1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html
class="detail single" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>All The Pretty Beaches - by Scott Gilbertson</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta name="description"
content="St. George Island Florida offers some of the best white sand beaches in the world. By Scott Gilbertson">
<meta name="author" content="Scott Gilbertson">
<link rel="alternate"
type="application/rss+xml"
title="Luxagraf RSS feed"
href="https://luxagraf.net/rss/">
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="/media/screenv9.css"
media="screen">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/print.css" media="print" title="print" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" />
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://stats.luxagraf.net">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2013/05/all-the-pretty-beaches" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="29.65981806259068, -84.87047444700387" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="29.65981806259068; -84.87047444700387" />
<meta name="geo.placename" content="St. George Island, ">
<meta name="geo.region" content="-">
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="All the Pretty Beaches" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2013/05/all-the-pretty-beaches" />
<meta property="og:description" content="St. George Island Florida offers some of the best white sand beaches in the world. By Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2013-05-26T22:43:23" />
<meta property="article:author" content="Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Luxagraf" />
<meta property="og:image" content="/media/images/post-images/2013/stgeorgeisland_1.jpg" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:description" content="St. George Island Florida offers some of the best white sand beaches in the world. By Scott Gilbertson"/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="All the Pretty Beaches"/>
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:image:src" content="/media/images/post-images/2013/stgeorgeisland_1.jpg"/>
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@luxagraf"/>
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2013/05/all-the-pretty-beaches"
},
"headline": "All the Pretty Beaches",
"datePublished": "2013-05-26T22:43:23+04:00",
"dateModified": "2013-05-26T22:43:23+04:00",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Scott Gilbertson"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Luxagraf",
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://luxagraf.net/media/img/logo-white.jpg"
}
},
"description": "St. George Island Florida offers some of the best white sand beaches in the world. By Scott Gilbertson"
}
</script>
</head>
<body >
<div class="wrapper" id="wrapper">
<div class="header-wrapper">
<header class="site-banner">
<div id="logo">
<a href="/" title="Home">Luxagraf</a>
<span class="sitesubtitle">Walk Slowly</span>
</div>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/" title="Stories of life on the road.">Jrnl</a> & <a href="/field-notes/" title="Short stories, snapshots of daily life on the road.">Field Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="/guide/" title="Advice, Tools, Tips and Tricks for Full Time Van or RV Life.">Guides</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="The 'friends of a long year' newsletter">newsletter</a></li>
<li><a href="/about" title="About Scott">About</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
</div>
<ol class="bl" id="breadcrumbs" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BreadcrumbList">
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" href="/"><span itemprop="name">Home</span></a> →
<meta itemprop="position" content="1" />
</li>
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem">
<a href="/jrnl/" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">jrnl</span></a>
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
</li>
</ol>
<main>
<article class="h-entry hentry entry-content content" itemscope itemType="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
<header id="header" class="post-header ">
<h1 class="p-name entry-title post-title" itemprop="headline">All the Pretty Beaches</h1>
<div class="post-linewrapper">
<div class="p-location h-adr adr post-location" itemprop="contentLocation" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
<h3 class="h-adr" itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress"><span class="p-locality locality" itemprop="addressLocality">St. George Island</span>, <a class="p-region region" href="/jrnl/united-states/" title="travel writing from the United States">Florida</a>, <span class="p-country-name" itemprop="addressCountry">U.S.</span></h3>
– <a href="" onclick="showMap(29.65981806259068, -84.87047444700387, { type:'point', lat:'29.65981806259068', lon:'-84.87047444700387'}); return false;" title="see a map">Map</a>
</div>
<time class="dt-published published dt-updated post-date" datetime="2013-05-26T22:43:23" itemprop="datePublished">May <span>26, 2013</span></time>
