Florida Gulf Beaches

The shore thing

Find a good coastal resort can be a challenge for Tampa Bay area residents.

We are so spoiled by our own ranges of national reputation.

First, there is the convenience. What is the point of driving for hours, when one day, the bank is close to us that the office or the mall?

And then there's the snob factor. Throughout the region that has moved the toes to Pinellas County Fort De Soto Park, Dunedin Caledesi island is experiencing a higher range looks and feels. All others will be compared thusly.

But these outings to local shores do not offer a true escape.You're driving the same route traveled during peak hours, and staying too close to the pile of dirty laundry at home and the dripping tap that needs fixing. Shoot, the boss may be in the sun in a Speedo on the beach towel next to you.

An option not too far away is St. George Island, part of Florida's Forgotten Coast aptly named in the Panhandle. A five-hour drive from Tampa, this outpost holiday is remarkable for its distance of office complexes, highways and Megamall. The closest Wal-Mart is 90 minutes.

More than a third of the narrow 28-mile long island, surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico and Apalachicola Bay is small, and the home of Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park.

In May this park nine-mile beach (five miles that are only accessible on foot) got a high-profile reward 6 of Stephen ("Dr. Beach") Leatherman Top 10 beaches in America. It's the same list as the Fort De Soto used as the best nation in 2005 and Caledesi in 2008.

Outside the park, St. George Island "built" parts do not include a building higher than three stories.And most of these houses are rental houses on stilts, unpretentious modern villas for sleep has made many families. Almost all are equipped with all the comforts of home, full kitchen, cable TV and high speed Wi-Fi.

The deductible you will see on the island? A small Subway sandwich shop.

"It's a simple way of life here," said Elaine Rosenthal, executive director of the tallest structure in the island, 74 feet high, St. George Lighthouse Museum. "If you have to have the department stores and movie theaters, this is not the place for you."

Remote location of the island in Franklin County, population 11,549, keeps the crowds, as its connection to the isolated continent, a 4.2 mile bridge. Reports, the number of permanent residents of the island about 1,000, birds and marine life much more numerous than humans.

Florida's Gulf Beaches Appear Clean But What Lies ... - The Intel Hub

July 21, 2011

DESTIN, Fla. - It was over a year disaster of BP Deepwater Horizon has led to the dirt and pollution of the north-central Gulf of Mexico.

Oil and dispersant Corexit that was used for the collapse of oil, while poisoning the Gulf ecosystem and harm workers and residents in the process, washed and / or lingered just offshore.

However, during a visit of several days in Florida Emerald Coast, including the Sandestin beach resort here in Destin, we discovered that the beaches are full of people, these famous white sand like sugar and people were in water, either ignorant or regardless of reports of poisoning Corexit, marine life sick and other issues related to oil spill in April 2010 BP.

Your Red Dirt Reporter detected no oil wherever odors that have been out of the ordinary during his visit to Florida.We had heard that the sand-sifting machines had removed a lot of oil but the oil particles are tiny in the sand or buried under the surface, where swimmers and bathers are no further ahead.

So what business nearby? Here at Sandestin is a series of retail commercial developments have been surprisingly missing from the tenants. Talk to a barista in a Starbucks in the development, we were told that the BP oil spill has driven many of their usual tourists and many businesses had closed last year.

Further west along Highway 98, restaurants seemed to be growing to the height of the summer. A visit to a seafood restaurant in Destin popular, that used a lot of shrimp and crayfish, was absolutely packed chowing down and wash it all down with beer.

The plates could be considered by the States from Alabama to Texas to Indiana. People came from everywhere, attracted by this beautiful stretch of Florida coast.

Yet, with reports coming out of the sick, dead oysters, shrimp contaminated, sick and dying dolphins along the coast (this report from nearby Orange Beach, Alabama), it seems that deep below the surface Gulf is where the real problems are. Out of sight, away from the heart, as they tired old cliche goes.

In fact, speaking of Orange Beach, Red Dirt Report was seeking an interview with a resident of this coastal community named Alabama Lisa Nelson. It is believed that, while she was on the beach last fall, she was hit by a devastating kind of "plague BP."Unfortunately, she would have died in March before we can talk to him. See this interview with Nelson here.

Exploring Florida's Gulf Coast Beaches

Moon Florida Gulf Coast

Frommer's Florida 2011

The Rotarian

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