Sightseeing the Gulf Coast Part 1

Okay, right off the bat, the Gulf Coast between Clearwater and Sarasota is not a sightseer's mecca unless your idea of sightseeing is to visit the top 20 in the Ugly Giant Condo Building Sweepstakes.

But there are a few places worth visiting.  Some of them I have seen on this trip, and some on other trips.  I'll take them in order from north to south.  The key road is Florida Route 699, which runs down the long strip of barrier island beaches all the way from Clearwater to St. Petersburg and Pass-a-Grille beaches.  It's not a fast road (speed limits vary between 25 and 35 mph) but then, this is a holiday so who's racing the clock?  Not me, for one!

In Clearwater Beach, there are plenty of gigantic palatial ugly condos.  This kind of resort isn't about getting away from it all.  It's about bringing it all with you.

But it's the Clearwater Marine Aquarium which is a must-see.  It's unique even when compared to other aquaria.  That's because this one is primarily a marine hospital, dedicated to healing injured marine wildlife and (when possible) returning them to the wild.  One of the fascinating aspects is meeting with the naturalists who explain exactly why this dolphin or that sea turtle is unable to survive unaided in the wild.  Their most famous dolphin lost her tail after an accident, and has been learning to swim with a prosthetic tail!  One of the sea turtles has suffered a permanent injury (probably from being hit by a boat) which prevents her from submerging -- it's like she has a permanent airbag inside her tail end which keeps her tail always above the water.

Going south from Clearwater you pass through Belleair Beach and Indian Rocks Beach, where there are more private homes and everything is on a much more modest scale.  The condos reappear in Redington Beach, but are not nearly as overpowering.  Along the way there are plenty of restaurants, often in older wooden buildings of great character, and assorted shops.  Big national brands are notable by their absence.  If you want those, cross one of the seven causeways linking the barrier islands to the mainland.

Carrying on south through Madeira Beach you come to Madeira Beach Village, a sort-of quaint shopping area.  A few miles farther south is John's Pass.  The "Pass" in this case refers to a navigable channel between islands from the inner lagoon to the ocean.  John's Pass was originally a fishing village, and still retains a bit of that character, but is now mainly a shopping and dining attraction.  Several of the restaurants have outdoor decks overlooking the Pass, and there is a long boardwalk stretching along the shore where you can see fishing boats, private yachts and cruisers, and pelicans.

Every time I see the pelicans, I'm always reminded of a limerick I first read many years ago:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

his pouch can hold more than his belican,

He can store in his beak

Enough fish for a week,

Though I'm darned if I see how the helican.

As you continue down across Treasure Island and onto St. Petersburg Beach (always called St. Pete Beach for short), the surroundings get ever more touristy.  St. Pete Beach has more shopping facilities than any of the other beach communities, including half a dozen old-style surf and beach stores.  Also, the mainland chains begin appearing here.  Sigh.  At the last causeway, you see the palatial "pink palace", Loews Don Cesar Hotel, one of those classic old resorts that dotted the main beaches of Florida back in the first half of the last century.  Few now remain, and this is one of the best.

Past Don Cesar, the road gets narrower and slower as you make your way down to the old-style village of Pass-a-Grille.  The houses here are small, the streets narrow, and the beach spectacular and wide and beautiful.  If you are looking for a good ocean beach to relax on for a day, or a place to stroll around some unusual shops, this is a great location.

But back north to the last causeway, the Pinellas Bayway.  Note that this is the only one of the seven crossings that charges a toll -- $0.75, which is almost enough to break the bank!  It's a chain of bridges connecting several islands over to the mainland.  Halfway across, there's a right turn that takes you down to Fort de Soto Park.  There's one further toll bridge on this road, and that's the only admission fee you have to pay.  What I love about Fort de Soto park is that so much of it looks just as this coast looked when the first Europeans arrived: sand dunes, sawgrass, marshes, channels.  The beach here is probably the widest and certainly the wildest on the entire coastal section.  Since the whole island is a state park there is no development, no concessions to rent you a beach chair or a sailboat, no condos, no noisy restaurants.  Bring your own picnic, or grab a bite to eat from the food stand at the parking lot.  And then you can really relax, and genuinely get away from it all.

I have to finish my packing and head for the airport today (waaaah -- the weather has been uncommonly sunny and warm all week and still is).  Give me a day or so to recover from the flight home, and I'll continue the journey south in my next post.

(Note:  most of the pictures on this post are not mine.

I'm writing this while I'm still on the road and most

of the good ones are stored in my home computer.

I haven't migrated my files to CloudCuckooLand yet!)