<span class="hide" itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">by <a class="p-author h-card" href="/about"><span itemprop="name">Scott Gilbertson</span></a></span>
</div>
</header>
<div id="article" class="e-content entry-content post--body post--body--single" itemprop="articleBody">
<p><img alt="Beach, St George Island, Florida. By Scott Gilbertson" class="picwide" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2013/stgeorgeislandbeach01.jpg"/></p>
<p>I was lucky; I grew up by the ocean. Surprisingly, or at least surprising to me, I never reached that point where I took it for granted. When something is right there for so long sometimes it blends into the background noise and you stop noticing it. Familiarity breeds contempt. Or at least complacency. But I’ve never felt complacent about my proximity to the sea. It’s the one thing I miss living in Athens. How could you not? It’s too big a thing to take for granted; it’s were we came from. And it remains the one of the last true boundaries between the known and the unknown.</p>
<p>Boundary lands are always the most interesting places — the seashore, the edge of timberline, where the city starts to give way to the country. These are the fringes of our world, the peripheral edges of our collective vision where everything is less certain, but more possible, more inviting. Boundaries are the gray areas where life feels most real, most truly momentary because the boundaries themselves are ever in flux. </p>
<p>The seashore is also just plain fun. Lounging in a hammock strung between two palm trees, sipping cocktails and enjoying the sunshine seems to be high on most people’s list of things they think they would do if they won the lottery. </p>
<p>I’ve spent a good bit of my time traveling either at or around the seashore, from <a href="/writing/thailand/">Thailand</a> to <a href="/writing/india/">India</a>, to <a href="/writing/nicaragua/">Nicaragua</a> and <a href="/writing/indonesia/">Indonesia</a>. The ocean may well be the only constant there is when you’re traveling. I’ve been to plenty of places simply to see what the beaches were like — <a href="/2005/nov/20/fish-story/">Goa, India</a>; <a href="/2011/jun/23/best-snorkeling-world/">Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia</a>; <a href="/2008/apr/05/little-island-sun/">Little Corn Island, Nicaragua</a> and plenty more I haven’t written about.</p>
<p>These days though I’m less inclined to travel somewhere solely for the promise of nice beaches because I found St. George Island. </p>
<p><img alt="Beach, St George Island, Florida. By Scott Gilbertson" class="postpic" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2013/stgeorgeislandbeach02.jpg"/>I stumbled upon St. George Island a couple years ago. St. George is just off the Gulf Coast of northwest Florida, only about 7 hours from where I live (9 with babies). There are better places if you’re looking to dive or snorkel. Ditto if it’s nightlife you’re after. But if you’re looking for a seemingly endless amount of gorgeous white sand beaches you’ll share with only a few migratory birds, St. George is among the best boundary land in the world. </p>
<p>I first arrived here largely by accident. My wife and I tagged along on an invitation to share a cheap beach house someone else had rented. We came back a year later. And again six months after that. And we hope to be back for a fourth visit before the year is over.</p>
<p>St. George is more than just a nice beach though, it’s a little backwater in time. It’s a little slice of the world as it used to be, the world I grew up in, before the proliferation of mega-resorts and all-inclusive vacation package extravaganzas. St. George doesn’t offer anything like that. There’s little more to St. George than a store, a gas station and a couple of seafood trailers offering up fresh shrimp, snapper and scallops from nearby Apalachicola. There are some condos, but the two motels are rundown affairs that look like backwater holdouts from the early 1980s. There’s nothing about this place that even hints at the world of resorts and all-inclusive packages. And that’s the way I like it.</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible that by the time the mid-summer tourism peak rolls around at Independence Day St. George Island is unbearably crowded with north Florida rednecks, but, having only been here in the shoulder months of May, September and October, I have trouble picturing it. For the most part there’s rarely been another person on the beach, let alone a crowd, when we’re here. The surprising thing though is that by all rights it <em>should</em> be crowded, even in the off season, but it’s not.</p>
<p>St. George is long and narrow, some thirty miles from one end to the other, but rarely more than a half mile across. It’s part of a barrier island chain, along with Dog Island and St Vincent Island, that provide shelter from the Gulf seas and help create the Apalachicola Bay. </p>
<p><img alt="Beach, St George Island, Florida. By Scott Gilbertson" class="picfull" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2013/stgeorgeislandbeach03.jpg"/></p>
