In October we spent several days in Cocoa Beach for the 13th Annual International Seabean Symposium. While there, we stayed at a wonderful place right on the beach, called the Beach Place Guesthouses. Sue and I fell in love with this little beach getaway while reclining in a hammock overlooking the Atlantic after sunset, watching the moon rise out of the ocean. It looked just like a sunrise during the first few minutes above the horizon. I’ve published a slide show of the Beach Place Guesthouses on my new page about where to stay on Cocoa Beach. You’ll definitely want to check it out.
The sand dunes at Grayton Beach are quite large. Not as large as the dunes at Guana River State Park on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, but much larger than the puny dunes we have on the Southwest coast of Florida. Grayton Beach is located in the Florida panhandle about halfway between Destin and Panama City Beach.
In the above photo I’m standing about halfway between the Gulf and the dunes, and I’m dwarfed by the dunes. They are made of pure white quartz sand. Small scrubby trees on top of the dune, and sea oats growing all over the dune help the dunes continue to grow. The long roots of the sea oats and trees help hold the dunes in place.
Dunes are much loved by Gulf coast photographers, especially in the late afternoon. You’ll often see family members gathered in front of the dunes with a portrait photographer about an hour before sunset, having family portraits made, or even wedding photographers taking photos of the bride and groom.
On Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, vendors drive these big rigs down onto the beach and park them for the day. They sell food, drinks, and beach supplies, and they rent all kinds of stuff that people need or want at the beach: chairs, umbrellas, boogie boards, surfboards, bikes, etc. The prices are very reasonable (unlike most prices you find at the beach).
This is one of the vendors on New Smyrna Beach getting set up on a hot July morning. Growing up on the Gulf coast, I had never seen vehicles driving on the beach (other than lifeguards, police, and service vehicles). It took me a while to get used to this, but I have to admit, it is very convenient.
Now there’s a job that makes people want to move to Florida!
The Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary cares for injured wild birds and, when possible, returns them to the wild. All species of wild birds, like this beautiful white ibis (above), benefit from the hard work of the volunteers and paid staff of the Sanctuary.
The Sanctuary produces a very informative newsletter to keep the public informed about their activities. It is called “Fly Free.” I thought I’d take a look at their Summer 2008 issue, and share the highlights with you:
A large colony of Black Skimmers nested on the sands in front of the Sanctuary this summer. The Sanctuary launched a public awareness campaign, and with cooperation of local media, Eckerd College, the Audubon Society, and the local community, human interference and encroachment was reduced, resulting in the hatching of 50 chicks.
The Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary has produced a documentary featuring the history of the Sanctuary and shows how wild birds get injured and how the public can help. The film, called “Flying Free,” has received numerous awards of excellence. To order copies of the documentary, call 727-391-6211, or order online at www.seabirdsanctuary.com.
The Sanctuary is seeking volunteers for the busy winter roundup and bird rescue efforts on the Ft. Desoto and Skyway Bridge fishing piers. According to Elizabeth Vreeland, Sanctuary Staff and Volunteer, “Last winter I rescued almost 200 birds from the north and south Skyway and Ft. Desoto Fishing Piers in just a couple of months. That’s just me. That’s just two piers.” If you are interested in being a volunteer, even if it is just for an hour a month, contact the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary.
Upcoming is the Seabird Christmas Celebration. Saturday, December 6, 2008, 10am. Free tour of the Sanctuary, cookies, punch, children’s gifts and special events. Fun for all ages.
An injured Bald Eagle was rescued in northern Pinellas County, then rehabilitated, and released back into the wild. It appeared to have been involved in a territorial fight with another eagle.
Above are just a few of the interesting things I found in the Sanctuary’s newsletter. Become a member of the Sanctuary and receive the newsletter, or stop by the Sanctuary and pick up a copy.
Above: White Pelicans recuperate at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. White Pelicans are much larger than Brown Pelicans (pictured below) and have different feeding habits. Their needs are very different. The staff and volunteers at the Sanctuary are experts at caring for all kinds of wild birds.
Above: A view of a small portion of the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. The Sanctuary cares for all types of wild birds, from small songbirds, to herons and hawks.
Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer with some flotsam from the beach.
What do rubber ducks have to do with ocean science? The same thing flotsam in general has to do with it. Flotsam is that stuff, natural or manmade, that’s floating around in the ocean. Nowadays, there’s an unbelievable amount of manmade stuff, especially plastic, that is floating in the oceans, caught up in the currents, and circling the oceans, sometimes for decades, before washing up on a beach somewhere.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Ebbesmeyer at the 13th Annual International Seabean Symposium in Cocoa Beach in October 2008. He presented a very interesting slide show. Here are a few bits and pieces from Dr. Ebbesmeyer’s slide show:
Plastic from as far back as 1944 was found in an albatross in 2005. The stuff hangs around for a long time.
