| Florida Nature Beaches Video Now on VISIT FLORIDA! |
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| August 04, 2008 |
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Sometimes when I go to the beach I want to get as far away as possible from the noise and commerce of cities and be surrounded by nature and quiet. Florida has plenty of beaches where I can do that.
Florida State Park beaches offer some of the best opportunities to get away from it all. In this short video, I explore Honeymoon Island State Park and Caladesi Island State Park, both within minutes of Clearwater Beach. Each island has a uniquely interesting history.
Honeymoon Island is right across St. Joseph Sound from the city of Dunedin and you can get here by car. It got its name because a developer from New York built 50 palm-thatched bungalows and marketed the island as a perfect place for honeymooners. The Nature center has a historical display with photos from the old days on Honeymoon Island.
Honeymoon Island is an important location for birds to rest, find food, and nest. Its also an important place for people looking for a relaxing beach or a quiet nature trail. In the video we talked to Tim Marshall, who is the museum guide at the nature center. He is filled with fascinating information about Honeymoon Island and is eager to share his knowledge with visitors.
Caladesi Island, as you may have heard, had just been named the number one beach in the nation for 2008 by Dr. Stephen Leatherman (I did a video for the award announcement too). It has no roads, no cars, and there is no bridge to the island.
To get to Caladesi Island, we took a short ride on the Caladesi Connection ferry.
Just because Caladesi is an undeveloped beach doesn't mean there's nothing to do except stare at the sand. Caladesi offers plenty to do, from kayaking to nature trails, and offers a snack bar and clean restrooms, as well as marina to dock your boat. In the video, Assistant Park Manager Bill Gruber took us on a tour of the nature trail on Caladesi and introduced us to the human and natural history of this quiet refuge.
One of the most interesting things for me about Caladesi is that its most famous resident was a biologist from Switzerland, Henry Sharrer, who built a home here in 1888 and lived on the island until 1934. His daughter Myrtle, named after the wax myrtle bushes that grow on the island, grew up on Caladesi and wrote a book about her life on this remote barrier island. The book is called “Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise” and is sold at the snack bar / gift shop on Caladesi.
We didn't get to spend as much time on Caladesi as the Sharrers did, but we did take a great trip through the mangrove tunnels in kayaks.
Sometimes it seems like the beaches with all the hotels, shops, and restaurants get the most publicity, but in Florida, nature is important to us, and all you have to do is visit a few of our state park beaches to know that there is still plenty of nature left to enjoy in Florida. So come and see the real Florida. Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands are a great place to start.
David McRee
Florida Beaches Expert |
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| There is a beach chair with your name on it on Caladesi Island. |
| Credit: David McRee, VISIT FLORIDA Beaches Expert |
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