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Get outta town!
Splash! magazine examines get-aways within a day's drive
Drive to Apalachicola and get to know 'Florida's Forgotten Coast'
By Tina Horton Special to Splash! magazine
 | | Kayakers cruise the glassy bay waters, above, and scallops are prepared for consumption, at left. Apalachicola and the surrounding area offer a natural view of Florida, earning it the name "Florida's Forgotten Coast." |
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Need an idea for a great, late summer weekend getaway? Consider a visit to Apalachicola and the bays, rivers and inlets of "Florida's Forgotten Coast" where you can go paddle, snorkel or even scallop through the dog days of summer.
Pack up your canoe or kayak and head for St. Joseph Bay. No boat? No problem. Area outfitters will be more than happy to rent you everything you need for exploring the 73,000 acres of pristine St. Joe waterways.
One of our favorite outfitters is Happy Ours Kayak and Canoe Rentals, tollfree,
(866) 229-1991, www.happyourskayak.com. Happy Ours has the distinction of being located directly on St. Joe Bay and that means you can launch from the outfitters' sandy beach without having to load up for transport to a put-in spot.
If you're a little uncertain about how to get started, Happy Ours proprietors Dan and Debbie VanVleet will give you hands-on instruction when you launch. "This helps give novices a comfort zone," says Debbie.
 | | Tina Horton / Special to Splash! magazine |
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Half-day trips are usually the best option for first-time paddlers, according to Debbie. "You may spend only about half that time actually paddling," she says. "You'll want to get out of your kayak often to wade and explore! The bay here is shallow, and many of our kayaks are sit-on-tops that are easy to get in and out of and that makes exploring even easier."
Many visitors are finding the guided eco-tours well worth the price. "This is not a boring lecture tour, but a hands-on, touch-and-feel learning experience," says Dan. "Ecotours give you a greater understanding of how the many creatures in the bay live in harmony.We like to talk about the legend of the pen shell, the medical uses of horseshoe crab and many little-known historical facts about the bay area itself. We also visit ancient Indian burial grounds and I tell stories about pirate treasures while we're paddling over areas from which Civil War ships once fired cannon balls at the shore."
What You Will See
St. Joe Bay's shallow waters provide a clear view of grass beds and sand flats below as you paddle along. You'll see redfish swirling on the surface, mullet jumping out of your way and schools of baitfish running from some unknown predator. Watch closely and you might also spy horseshoe crab, starfish and live shells mosying along the bay bottom. In the deeper channels around Black's Island, you may see bottle-nosed dolphin frolicking or sea turtles surfacing for a breath of fresh air. Occasionally, a manatee will be sighted.
If you enjoy snorkeling, just drop anchor in the shallows. Here, you could see stingrays, octopus, starfish, blue crabs and more live shells. Scallop shells, in particular, are plentiful all over the Bay. If you encounter the round, white cannonball jellyfish, reach down with your crab net and scoop one up for a closer look. Local fisherman harvest the cannonball jellyfish, dry them off and ship them by the tons to Asia, where they are consumed as a delicacy.
Almost two miles south of the tip of Cape San Blas, you can see the remains of an old shrimp boat. It's small, but it's one of the few wrecks you will find in St. Joe Bay and it's a great place for kids to snorkel.
Don't forget to look UP! The pine forests, salt marshes, and estuaries surrounding the bay support a wide variety of birds. Annual migrations of warblers, vireos, tanagers, grosbeaks, falcons and hawks are common sights in the spring and fall. Threatened or endangered species find refuge here, so keep a look out for the rare blue heron, snowy egret, Eastern brown pelican, osprey and marsh hawk even the bald eagle can be spotted here.
"The snorkeling has been fabulous this summer," Debbie says. "We've seen a lot of starfish and more sea turtle sightings than ever before. And the weather almost every day has been perfect for kayaking."
Try Your Hand at Scalloping
It's like searching for Easter eggs under water! And, according to Debbie, late August is a good time to harvest "first year" scallops. "By now, the older 'second year" shells have been pretty well picked over," she explains. "But the first year scallops will be coming on soon. We caution our clients to collect shells that are at least two inches across. There is little meat in the smaller scallops, so gathering those is a real waste."
Midto late summer is the only time of year you can catch your own scallops in Florida, since recreational scallop season is open only from July 1 until September 10 and only from the Suwannee River to the Alabama state line. (Scalloping is closed over the entire Florida peninsula from the Georgia State line to the Suwannee River.)
"You'll want to look for patches where there is a sandy bottom surrounded by sea grass," Dan advises. "The water will be about 8-10 feet deep, and you should see the scallops right around the perimeter. And, if you don't see any after a few tries, move on. The beds can get kind of picked over this late in the season."
Perhaps the easiest way to gather scallops is in grassy, shallow areas where you can simply wade in and pick them up. If you wade, be sure to wear some type of wading shoes or boots and don't forget to have a bag (a mesh one works well) handy for your catch. If you're scalloping from shore and not using a snorkel, you won't need a saltwater fishing license; if you snorkel, first check with Marine Patrol in the area about whether you should purchase a license.
In addition to mesh bags and sunscreen, you'll want to pack masks, swim fins, snorkels and a dive flag (it's the law). It's also helpful for someone on the kayak or boat to have polarized sunglasses for scouting the waters for scallops.
Recreational scallopers are limited to two gallons of whole scallops per person. Unless the scallops are running large, the two-gallon whole scallop limit cleans out to considerably less than one pint of meats. (By the way, the scallop you're most likely to find in these waters are the Atlantic Bay Scallop and the Calico Scallop.)
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