Florida’s Atlantic coast is one of the best places for beachcombing because of the North Atlantic Gyre, a huge circular current that passes the US east coast, Western Europe, and Africa.
It takes about 3 years for a piece of flotsam to go around the gyre, but the longest documented ride taken by a piece of flotsam was a bottle that spent 35 years drifting in the gyre.
I thought it was all just a lot of fun–collecting flotsam, beachcombing, studying ocean currents–but there is a darker implication to all the junk floating in the oceans. This was brought home by “shed bird.”
This poor bird (I forget the species–some seabird) had made a nest in a shed in someone’s yard and was raising a chick. The baby bird did not survive. Upon autopsy, 512 pieces of plastic were found in the birds stomach. Enough to kill anything. Some fish attach their eggs to floating objects. Birds that eat the eggs ingest the object (in this case, plastic) then regurgitate the deadly meal to their chicks before the chicks’ stomachs have developed enough to expel indigestible matter.
Here’s a short, but informative video clip on what Dr. Ebbesmeyer does:
Dr. Ebbesmeyer is also a forensic oceanographer. This means that when a human body, or body parts wash up on the beach, he is often called in to help with the identification process. I won’t go into the details here, but remember the stories about the shoes (with human feet still inside them) washing up on Canadian beaches? Dr. Ebbesmeyer was quoted in the UK Guardian:
“The big picture is that there are body parts washing up all over the place all the time,” said Curtis Ebbesmeyer… But this, he admits, is different. “I’ve never come across a time when we’ve had five of one kind [all feet]at one time. It’s highly unusual.”… “The shoe is going to protect the foot pretty well,” Ebbesmeyer said. “Most shoes float, and sneakers tend to float sole up, so that would protect them from birds.”
After the Sea-Bean Symposium was over, some of us drove down to Sebastian Inlet to hunt for sea-beans. While we were goofing off, Dr. Ebbesmeyer and Dr. Blair Witherington ( a research scientist and author of Florida’s Living Beaches) were filmed discussing various items found on the beach. These educational video clips, which promise to be very interesting, will appear on the Space Coast Beach Blog.
Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist, and for the first time, he tells the story of his life–long struggle to solve the sea’s mysteries–uncovering the astonishing story of flotsam, unraveling the mystery of marine currents, and changing the world’s view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment.
You’ll also want to visit Dr. Ebbesmeyer’s website www.beachcombersalert.org, and subscribe to his newsletter Beachcombers’ Alert to stay informed on what kind of crazy and interesting things people are finding on beaches these days…like a 1 million pint beer fermentation tank, for instance.
Here are some of the videos I’ve created. Some are purely my own doing, and others were created with the help of the fine video crew at Miles Media, with whom I jointly produce multimedia content for the VisitFlorida.com website. One of the most popular on YouTube is the one with the jumping dolphin, where the dolphin jumps out of the water behind a surfer. Actually both surfing videos are popular on YouTube. Hey, let me know what you think!
Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa) on Pass-a-Grille Beach.
Most of the shorebirds I see on the Gulf coast are Sanderlings, Willets, Ruddy Turnstones, and Short-billed Dowitchers. This morning I was startled to see several beautifully cinnamon-colored Marbled Godwits mixing it up with the Willets and Sanderlings on the beach.
I confess that I did not know what they were, but I knew that I couldn’t recall noticing them before. I’ve really been a slacker for quite a few years when it comes to “birding.” When I was young I was quite an avid birdwatcher.
I went home and consulted my Golden Field Guide, Birds of North America (1966 / Robbins, Bruun, Zim, & Singer). It’s dog-eared and some of the pages are falling out ( I purchased it in about 1973 for $3.95) but it has served me well for 35 years and I’ve more than gotten my money’s worth from it.
Marbled Godwits they are. Here’s what the guide says about them:
“Rather common in West, rare in East. Breeds on praries, meadows, and pastures, and winters along the coasts. The brown plumage is mottled above and barred below. The very long bill turns up. Note the cinnamon wing linings.”
The upward curved bill was the major feature I noticed, along with the beautiful color of this rather large sandpiper. Note in the photo below that it is slightly larger than the Willets beside it (gray birds).
We’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to the Florida Panhandle beaches. While visiting Santa Rosa Beach we encountered several moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) in the shallow water and on the beach.
Moon Jellies can produce a mild sting, but are not dangerous. They can be hard to see in the water. Some were washing up on the sand. These jellies are about the size of a large dinner plate.
