Island kit 26
What we actually own and use on these islands, filtered by what you came to do. 26 items.
This is the island-wide list, not the deep one
Fishing and shelling each have a proper guide with far more in it than a general page should carry — FishSanCap and ShellSanibel. What is tagged for them here is the crossover: the things that serve more than one day out.
Everything with a year against it came off a receipt. Where there is no receipt the link is a search and the card says why.
Before a storm
The island lost its causeway to Ian on 28 September 2022 and was cut off by road. This is what is in the house, not a list copied from a preparedness site.
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Solar generator, 2 kWh class
In our kit since 2025The one that runs a fridge rather than charging a phone. 2,048 Wh of LiFePO4, which is the chemistry that matters here — it tolerates heat and takes thousands of cycles, where the older lithium chemistries sulk in a Florida garage. Recharges from mains before the storm and from panels after it, and the after is the part people underestimate: Ian left parts of the island without power for weeks, not days.
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Portable power station, small
In our kit since 2025Three hundred watt-hours is not a house battery and is not trying to be. It is the one you can actually carry — phones, a laptop, a CPAP, a fan through one bad night — and the one that goes in the car if you leave. Small enough that it also earns its keep on a beach day, which is why it is here and not only in the storm list.
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Heavy-duty waterproof tarp
In our kit since 2026Bought before you need it, because after a storm every hardware store within fifty miles is out and the ones that are not have queues. The difference between a cheap blue tarp and a thick one is whether it is still on the roof after the second squall line.
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Bungee cords and ratchet straps
In our kit since 2026Everything loose becomes a projectile, and the list of loose things is always longer than you think: bins, furniture, the grill, the kayak, the wagon. Also what holds a bike to a rack the rest of the year.
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Dehumidifier for a closed space
In our kit since 2022Bought in November 2022, which was six weeks after Ian, and that is the honest reason it is on this list. Not a whole-house unit — a small, silent, always-on thing for a closet, a boat locker or a shut-up room, where the damage happens quietly while nobody is looking.
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Garage hoist for a kayak
In our kit since 2024Storage is the reason boats stop being used. It is also storm sense: a kayak on the ground is a projectile, and a kayak on the ceiling is out of the water when the water arrives.
After a storm
The half nobody writes about. Preparation lists are everywhere; the fortnight afterwards is damp, mould and vegetation, and it is more predictable than people expect.
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Cordless chainsaw, 16 inch
In our kit since 2024What clears a driveway. Battery rather than petrol is the right call for occasional use — nothing to go stale in the tank, and you are not siphoning fuel you would rather keep for a generator. Sixteen inches handles Australian pine and sabal palm, which is most of what comes down here.
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Mini chainsaw, one-handed
In our kit since 2025For the eighty per cent of storm debris that is branches rather than trunks. You will use it far more than the big saw, and you can use it up a ladder or from a kayak, which you should not do with the big saw.
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Chainsaw sharpening kit
In our kit since 2025Storm wood is full of sand and grit, and sand blunts a chain in minutes. A sharp chain cuts; a blunt one smokes, binds and eventually kicks back at you. This is the cheapest item on the page and the one most likely to matter.
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Mould stain remover
In our kit since 2023Subtropical humidity plus standing water gives mould a fortnight head start before anyone is thinking about it. This is for the staining after the drying, not a substitute for the drying, and nothing in a spray bottle fixes water still in a wall.
On the path
More than 26 miles of Shared Use Path, Lighthouse Beach Park to the Blind Pass Bridge. One rule matters before you arrive and it is below.
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Fat-tyre inner tubes, 20 x 3.0
In our kit since 2026Carry two. The path is swept but it runs through shell and sabal palm, and a puncture four miles from the car on a loaded e-bike is a long walk. We have bought these twice, which tells you what you need to know.
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Bike repair kit with pump
In our kit since 2026The tube is no use without the means to fit it. Small enough to live in a pannier permanently and be forgotten until the day it saves the afternoon.
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Smart cycling helmet
In our kit since 2026Florida requires a helmet under sixteen and it is a good idea at any age on a shared path with pedestrians, dogs and people stopping dead to photograph a heron. The intercom is genuinely useful riding in a group strung out along a path, which is how a family actually rides.
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Child bike trailer
In our kit since 2026Turns 26 miles of flat, separated path into something a family can actually use. It carries the beach kit on the way out and a sleeping child on the way back, which is the real design brief.
