My wife and I enjoy your newsletter. We recently moved to Cape San Blas, to a small town on Florida’s Panhandle Gulf Coast and we love it here. We’ve lived all over and are turning all of our friends onto the little-known beaches that have been ranked #1.
Yesterday evening I took our 5- and 8-year-old kids and our dog and played on the beach.
[Editor’s Note: We went to the website that Mr. Kerigan suggested and learned that Gulf County, Florida comprises Cape San Blas, Port St. Joe, Indian Pass, Wewahitchka and Mexico Beach. In 2002, the Cape’s 2,500-acre St. Joseph Peninsula State Park received the top spot on Dr. Beach’s annual list of America’s Top Beaches for its pristine condition and the 30-foot to 50-foot-high white sand dunes protected by wooden walkways.]
St. Joe Beach, as it’s known, has clean and gentle surf making it very safe for young children and bathers. The westward vistas over the Gulf of Mexico also make it a popular destination at sunset. Cape San Blas, often cited as typical of “Old Florida,” is capped by a historic lighthouse (not open to the public). There is so little commercial development that visitors can only rent vacation homes or beach cottages, and native wildlife – bald eagles, loggerhead turtles, bottlenose dolphin – is abundant. Visitgulf.com has some listings for rentals.
There’s plenty of “swimming, sunbathing, surf fishing, seashell hunting, snorkeling, exploring…, sitting in the sun, reading a book and listening to the sounds of the sea” (activities touted by the region’s tourist office.) Visitors from afar may want to plan on celebrating the area’s honey production in April, at the Tupelo Festival in Lake Alice Park; or come in September to honor the regional shellfish at the Scallop Day Festival in Port St. Joe.
Jack Kerigan, Jr. is from Cape San Blas, Florida.
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