Sun soaked: The best beaches on Florida’s Gulf Coast

by Gadling Staff on

It’s not all tar balls in Florida. Along Florida’s Gulf Coast you’ll find some of the most beautiful beaches in the south, and some so private you’d think you were on your own private island. Where are these pristine paradises? Read on, and don’t forget your sunscreen!

Indian Rocks Beach (12th Street), Florida: Grab breakfast at Crabby Bills followed by a day at this beach, where egrets strut behind the fisherman and dolphins minuet between the markers. Outdoor showers dot each public beach access and ample parking across the street means anyone can enjoy this beach. When you’re done with floating around on your noodle, dine at IRB Sushi, Guppy’s or Villa Gallaci, or catch the bands at J.D.’s and My Place.

Caladesi Island, Florida: This unspoiled sanctuary was raked America’s #1 Beach 2008. Nature trails and a family-oriented nature center grace the area, and that’s about all –well, except for the beach, of course. Caladesi Island Ferry departs from Honeymoon Island State Park to Caladesi, where you can surf, fish, shell, kayak, dock your boat at the marina and cruise the snack and gift shop.

Anna Marie Island, Florida: North of Bradenton and Sarasota, locals know to head over to the talcum powder sands outside the SandBar. By noon, yachts are moored, boat drinks are hoisted and mahi and burgers are served on the patio. Anna Marie Cottages is a stone’s throw from the pristine Gulf beaches, where savvy vacations know to book a room for the night. Head to dinner at the Waterfront or Rotten Ralphs, or down Longboat Key to the top Zagat’s pick, Euphemia Hayes. No lifeguards on duty, so these benign beaches are best for adults.

Turtle Beach, Florida: Siesta Key is a barhopper’s haven, especially Daiquiri Deck, but this haven on Turtle Beach is for locals only. No lifeguard in sight, but free parking, picnic tables, playground, shower and restrooms, plus a nearby boat launch make it a handy weekend retreat for those who prefer reading under a beach umbrella with a cooler full of sandwiches and chips.

Nanette Wiser is a Seed.com contributer.

From the Shores of Louisiana: Jon takes to the road

by Jon Bowermaster on

From the Shores of Louisiana: Jon Bowermaster from gadling on Vimeo.

Lafayette, Louisiana — It’s a steamy, early-summer day in Southern Louisiana – expecting the “heat index” to top out today around 108 degrees F! – but it’s good to be back on the ground here. I’ve been coming every few months for the past two years, producing a documentary film, and it’s started to feel like a second-home. One with really good food … and music.

Yesterday, evidence of the impact of the oil spill came home when I went in search of an oyster po-boy. At the first couple stops, café owners apologized for not having any … a first in their lifetimes … because the oyster beds have been shut now for more than five weeks. When I finally did find one, something didn’t feel quite right, so I asked: The oysters came from … somewhere else, outside Louisiana, was all the server could offer with a shrug.

While the spill is conversation number one (with World Cup football second), I can feel a kind of creeping frustration/resignation settling in.

In Lafayette, which has more oil-industry jobs per capita than anywhere other than Midland, Texas, there’s a fair amount of rumbling in the bars and on the street corners about the deepwater drilling moratorium, with a majority believing the New Orleans’ federal judge’s decision to start up again is a good one.

There’s lots of concern about where all that oil waste is heading. A few people have brought up concerns about the health of the workers involved in the clean-up; apparently BP is against the workers wearing respirators on the job because 1) it looks bad on camera and 2) they’re afraid people with their faces covered are going to overheat and collapse.

There’s concern too that while BP appears to be saying all the right things right now in regard to its long-term commitment and willingness to pay all “legitimate” claims that six months from now, a year from now … locals will be locked in fights with the mega-company for their money.

From the Shores of Louisiana: A letter from a Louisiana fisherman

by Jon Bowermaster on

Among the many I’ve met and worked with in southern Louisiana (SoLa) these past two years, making a film about the relationship between man and the sea, no couple has impressed me more than Tracy Kuhns and Michael Roberts. Committed to family, community, and the environmental concerns of them all, they share many hats: Both work as the Louisiana Bayoukeepers. Mike is a fulltime fisherman and when he’s not fishing, a builder. Tracy runs the local Fisherman’s Association They have kids and grandkids and neighbors along the watery canals where they all keep their fishing boats tied. I shared their story with you a couple Dispatches back, from Barataria

Tracy is usually the front person; she was the one who got the Mayor of Lafitte on the phone the other day when I was visiting, haranguing him to decide if the fishery was open or not. Mike often stands in the background, especially when it comes to journalists. But he was the one who compared BP execs to terrorists, for the damage the local economy and fishing grounds that now appears will last for many, many years. Last Sunday, Mike and Tracy went out from their home on the waters leading to Barataria Bay and the Gulf to see just how bad it is. Below is an email Mike sent me after we’d visited:

The boat ride, out from Lafitte, Louisiana on Sunday to our fishing grounds was like any other I have taken in my life as a commercial fisherman from this area. I have made this same trip thousands of times in my 35 plus years of shrimping and crabbing.

