|
more articles like this
Florida's Famous Beaches
updated: Dec 04, 2010, 9:30 AM
By McSeas
The weather was fine, the water was warm … but it was unsafe to swim at the main beach in St. Augustine. Signs warned of rip currents, heavy surf (we could see waves rolling in).
Onward, we cried, on to the more southerly and famously sunny beaches. This whole excursion was quite southerly, actually, the coast being only 28 degrees north latitude.
The drive along the beaches was most pleasant. Unlike SoCal's chaotic and built-upon continental edge, the Florida coast is miles of long, long beaches, gently curving. We stopped now and then . . . the sand looked clean, fine and white, unlettered, except for occasional sunbathers and fisherpersons. The shoreline is generally backed up by low dunes covered with vegetation, especially tall, grassy "sea oats" waving in the breeze.
Near Daytona, ominously churning surf made the water fit only for fishing, and quite a few per mile were taking advantage of the opportunity. Florida, of course, is major fishing territory, and not "fished out" as so much of our southern shores are.
The drive into the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral (a very interesting and nostalgic stop) gave us our first view of an alligator. It was lounging on the bank of a waterway across the Cape's swampland. We were later told that gators need to bask in the sun to aid their digestion, making noontime a much better time to approach them than, say, on a dark night.
A night in Cocoa Beach after eating seafood out on the pier, and we were ready for more gawking, so we gawked across the Everglades, an intriguing name. W. Pedia says it began in the 1770s as "River Glades," while the Seminoles, Florida's dominant Indian nation, called the huge region Pa-hai-Okee, meaning, "Grassy Water." Not sure if the area includes various mangrove (tree/shrub) swamps, especially the brackish water near the sea.
Farther down the coast, just before turning off into the Everglades, we strolled into a nearby mangrove grove because a sign invited us to do so. A young man was fishing on a pier that jutted into a brackish water pond and showed us a BIG fish, a redfish about two feet long, that he had just caught.
"Great eating," he grinned.
We chose to zoom across the somewhat threatening (we thought) landscape of the everglades, and took Highway I-5, instead of State Road 41 - which loops across the southern end of the 'glades. The interstate would take us through a region on the map called "Alligator Alley." Should be interesting, we thought, and we'd heard that the lowest portion of the Everglades was mostly orange groves. We have those in Ventura County. This way we could see the sights and still be across the state to Retirement Coast (my term) in a couple of hours.
Turns out there wasn't much to see but tall saw grass, waving in the sun something like the American Prairie, except this prairie was filled with alligators, birds, snakes, fish and who knows what unknown monsters. Nobody goes there on foot. Or do they? Or do they just go in there once and fail to come out?
There are several rest stops with walkways for viewing, but no gators in the gator alley. Not much at all, in fact, so we bashed on. A website talks of "swamps, saw-grass prairies and subtropical jungles." Mostly we saw grass. OK. The swamps and jungles would have to wait. Can't cover it all. The Everglades cover a million and a half acres.
Finally, near the end of the I-75 ride, we got fairly close views of some real live alligators. Big ones. A couple of them were stretched out accommodatingly near the viewing stand thoughtfully placed near a waterway. One on the other side of the water was sleeping, but the one on the near side was keeping an eye on us creatures above. Must have been about 12 feet long or longer. His/her eye was drooping, but s/he kept it open.
A few miles later and near the end of the highway we turned south a few miles into Everglades City, a small burg that exists mostly for tourists, and took an interesting boat ride around the mangrove groves. Birds galore and the snouts of a few manatees, but no close up gator views. The bird situation down yonder in south Florida is something to see. It's fun because so many of the birds are very long-legged, for wading, and long-billed, for spearing. Snowy and blue herons, egrets, ospreys, spoonbills, ibises . . . and smaller, but still good-sized, birds like the dark anhinga, hanging in trees to dry their wings.
Also, by this time we realized that the areas of the glades Hollywood had presented to us were the more watery parts; spooky places where moss hung from trees, and big snakes swam in the waterways along with gators. On the banks were hillbillies making whisky and sitting on the porches of their unpainted shacks, staring stupidly at passersby. Swamp hillbillies. These filmic characters were probably based on Scots-Irish ancestors like mine who had passed on Appalachia but decided to pursue their rural lifestyle in Florida.
Next: The land of Jerry Seinfeld's parents - places like "Del Boca Vista," on the Gulf Coast.
Send this picture as a postcard
# # # #
McSeas's stepson Mike Millern photographed this beast from the safety of an airboat cruising in a swamp.
Send this picture as a postcard
# # # #
Florida's beaches aren't always good for swimming, but they're certainly good for fishing.
# # # #
This young blue heron went fishing on a nice day in the Everglades.
Send this picture as a postcard
# # # #
Typical Florida beach.
5 comments on this article. Read/Add
# # # #
|