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Bike-mounted rod holder
In our kit since 2026Ride to fish. The path passes within a short walk of most of the island’s shore access, and a bike solves the beach parking problem entirely on a busy morning.
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Rear basket for an e-bike
In our kit since 2026Where the shells, the towel and the coffee go. A rear basket beats a rucksack in this climate for the obvious reason: nothing is against your back.
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Sunscreen, in a stick
In our kit since 2024A shirt covers your back and not your ears, your nose or the backs of your hands. A stick rather than a lotion because you are handling line, paddles and handlebars with those hands, and it survives a hot car in a way a bottle does not.
On the water
Tarpon Bay, Commodore Creek and the refuge. Most of what you need is not the boat — it is getting the boat there.
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Rooftop J-cradle kayak rack
In our kit since 2017The unglamorous half of paddling, and the half that decides whether you go. J-cradles carry a boat on its side, which fits two on a roof where flat carriers fit one.
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Kayak cart
In our kit since 2015Between the car park and the water is where enthusiasm dies. A cart makes that walk once instead of three times, and on this island it is the difference between paddling and meaning to.
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Waterproof phone case that floats
In our kit since 2017You will take photographs from the boat. The cheap ones are perfectly good; the important part is that it floats, because a case that sinks with your phone in it has solved nothing.
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Polarised sunglasses
In our kit since 2025Not comfort — seeing. Polarisation cuts the glare off wet sand and shallow water, which is how you spot a shell in the swash, a snook in the trough or a ray on the flat. Brown or amber gives more contrast than grey on a bright bottom.
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Insect repellent with picaridin
No-see-ums, and they are the reason a still evening on the bay side can be unbearable. They cannot fly in any wind, so the calm evenings that feel best are the worst ones. Both DEET and picaridin work on them; above about 30% DEET, more concentration buys HOURS rather than strength, so a 75% bottle lasts longer rather than hitting harder. Pick on duration, and on what you are carrying: DEET dissolves fishing line, sunglasses frames, painted surfaces and vinyl, which picaridin does not. And if a still evening beats both, IR3535 is reported to do better against biting midges specifically than against the mosquitoes most repellent testing is designed around.
On the beach
The things that do not care which activity you came for.
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Inflatable shade canopy
In our kit since 2026There is no natural shade on any of these beaches, and the afternoon sea breeze destroys ordinary umbrellas. This inflates in about two minutes from a rechargeable pump, is UPF 50+ blocking 98% of UV by the maker’s own figures, and holds because it is a dome rather than a sail. Two honest catches: it is 17 lb with a pump and stakes, so it is a carry rather than a grab, and the maker calls it water-resistant and NOT waterproof, which on this coast means take it down before an afternoon squall rather than after. Buy the weights with it — SOLI recommend them and the breeze here is the thing that decides whether shade stays up.
Buy from SOLI →Sold direct, not on Amazon, and SOLI pay us nothing for this link.
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Wagon that is also two chairs and shade
In our kit since 2026One trip instead of three: 330 lb of hauling, two adult-height seats and a canopy in one folded package. The catch is the wheels — three inches wide, and the maker says firm sand and packed access routes rather than deep sugar sand. Right for the causeway, wrong for the long soft carry at Bowman’s.
Buying direct saves you $25 against the Amazon price, and pays us 10% rather than Amazon's 3%.
For the refuge
The honest category. We do not own binoculars worth naming, so these are searches rather than picks, and they say so.
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Binoculars for the refuge
Eight by forty-two is the standard answer and it is the right one: enough magnification for a roseate spoonbill across a flat, enough light for the dawn and dusk hours when Wildlife Drive is worth being on, and steady enough to hold without a tripod. We do not own a pair worth naming, so this is a search rather than a pick.
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A field guide that covers Florida
A regional guide beats a continental one on an island where a third of what you see is wading and most of the rest is passing through. Paper, because the refuge has poor signal and a phone screen is unreadable at midday.
On a bike? Sanibel permits Class 1 e-bikes only on the Shared Use Path — pedal-assist, no throttle, 20 mph maximum assist — and riders must be 16 or over. Class 2 has a throttle, which is what most inexpensive e-bikes are and what a lot of visitors arrive with. Worth checking your own before you ship it over.
23 of these 26 are things we have actually bought, and those say so with the year. That is not a review and not a claim they are the best made — it means somebody bought it and used it here. The other 3 are searches rather than picks, and they are not worse: nobody here has bought them. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. One link is not Amazon at all: Direct from Chariot Outdoor goes to the maker, takes $25 off the price for you and pays us 10%.