<p>Roughly a third of the island, the entire western end, is closed off to a private, gated community. To karmically balance that the entire eastern half of the island is protected from development by the <a href="http://www.floridastateparks.org/stgeorgeisland/">Dr. Julian Bruce St. George Island State Park</a>. If we weren’t fortunate enough to know someone willing to rent us a beach house on the cheap, we’d be <a href="http://www.floridastateparks.org/stgeorgeisland/activities.cfm#12">camping here</a>. Even if you’re not camping the park is worth a visit. Hardly anyone seems to stray much beyond the beach parking lots so if you walk for a bit you’ll easily find miles of beach you’ll only have to share with a few plovers, sandpipers and the occasional Great Blue Heron standing atop the dunes behind you.</p>
<p>One day I rented a crappy bike and rode out through the state park to the very eastern tip of the island where a small channel of water separates St. George from the uninhabited Dog Island. Aside from a few fishermen clustered around the leeward side of the channel, there was no one around. </p>
<p>St. George was once little more than rolling sand dunes covered in sea oats and tall grasses. Dunes still occupy the central portion of the island, particularly here in the state park where the dunes have been spared development. On the windward side the dunes turn to beaches which look out on the Gulf of Mexico. St. George acts as a barrier island for Apalachicola Bay, but most of the time there’s little to protect against. The Gulf is typically about as calm of waters as you could hope for. Of course when the storms come, they really come. Hurricanes have been rearranging St George ever since it was created, even splitting it into two islands and then bringing it back together again. The fishermen ended up liking that extra entrance to the bay. What was originally the doing of a hurricane is now a properly dredged channel, though it’s certainly within a storm’s power to change that again.</p>
<p><img alt="Great Blue Heron, St George Island, Florida. By Scott Gilbertson" class="picfull" src="https://images.luxagraf.net//2013/great-blue-heron-stgeorgeisland.jpg"/></p>
<p>I spent some time exploring the dunes along the east end, watching the herons standing tall and silent while Laughing Gulls cried in the air overhead. A pair of ospreys made lazy circles above the cluster of fishermen and pelicans occasionally dive bombed into the sea to pluck out an unlucky fish. After a while it got hot in the wind-sheltered, sun-baked sand dunes so I walked back to the shore for a swim before making the questionable decision to ride back along the beach. Florida sand is sugary fine stuff, not particularly supportive when you put a fair amount of weight on it. There were stretches where I could ride, but I ended up walking a good few miles as well, stopping for a swim whenever I got tired. </p>
<p>Back at the state park entrance I briefly detoured across the island to the leeward shore. The back side of the island is a totally different beast. Here the dunes give way to actual soil which supports a band of pine and palmetto forest that eventually opens up to wide, reed-filled tidal marshes. The marshlands are interspersed with what is locally known as hammocks — slightly raised bits of porous humus capable of sustaining of Live Oaks, Cedars and the occasional Cypress tree, small deciduous islands is a sea of reeds. The marshes overlook the <a href="/2013/may/22/consider-the-apalachicola-oyster/">oyster fields of the Apalachicola Bay</a> and, on a clear day, the mainland of Florida two or three miles away. Apalachicola Bay is so shallow it’s tempting to think you could walk back to the mainland, though I’ve no idea why you would want to do that. </p>
<p>There’s not much to St. George, but it’s all I need. Were it not for the need to earn the bio-survival tickets necessary for obtaining food and shelter in this country I would rarely leave this place. A house with a view of the water, perhaps a boat for fishing and getting around the bay, and, to my mind anyway, you’d be well set for life. In the mean time, I’ll take what I can get of St. George.</p>
</div>
<div class="entry-footer">
<aside id="wildlife">
<h3>Fauna and Flora</h3>
<ul>
<li class="grouper">Birds<ul>
<li>Brown Pelican </li>
<li>Double-crested Cormorant </li>
<li><a href="/dialogues/laughing-gull">Laughing Gull</a> </li>
<li>Least Tern </li>
<li>Mourning Dove </li>
<li><a href="/dialogues/northern-mockingbird">Northern Mockingbird</a> </li>
<li>Prothonotary Warbler </li>
<li>Royal Tern </li>
<li>Ruddy Turnstone </li>
<li>Sanderling </li>
<li>Willet </li>
</ul>
</ul>
</aside>
</div>
</article>
<div class="nav-wrapper">
<nav id="page-navigation" >
<ul>
<li id="prev"><span class="bl">Previous:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2013/05/consider-the-apalachicola-oyster" rel="prev" title=" Consider the Apalachicola Oyster">Consider the Apalachicola Oyster</a>
</li>
<li id="next"><span class="bl">Next:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2013/05/oysterman-wanted" rel="next" title=" Oysterman Wanted">Oysterman Wanted</a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div>
