Back from my Vacation

Well, I am back from my week and a half vacation to beautiful St. Pete Beach, and it was very nice. We did go back home for a couple days for Hurricane Dennis, while it passed by. First of all, I was pleased to see when we arrived that the red tide was not very bad at all. We stayed in a condo of a friend of ours which was really nice and had its own private beach. It is much nicer to have a condo, because you have a kitchen and other stuff, so it is almost like a regular house as compared to a hotel, and much cheaper. There were really good waves the first 5 days we were there until the hurricane was gone. The rest of the week the water was flat, crystal clear, and very relaxing. I was very pleased I could get in a decent amount of boogie boarding in during the early part of my trip

Prior to our trip I got a new Morey Boogie boogie board at Sam's Club. I got it at a very good price. It really made a difference out on the waves compared to my old generic boogie board that I got a few years ago. On Monday after hurricane Dennis was some of the best waves of the trip. I got in a good 3 hours of boarding in the afternoon. While out there I met another guy, looked to be in his forties. He was a local and he was the only one besides me who was boogie boarding. All the others out there were surfers, which I stay away from because those things are dangerous if you get in the way of them. Anyways, the other boogie boarder I met out there was very good and gave me lots of pointers on how to read the waves and how to ride them better. It really helped as I have never received any advanced instruction on proper boogie boarding. I was kind of disappointed that day was the last day of that swell, as the rest of our vacation was very flat, but my wife was glad of that. She was getting tired of me being out there all afternoon boogie boarding. But I warned her on the way out to the beach that there was only going to be a couple days during the hurricane where there is going to be awesome waves and that the rest of the week would be flat. A great site to check out if you are interested in Gulf coast surfing is Gulfster. They have daily surf reports, photos, and also live beach cams.

Well enough about boogie boarding. Some of the things we did while on our vacation was my wife and I drove down to Ft. Desoto beach because I had never seen it and heard that it was recently voted the #1 beach in the country. That is hard to believe a beach here would be better than the beaches in Hawaii. My wife had been there many times as a child but not in recent years. We got there and it was very beautiful and quiet and also bigger than I thought it would be. We parked and I walked out to the beach to check it out. When I got out there it was very nice and found out why it is the #1 beach in America. It was the first time I had ever been to a beach and looked back from the water and saw no resorts or hotels, but just land. I t was very natural and quiet, like you were on your own tropical island in the middle of nowhere. It looked liked the way I would imagine Florida looked when it was first discovered. When I got back to the car I told my wife that we are definitely coming back here. The rest of the park is also very nice and very clean. There are multiple beaches there to choose from and you can also visit the Fort which looked pretty neat. There is also so many other things to do at the park also so check out the link above.

We also went to a couple restaurants while there that I will tell you about. One night when early in our trip we got a pizza at Gennaro's down the road in Passe a Grille. Another night we dined at the famous Habana Cafe in Gulfport. They serve authentic Cuban food and it was very delicious as was the sangria, I definitely recommend this place. We also tried some grouper sandwiches from Red Grouper that claim to have the best grouper sandwich. It was ok but certainly not best.

That is about it for my vacation to the beach. Most of the days we just swam in the ocean or pool or went for a walk down the beach and during the middle hot part of the day we would lounge around the condo and relax. Later.....