keep them.” 

Now that is special. 

On this trip, plenty of dolphins entertained the passengers, while Schnitzius shares an array of dolphin tidbits over the boat’s sound system. She interjects a number of one-liners that the more alert passengers enjoy. 

The crew knows the habits of the dolphin pods and it shows. 

“I enjoy seeing the wildlife and how it changes at different times of year,” Peters explained. “Just the behavior of the animals—especially the dolphins. I’ve had just one trip where we only saw a dolphin at the very end of the trip. But usually we can find the dolphins. We don’t guarantee you’ll see dolphins, but you have a really good chance to see them.” 

As the waters warm, manatee sightings increase. 

“You can recognize their behavior as well,” remarked Peters. “In the summer, you have a very good chance to see manatee, because we know their feeding habits and migration routes, in a sense. You have a really great shot at it, for sure.” 

Most folks know manatee as slow-moving animals—they’re also called sea cows. But Peters has seen manatees move quite quickly. “Especially with the breeding herds,” he stated. “There can be 8-10 males chasing after a female. They can get up and go when they want to.” 

Shelling is a big part of the Calusa Spirit adventure. This is an area where Schnitzius shines. She makes sure to spend time with all of the passengers on the sand bar that is delightfully littered with seashells. With her trained eye, she almost magically plucks shells from the sand. She reflects on some memorable finds. 

“Some of the most interesting things I’ve found,” she said, pondering the question. “I found a four-inch shark’s tooth. I’ve found the whole skull of a fox. I’ve found manatee ribs. I find pieces of the dome houses.” 

The famous decaying dome houses are year-by-year, and storm-by-storm, being claimed by the sea, and Schnitzius’ found the prized shell of Marco Island: the iconic Junonia.  

“I’ve found 15 Junonias over the years,” she said. “But they’re not all perfect.”  

After a productive shelling stop, passengers and crew climb the boat ladder back onto the Calusa Spirit for a beautiful return ride through the Ten Thousand Islands and back to Marco Beach. A wonderful way to spend two-and-a-half hours.  

You can schedule your trip on the Calusa Spirit at 239-642-2359 or marcoislandwatersports.com.