A warm breeze in my face, it is a typical Louisiana summer day. Three people were with me — my wife Tracy, Ian Wren, and our grandson, Scottie. I was soon to find out just how untypical this day would become for me, not unlike a death in the family. This was going to be a very bad day for me.

As we neared Barataria Bay, the smell of crude oil in the air got thicker and thicker. The approach of the fishing grounds, an event that has always brought joy to me all of my life, was slowly turning into a nightmare. As we entered Grand Lake, the name we fishermen call Barataria Bay, I started to see a weird, glassy look to the water and soon it became evident there was oil sheen as far as I could see. Soon, we were running past patches of red oil floating on top of the water. As we headed farther south we saw at least a dozen boats, which from a distance appeared to be shrimping. But we soon realized that shrimping was not what they were doing at all; instead they were towing oil booms in a desperate attempt to corral oil that was pouring into our fishing grounds. We stopped to talk to one of the fishermen towing a boom, a young fisherman from Lafitte. What he told me floored me. “What we are seeing in the lake, the oil, was but a drop in the bucket of what was to come,” he said. He had just come out of the Gulf of Mexico and said, “It was unbelievable, and the oil runs for miles and miles and was headed for shore and into our fishing grounds. I thought what I had already seen in the lake was bad enough for a lifetime. We talked a little while longer, gave the fisherman some protective respirators, and were soon on our way. As we left the small fleet of boats working feverishly, trying to corral the oil, I became overwhelmed with what I had seen.

I am not real emotional and consider myself a pretty tough guy. You have to be to survive as a fisherman. But as I left that scene, tears flowed down my face and I cried. Something I have not done in a long time, but would do several more times this day. I tried not to let my grandson, Scottie, see me crying. I didn’t think he would understand, that I was crying for his stolen future. None of this will be the same, for decades to come. The damage is going to be immense and I do not think our lives here in South Louisiana will ever be the same. He is too young to understand. He has an intense love for our way of life here. He wants to be a fisherman and a fishing guide when he gets older. That’s all he’s ever wanted. It is what he is, it is in his soul, and it is his culture. How can I tell him that this may never come to pass now, now that everything he loves in the outdoors may soon be destroyed by this massive oil spill? How do we tell this to a generation of young people in south Louisiana who live and breathe this bayou life that they love so much, could soon be gone? How do we tell them? All this raced through my mind and I wept.

We continued farther south towards Grand Terre Island. We approached Bird Island. Its real name is Queen Bess Island, but we call it Bird Island, because it is always full of birds. It is a rookery, a nesting island for thousands of birds, pelicans, terns, gulls and more. As we got closer we saw that protective booms had been placed around about two thirds of the island. But it was obvious to me that oil had gone under the boom and was fouling the shore and had undoubtedly oiled some birds. My God. We would see this scene again at Cat Island and other unnamed islands. We continued on to the east past Coup Abel Pass and saw more shrimp boats trying to contain some of the oil on the surface. We arrived at 4 Bayou Pass to see more boats working on the same thing. We beached the boat and decided to look at the beach between the passes.

The scene was one of horror to me. There was thick red oil on the entire stretch of beach, with oil continuing to wash ashore. The water looked to be infused with red oil, with billions of what appeared to be red pebbles of oil washing up on the beach with every wave. The red oil pebbles, at the high tide mark on the beach, were melting into pools of red goo under the hot Louisiana sun. The damage was overwhelming. There was nobody there to clean it up. It would take an army to do it. Like so much of coastal Louisiana, it was accessible only by boat. Will it ever be cleaned up? I don’t know. Tears again. We soon left that beach and started to head home.

