11 March ‘09 Wednesday
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…
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…
Panama City Beach, rated the best beach by the “Spring Breakers”, and they are here in mass. It seems to be controlled mass, but they are here and having fun. Yesterday we drove into Panama City to check-out this kayak company, but they apparently have gone out of business. After checking out the streets of the city and the surrounding area, we drove back over the bridge to Panama City Beach. This was our first time to “mingle” with the college crew that has come to the beach for their Spring break. It’s not that we “mingled” on the streets and bars with them, we just drove down the beach road and checked out the action for awhile. Our campground is running at max, and quite a few of the campers are here for the action of Spring Break. Fortunately, the campers are keeping everything under control and we hardly know that they are here. The beach area that we have been using is about a mile from the area that the big party goers are using. MTV is here and has a huge part in putting together the programs that most are here for.
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.
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.