
It looks like we are in the beginning of a great spring as we leave DeFuniak Springs and drive down to Panama Beach, Florida. The last few days have been topping out in the mid 70’s by noon and we’re seriously enjoying it while we have it. We’re staying at St. Andrews State Park. The park is at the end of a peninsula that includes one of the best beaches in the states…

We’ve headed to the beach each morning and get there in time to watch the largest group of surfers do their thing. A couple of guys have their sit-on-top kayaks here and are having a lot of fun surfing the waves with them as well. Today we saw something we’ve never seen before. 2 very large surf boards were out there, and the guys that were standing on top of them had a single large and long paddle. They would be standing on the board waiting for the right wave, and then with the paddle they would make a turn, pick up speed with a quick push of the paddle and surf the wave all the way in.
This morning we decided to do something different from what we’ve been doing here in Panama City. Across the channel from where we are, is Shell Island. They have a bunch of local tour boats that take the tourists over for the day for $18 pp and we thought we could enjoy a day of kayaking and save the $36. In talking with a couple of the locals and some of the volunteers here at the campground, we felt comfortable in making the paddle across. The big thing we had to watch out for was the Navy vessels and the container ships that head out this channel. A little kayak could get lost in front of them real quick. A couple of other obstacles we had to face were the wakes of passing boats and the possible waves that might be hitting the beach as we arrive and depart. Well all of that said the only thing we came across was a cargo ship that made a turn long before it got to us and, we had a few waves from passing boats that gave us a nice little ride. Our stay on Shell Island was great. We did see loads of shells, but 99.9% were broken. That’s OK, we just wanted to see and enjoy the island and that’s what we did. We’ve had a great work-out today and tomorrow, we head out for Montgomery, Alabama and a stop at Costco. Saturday we head for Perry, Georgia for a week and take part in the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) Rally.