We made a day trip there the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The weather was nice and sunny for a change. It’s right on the Gulf just about straight south of Tallahassee.
This is a great wildlife refuge, but unfortunately they have no camping. There is no real sandy beach area but there are nice trails to bike and walk and of course a boat launch where you can put in and then head right offshore to the Gulf of Mexico. The lighthouse makes for interesting photos and there is a gift shop.
We like it better in the cooler months. I don’t know if it’s just prettier with more wildlife or if in the summer it’s just too hot to care. We missed the annual Monarch Butterfly migration again this year. They congregate there feeding until they make their long migration south. It’s supposed to be quite a site.
The area is more of a marsh land than beach area but there are a few small areas with some sandy beach.
While in the area, we made a trip to Wilderness Kayaks in Crawfordville, Florida to check out some new kayaks. We recently discovered Hurricane brand kayaks. They are made with a new lighter material called Trylon. We’re thinking about trading our Wilderness Tarpon’s out for the much lighter Hurricane Phoenix boats. We actually got to test paddle a 13 foot boat and it appeared to be stable and tracked well. We love our Tarpon’s but they are about 30 pounds heavier than the 12 foot Hurricane sit on top kayak we looked at. Of course we’d have to sell ours and would take a beating on that deal. We want to use our Honda CRv as a toad behind our motorhome instead of our truck that we currently use. We currently put the kayaks in the back of the truck bed but with the CRv we will have to put them on a roof rack on the top. We looked at a few Yakima and Thule roof mounts and they are a bit pricey. Maybe we’ll have to wait a little while. It’s good to know there is another option.
Hurricane Phoenix kayak