<div class="comment--form--wrapper ">
<div class="comment--form--header">
<p class="hed">Thoughts?</p>
<p class="subhed">Please leave a reply:</p>
</div>
<form action="/comments/post/" method="post" class="comment--form">
<input type="hidden" name="rder" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="content_type" value="jrnl.entry" id="id_content_type">
<input type="hidden" name="object_pk" value="133" id="id_object_pk">
<input type="hidden" name="timestamp" value="1596833449" id="id_timestamp">
<input type="hidden" name="security_hash" value="d05c99e7cae0d149de57c156a1b13013e3490ab1" id="id_security_hash">
<fieldset >
<label for="id_name">Name:</label>
<input type="text" name="name" maxlength="50" required id="id_name">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_email">Email address:</label>
<input type="email" name="email" required id="id_email">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_url">URL:</label>
<input type="url" name="url" id="id_url">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_comment">Comment:</label>
<div class="textarea-rounded"><textarea name="comment" cols="40" rows="10" maxlength="3000" required id="id_comment">
</textarea></div>
</fieldset>
<fieldset style="display:none;">
<label for="id_honeypot">If you enter anything in this field your comment will be treated as spam:</label>
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="id_honeypot">
</fieldset>
<div class="submit">
<input type="submit" name="post" class="submit-post btn" value="Post" />
<input type="submit" name="preview" class="submit-preview btn" value="Preview" />
</div>
</form>
<p style="font-size: 95%;"><strong>All comments are moderated</strong>, so you won’t see it right away. And please remember Kurt Vonnegut's rule: “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” You can use Markdown or HTML to format your comments. The allowed tags are <code><b>, <i>, <em>, <strong>, <a></code>. To create a new paragraph hit return twice. </p>
</div>
</main>
<footer class="bl">
<ul class="footer-nav">
<li><a href="/blogroll" title="Sites that inspire us">Blogroll</a></li>
<li><a href="/contact/" title="contact luxagraf">Contact</a></li>
<li>Follow Along:
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/feed.xml" title="RSS feed">RSS</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="Luxagraf Email Updates">Email</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/luxagraf" rel="me" title="luxagraf on Instagram">Instagram</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="support">Support luxagraf:
<div class="donate-btn">
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="HYJFZQSBGJ8QQ">
<input type="submit" name="submit" title="Donate to luxagraf via PayPal">
</form>
</div>
<div class="donate-btn">
<a class="liberapay-btn" href="https://liberapay.com/luxagraf/donate"><span>Donate</span></a>
</div>
</div>
<p id="license">
© 2003-2020
<span class="h-card"><a class="p-name u-url" href="https://luxagraf.net/">Scott Gilbertson</a><data class="p-nickname" value="luxagraf"></data><data class="p-locality" value="Athens"></data><data class="p-region" value="Georgia"></data><data class="p-country-name" value="United States"></data></span>.
</p>
</footer>
</div>
<script>
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {
var leaflet = document.createElement('script');
leaflet.src = "/media/js/leaflet-master/leaflet-mod.js";
document.body.appendChild(leaflet);
var lightbox = document.createElement('script');
lightbox.src = "/media/js/lightbox.js";
document.body.appendChild(lightbox);
leaflet.onload = function(){
var detail = document.createElement('script');
detail.src = "/media/js/detail.min.js";
document.body.appendChild(detail);
detail.onload = function(){
createMap();
var open = false;
}
}
lightbox.onload = function() {
var opts= {
//nextOnClick: false,
captions: true,
onload: function(){
var im = document.getElementById("jslghtbx-contentwrapper");
var link = im.appendChild(document.createElement('a'))
link.href = im.firstChild.src;
link.innerHTML= "open ";
link.target = "_blank";
link.setAttribute('class', 'p-link');
im.appendChild(link);
}
};
var lightbox = new Lightbox();
lightbox.load(opts);
}
});
</script>
<script>
<!--
// Register our service-worker
//if (navigator.serviceWorker) {
// window.addEventListener('load', function() {
// if (navigator.serviceWorker.controller) {
// navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage({'command': 'trimCaches'});
// } else {
// navigator.serviceWorker.register('/serviceworker.js', {
// scope: '/'
// });
// }
// });
//}
//-->
<!-- Piwik -->
var _paq = _paq || [];
_paq.push(["disableCookies"]);
_paq.push(['trackPageView']);
_paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']);
(function() {
var u="https://stats.luxagraf.net/";
_paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'piwik.php']);
_paq.push(['setSiteId', 1]);
var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s);
})();
<!-- End Piwik Code -->
</script>
<noscript><p><img src="//stats.luxagraf.net/piwik.php?idsite=1" style="border:0;" alt="" /></p></noscript>
</body>
</html>
|