We came upon an arrangement of jellyfish in the beach sand where someone had been collecting them from the beach. These jellyfish were dying anyway, so no harm done, but I’d never seen this before (below).
The Florida panhandle does seem to have a lot more jellyfish than the peninsular Gulf coast. Several locals I spoke to agreed that in the panhandle, the month of June tends to be heavy on seaweed and jellyfish. They call the seaweed “June grass.” 2008, I understand, brought an extended June grass season.
We were recently up in the Florida panhandle visiting some small beach towns we’d never really visited before. We were tourists. By mealtime we were HUNGRY tourists, so we had to find food. Luckily, we got a few good recommendations from the locals. Since I was working on an article about the area for another website, I felt it would be good to sample a variety of restaurants.
One night we decided we simply had to try the Red Bar Restaurant in Grayton Beach. After reading the reviews on TripAdvisor, I didn’t know what to think. About half the reviewers hated it, and the other half loved it. Well, we arrived on a Friday evening (our first mistake) and were promised a 20 minute wait. No problem. Sue had her heart set on hearing their advertised “jazz band.”
The first thing I noticed is that the Red Bar was the loudest establishment I’d ever entered. I mean, the music and conversation was so loud I couldn’t even see straight. The music turned out to be more of a bluesy southern rock, rather than jazz, so after waiting nearly 50 minutes, and still no table in sight, we decided to try another restaurant. The music was even too loud for Susie, and she’s a big-city girl that’s used to loud live music in restaurants and bars.
A quick stop by our room and a search of the internet turned up some interesting possibilities. Once again I turned to TripAdvisor reviews. One of the themes that ran constant in nearly every review is that the restaurants were “overpriced.” Either they didn’t deliver on atmosphere, on service, or on taste. We walked into an Italian restaurant, but when we saw the prices (over $75 per plate if we ordered the cheapest items), we ended up going back to a restaurant that we’d enjoyed for lunch, which had come highly recommended. I’ll tell you later what it was, but now on with this blog post…
One of the things we’ve noticed is that restaurants on the beaches that cater to tourists tend to be way overpriced for the quality of food that they deliver. I have a couple of theories about why they can get away with this:
They don’t depend on repeat business. There’s always a new planeload of tourists tomorrow.
They are the only game in town. Most beach towns don’t have a wide selection of restaurants. The big towns do, but most don’t.
Lots of hungry tourists + few restaurants on or near the beach = high prices. Simple supply and demand.
People on vacation are more willing to spend freely, especially after a few drinks.
In defense of the restaurants:
Beach real estate is expensive. You are paying for the location and the view.
Property taxes and insurance for commercial beach property are unbelievable. You’ve got to pay for that too.
Many beach locations experience extreme fluctuations in patrons. They’ve got to make a year’s profit in 6 or 8 months.
I’m not happy with a plate full of fried fish that’s covered with grease-soaked batter, a pile of greasy french fries, cole slaw from a can, and a bucket of iced tea. NO THANKS!
Tips for getting a good meal at the beach:
If you’re like us (on a budget), consider having lunch on the beach (lower prices at lunchtime), and heading off-island for good food at a more reasonable price. If price is no object, there are great restaurants right on the beach.
Get tips from the locals (not your hotel) on where they eat. If you want good seafood, find a restaurant that brings in their fish fresh, right off the fishing boats. Hint: those restaurants are usually near the fishing docks.
So where did we end up for dinner that night? Stinky’s Fish Camp restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach on Highway 30A. Great food with a Louisiana flavor. Really great seafood fresh off the boat. Awesome pecan pie and ice cream. Total bill for 2 people who didn’t order any alcohol…$85 with tip. Definitely not in our budget, but someone else was picking up the tab for this trip. And, it was either that or Subway…
Volusia County, Florida is now up to 23 shark bites in 2008, with several months left in the year. DBsurf.org reports this encouraging fact on their Daytona Beach Surf Report website where they show daily photos of Daytona Beach surf conditions and give a full report.
OK, don’t get too freaked out about it. What’s interesting about the Volusia County shark bites is that they are all mostly minor bites where the shark lets go without inflicting a fatal or disfiguring injury. Most of the victims are surfers. Most of them are back in the water surfing in a few days or weeks.
The Gulf coast of Florida has many fewer shark bites, but the few that we do have are more likely to be either fatal or result in serious injury (though even that is rare).
If you’d like more analysis of the shark bite statistics as well as some tips on things you can do to help avoid becoming a shark-snack, check out my BeachHunter.net web page about shark bites in Florida.
And, by the way, the preferred terminology is “shark bite,” not “shark attack.”