We took a little different route home, staying a little farther to the east side of Barataria Bay. As we approached the northern end of the bay, we ran into another raft of oil that appeared to be covering many square miles. It was only a mile from the interior bayous on the north side of Barataria Bay. My God. No boats were towing boom in this area. I do not think anyone even knew it was there. A little bit farther north we saw some shrimp boats with boom, on anchor, waiting to try and protect Bayou St. Dennis from the oil. I alerted them that oil was on its way. I hope they were able to control it before it reached the bayou. We left them and started towards home.

My heart never felt so heavy as on that ride in. I thought to myself, This is the most I’ve cried since I was a baby. In fact I am sure it was. This will be a summer of tears for a lot of us in south Louisiana.

JB: I spoke with Tracy after their exploration. She was no less moved:

“We are heartbroken. The oil has moved into Barataria Bay and is heading north. The southern half of our fishing grounds is closed. Seeing grown, tough men cry and knowing our grandchildren, like Scottie, who’s life and career dreams are related to bayou life, is something to hard to watch or think about. The government, whose sole purpose is to protect the health and safety of its citizens has and is continuing to fail the people. They are allowing BP to kill the Gulf of Mexico and its coastal communities. Shame on them, how can they sleep at night?”

Rare, really smelly Sumatran “Corpse Flower” to bloom at Houston museum

by Laurel Miller on

The botanical world is a fascinating thing, but fans of “Little Shop of Horrors” will be especially excited about the eminent blooming of the endangered Amorphophallus titanum, at the Cockrell Butterfly Center at Houston’s Museum of Natural Science. Nicknamed the “Corpse Flower” for the unholy stench it emits in bloom, the phallic-looking plant is one of the largest, rarest flowers in the world. Native to parts of Indonesia (I’ve seen Raffelsia, a similar flower from a different family, on a trek in Thailand’s stunning Khao Sok National Park) these suckers can reach up to 10 feet in height, with a diameter of up to six feet. Early explorers in Sumatra actually believed the flower was a man-eating plant.

“Lois,” Cockrell’s resident Corpse Flower, is about to bloom for the first time, and visitors can check it out for themselves in person, or via webcam. Lois even has her own blog, and Twitter account (not affiliated with the museum). Says Dr. Nancy Greig, director of the Center, “The Corpse Flower is unique because it’s totally unpredictable. No one really knows what triggers a given plant to flower, and [it may] flower once in its lifetime. We’ve had ours for six years and this is the first time it has bloomed-we’re very lucky. It may be the largest, smelliest flower in the world, but its beauty is unparalleled.” Lois is one of perhaps only 30 cultivated Corpse Flowers to ever bloom in the U.S..

If you want to see (and smell) Lois for yourself, she’s due to flower at any second; the museum is open 24 hours until she does. Check her blog for updates.

[Photo credit: Flickr user lornagrl]

Ghost Forest brings attention to rainforest threat

by Sean McLachlan on


A Ghost Forest is stalking Europe.

Giant trees from Ghana have appeared in Copenhagen, Trafalgar Square in London, and now Oxford. It’s called the Ghost Forest Art Project, and it’s an innovative way to bring the plight of the world’s rainforests to public attention.

Artist Angela Palmer wanted to share her concern with the public about tropical rainforests, which are disappearing fast. An area the size of a football pitch vanishes every four seconds, and most are never replaced. Not only does this reduce biodiversity and nature’s way of absorbing atmospheric carbon, but it leads to soil erosion and long-term economic problems. Since Europe is a major consumer of rainforest wood, and there are no rainforests in Europe, Palmer decided to bring the rainforest to Europe.

She hauled a collection of stumps from the commercially logged Suhuma forest in western Ghana all the way to Europe. Ghana lost 90 percent of its forest due to overlogging before the government got serious about conservation. Now the remaining forest is being logged in a sustainable manner under strict supervision. The stumps mostly fell due to storms, but three were actually logged. To offset the carbon footprint of shipping these behemoths hundreds of miles, Palmer contributed to a project that distributes efficient stoves to Ghanaian villages. These stoves use less wood than traditional stoves and reduce the need for cutting.

First stop was Copenhagen, just in time for last year’s UN Climate Change conference. This was followed by a visit to Trafalgar Square before the trees were installed in front of Oxford University’s famous Museum of Natural History. A fitting display for 2010, which is the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity. Next year will be the Year of Forests.

I’ve seen this exhibit in person and I have to say the stumps are truly awe inspiring. Their sheer size, and the realization that they were once alive, made me think about our place in this world. My four-year-old was impressed too, and I hope that some of these giant trees will still be standing when he’s my age.


Image Courtesy Ghost Forest.

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