A Day of Caching and Sightseeing on St George Island 2/16/2008

We left early this morning for our trip to St George Island one of Florida's Gulf Coast barrier islands. It's just 4 miles offshore between Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It is known for its secluded beaches, Apalachicola Bay oysters and abundant local seafood. We started with a cache located on the fishing pier after crossing the 4 mile long bridge connecting the island to the mainland. Then it was on to a small park and a cache under the gazebo where they are presently building a new lighthouse to replace the old lighthouse, which was built in 1852, after it collapsed into the ocean on Oct. 25, 2005. Next was a cache under a boardwalk, then one located at a ice dispensing machine (for some reason the cachers here have a propensity to hide caches in and around these roadside bag ice dispensers as this is the 2nd one we have done around here), then it was into a small nature park for a cache located on a nature trail.
We then drove into St George Island State Park for 3 caches. The first was at an old oyster skiff set as a that was set there as a reminder of a very important way of making a living in this area. The skiffs vary from 19-25' long with flat bottoms and wide decks and a small cabin at the stern. They stand on these decks to operate the tongs which are 15' scissor like rakes that scrape the bay bottom and collect the oysters into the tong's attached baskets. The oysters are then hauled to the surface and dumped onto a sorting table called a "cull" board. When the culling board is full , clumps of oysters are separated with a culling iron and the 3" local sized oysters are bagged. The remaining shell and undersized oysters are then raked back overboard to be harvested another day. Oysters were first harvested commercially in 1850. Oyster harvesting reached a peak in 1981 when approximately 6.6 million pounds of them were landed. In 1985 2 hurricanes hit and almost wiped out the oyster harvesting business as it covered the beds with sand and silt. Recovery has been slow but has gotten better as of late due to the creating of new beds being formed by placing empty shells on the old beds. Apalachicola Bay provides 90% of the oysters harvested in FL and 10% for all of the United States. Then we were off to a virtual cache located at one of the beach accesses and the last cache was on another of the boardwalks in the park.
The St George Island State park is 9 miles long with only 4 miles of it accessible by road. The other 5 miles is accessible on foot or bike and is a protected area. The park covers 1,962 acres of the east end of the island with NO homes at all along the beaches. It was so so beautiful to see the white sands and blue water with no homes along the shoreline. You couldn't see anyone for miles as you stood on the beach and looked each way. So so peaceful and quiet and all you could hear was the waves lapping, the wind blowing and the birds chirping. The park does allow swimming, sunbathing, canoeing, kayaking, surf and bay fishing, picnicing and has primitive tent camping at Gap Point and also a campgrounds with 60 sites. We can't tell you how lovely it was as words couldn't describe it.
Then was on back to the campgrounds as we viewed the still lingering damage of Hurricanes Frances and Ivan in 2004. You wouldn't believe the homes that are still sitting on the shore with parts falling into the ocean, new developments that evidently started before the hurricanes hit and were never reopened, lots and property for sale, new roads that were replaced when the old ones were washed away, so so many different things you can see by just looking at the area. We got back and had lunc, I watched the SU-Georgetown game (they looked really good today) and the did our logs and the blog and we are going to order pizza tonight. We time to say till tomorrow and we love and miss you all.


Picture List: 1-3 Pristine beaches and dunes on St George Island in the state park, 4-Sunrise through our front window of the RV, 5 & 6-Oyster Skiff in St george Island SP, 7-New lighthouse on St George Island to replace the old one, 8-10-Yes there is a house behind all that driftwood piled up in front of it by the owner....they really liked driftwood we guessed.