Friday, September 6, 2013

Crooked Island, Florida

In the Florida panhandle, there is a fairly secluded beach that not many people know about.  I have lived in this area on and off for the majority of my life and I had heard of it, but never visited it.  Until this summer...


Something I have noticed in our moving to different places and such is the longer we are in one place, the greater the tendency is to put off going and seeing certain sites until "later".  It's not that we don't want to go, it's just that life and busyness get in the way sometimes.  Then, before you know it, it's time to move on and "later" never happens.  I am trying to be more intentional with my time (our time) and remember to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.  I want to as completely as possible experience each place we are blessed to call home.  So...along this line of thinking, it was high time we made a visit to Crooked Island.

This beach is located on the east end of Tyndall Air Force Base.  There is just a small brown sign marking the dirt road that leads from the highway to the beach access point.  Blink and you will surely miss it.  I did the first time.  We got turned around and found it on the second pass with no problems :).

The dirt road is a bit long, but the ones leading to some place good usually are...


At the end of the road, we found a parking area with an adjacent boardwalk leading to the beach.  The first time we tried to go, it ended up being really stormy.  We only stayed a short while before it started lightning and we had to hurry back to our car.  You do not want to be the tallest thing around during a thunder (and lightning) storm!

We did get some really pretty pictures (in my opinion) that day.  So I'm glad we went even though we didn't get to stay long.



A few days later we gave it another try.  This time we went earlier in the morning to avoid the usual afternoon Florida thunderstorm.



Several of the kids had saved part of their allowance to buy masks and snorkels.  They got to use them for the first time that day and they had a lot of fun.  Well...until two men came up to us and asked us if we were aware of the swarms of stingrays all over in the water.  Hundreds of them.  Uh, no!  Why my kids didn't notice them while they were looking under the water with their masks on is beyond me.  I guess they just weren't looking for them and they do blend in with the sand really well.  I hadn't noticed them either until the men pointed right at them, then I saw them ev.er.y where.  EEEKKKK!!!!  Out of the water kids!  So thankful for the kindness of two strangers!!!  The kids had been crawling through the shallow water using their hands to move around while looking under the water with their masks on.  A stingray barb potentially could have hit them in any part of their bodies from the neck down...very very scary.



The men that had so kindly warned us were carrying a mesh bag full of nice big seashells.  Really pretty ones.  They told us that they vacation in this area specifically for the purpose of coming to Crooked Island to go shelling.  Really?  Hm...  I looked it up online when I got home and saw that Crooked Island has been said by some to have comparable or even better shelling than Sanibel Island.  That's pretty neat!  Maybe we will have the opportunity to come back and try that sometime when the weather cools off a bit :).



We had a good time that day, but once again we didn't stay as long as we would have liked.  With the water being off limits (I looked around and nobody was getting in the water at all...oops!) and us being there right at noon, it was just too hot to stay very long.  That's ok though, at least we went.  We can now say that we, too, have been to Crooked Island.



If there is something that you have been wanting to do and keep putting it off until the perfect time...why not just do it now?  If it is within your abilities to do something right now, then just decide that NOW is the perfect time.  Everything else will wait...I promise, your dirty laundry is not going to go anywhere without you ;)!

***We have returned to Crooked Island many times since I wrote this...you can read more here, here, here, and here :).

12 comments:

  1. Many years ago(20)when my daughter was small we would spend our vacations at Mexico Beach. At that time there was no sign, parking lot or boardwalk. I have many pictures of the deserted beach and a 4 year old picking up shells along that area. We could spend hours and not see another person, only the jets going over from the AFB.

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  2. I appreciate your blog. We are a rv-nomadic family of 8 (desertrainblog.com) - found you on FOTR. I find this type of life reminds me that we are meant to have God alone as our dwelling place and always be longing for our heavenly home rather than placing security in an earthly dwelling. Great job heeding the call. Many blessings to your family as you journey. Deb

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    1. Hi Deb, thank you for the sweet and encouraging words :). What you say is absolutely true and I'm thankful for the many great lessons that we are learning. This way of life is so much more than just a lifestyle...it is truly life changing.

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  4. My fiance and I are going to be down into Pcb starting tomorrow and I've been looking for private locations to spend the day to shell and take engagement pictures. I don't want to take them along the coast with condos and tons of people watching. I stumbled across your post after a friend at work suggested I check the beach out near the base. I've never been to Florida before and this is our first trip together to the beach. I checked on Google maps and see an access point at about 30.224839, - 85.525721. Would you mind telling me how you get there?

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    1. Hi Jasmine, congrats on your engagement! Your trip sounds like so much fun, I will try my best to help you...ok, looking at google maps I typed in Panama City Beach, FL, as the starting point and Research Road, Panama City, FL, as the destination. If you follow this, it will get you very close to the access road leading to Crooked Island beach. It will probably take around an hour to get there from PCB because you have to go around several bays, it's not just a straight drive along the coast. Anyway, follow Hwy 98 east the entire way...leaving PCB you cross the Hathaway Bridge...go through Panama, Callaway, Parker...then cross the Tyndall Bridge. At the base, the road straightens out and you feel like you are driving off into the middle of nowhere...which is a good thing when you want a deserted beach :). So, keep going on 98 and you will come to Research Road on the right. Don't turn there, no public beach access down there. Stay on 98 but slow down and be looking for a dirt road on the right with a little brown road sign. Turn when you find this road, follow it (it ends at a parking area), and you will be there :). If you are still on 98 and get to Mexico Beach, you have gone too far. Turn around and you will take the first dirt road you come to on the left. ...I hope this helps! Oh, and on the beach walk to your right, away from Mexico Beach. The further you walk, the better it gets :)

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    2. Thank you for the wonderful directions! We are headed there next week and can't wait to check out the beach. Do you know if there are certain hours for this beach? And so glad to know about the potential stingrays! Looking forward to reading more of your blog!

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    3. You're welcome :), I hope ya'll have a wonderful time at the beach! As for the hours...I'm pretty sure it's open from sunrise to sunset.

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  5. Thank you so much! We made it down last night and it is amazing! We are packing up about to go on our hunt for this beach!

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    1. Hi Jasmine! We are going to go visit this area soon as well. Just wondering if you found the beach okay from the directions? Hope your engagement pictures turned out well!

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