A kayak can give you a different perspective on nature.
I just received an email from a couple, Dave and Linda, who purchased my beach guidebook. They live near the coast here in southwest Florida and are particularly interested in kayaking and snorkeling in addition to exploring the beaches. In part, they wrote:
We will be trying snorkeling at Crescent beach, Point of Rocks tomorrow, but are there more places? We need guides like yours for snorkeling and kayaking off the gulf coast, what can you suggest?
As far as a book specific to kayaking along the lower gulf coast, there is really only one book:
Nigel Foster’s Guide to Sea Kayaking in Southern Florida. Nigel is very knowledgeable and works out of the Sweetwater kayak shop in St Petersburg. You might also consider joining up with some of the local kayak groups or visiting their websites. In your area, Dave and Linda, Grande Tours Kayaks in Placida is a great place to visit and kayak on the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserve. They can tell you all about the best places to kayak and perhaps hook you up with some local organizations. Of course you’ll want to learn all about the Great Calusa Blueway.
As for snorkeling, there are two books. The most recent, and focused entirely on snorkeling spots in Florida, is Snorkeling Florida: 50 Excellent Sites, by Brad Bertelli. This is a new book, published in 2008 by the University Press of Florida and covers the entire state. This is a good book overall, and is helpful, but I find that it falls short of what most snorkeling enthusiasts would want. In a nutshell, although the descriptions of the snorkeling spots were pretty good, they were quite brief and didn’t really give me the impression that I was getting first-hand knowledge from someone who had actually been in the water at each location. Nevertheless, I consider it a useful addition to my library as it gives good information on identifying and locating the spots and giving a general overview of what to expect. But don’t expect much in the way of “insider” tips. I was also surprised to see that the book failed to identify and include Point-of-Rocks on Siesta Key as a snorkeling location. It is one of the best snorkeling spots and easiest to access.
To be fair, writing such a book is very difficult. Water conditions, weather and tides all impact the snorkeling experience and it really is hard to give a detailed assessment of a particular location without making several dives over a period of time. It was a good effort on the author’s part.
The other snorkeling/diving book is much more detailed and you will definitely get some great insider tips. However it is aimed at the SCUBA diver rather than the snorkeler, although it does cover “beach dives” many of which are suitable for snorkelers wading in off the beach. I consider it a “must have” to use in conjuction with the 50 excellent sites book reviewed above. The book is Ned DeLoach’s Diving Guide to Underwater Florida, 11th Edition, 2004.
Snorkeling spots you’ll want to consider are Delnor Wiggins State Park, Venice Beach / Caspersen Beach [fossils and fossilized shark teeth], the Sugar Barge [Regina] off Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, and the ruins off Egmont Key (take a snorkeling tour out of St. Petersburg). All are mentioned in the two books above.
Also, I am getting ready to roll out a number of web pages on BeachHunter.net that pull together as much information as I can find on the web about the best snorkeling spots in Florida. Look for that sometime during May. I’ll announce it here on this blog when the pages are published. The pages will be an excellent resource for snorkelers.
Also, and this is the first time I’ve mentioned this publicly, I’m in the process of putting together a new book on the beaches of central and southwest Florida. While the book I currently have available is still accurate and current on all details that matter, I have sold nearly all of my inventory (something I never thought would actually happen). The new guide will contain a great deal more information than the current guide and will cover more topics. It will be more than just a beach guide. It will be THE ULTIMATE beach vacation guide to the central and southwest gulf coast. It will focus heavily on nature activities on and near the beaches and islands. I’m not sure when it will be ready, but Fall 2010 or Winter 2011 is most likely.
