Tag Archives: coast

Pacific Coast Sunset in Orange County :: Friday Feet

25 Apr

Sunset on the Pacific Ocean

This is hardly where I spent most of the day on Friday, but then after Catalyst West Coast was over I was so exhausted I decided to drive over to the coast to watch the sunset.  I ended up down near the Balboa Peninsula on the PCH and walked out to the beach just in time.  I have been in Southern Cal for 4 days, it has been cold and cloudy the whole time (after it was 100* the day before I got here) and late on Friday the skies just opened up.  It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had witnessed in a long time and I will make it my Friday Feet post for this week.

For those looking for Catalyst West Coast images… I will start to post some of those when I get back. I am on my way to the airport right now, thanks to everyone at Catalyst and Mariner’s Church that made this week such a inspirational time.

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Photos From Gulf Shores State Park Beaches

7 Apr

Tent at Night in Gulf Shores

I finally got around to editing some of the photos from our camping trip last weekend.  We stayed at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores Alabama, just down the road from where we use to live in Orange Beach at Bearpoint Marina.  This state park is one of the larger ones, but a little less on the “camping” side and a little more on the RV side of camp grounds.

We have visited this park several times before and it is a very well developed area just on the other side of the main road from the beach.  It does border the lake that is in the area and there is a golf course in the park as well, but if you are looking for a camping spot on the actual beach this is not it (nor were we expecting it to be).  It does have great access to the Gulf State Park beaches which are starting to get a little crowded at this point.  If you want an empty beach in the same area, same beautiful white sand, just take a short drive down to the National Seashore in Florida called the Gulf Islands National Seashore (though they don’t allow pets on the beach).

One thing about this area is the hurricane damage that is still present in the tree line.  Several years ago a hurricane topped all the tress around here so if you look at what is normally a pretty full pine tree forest type area, you see sort of a tree trunk grave yard. Pretty weird looking but some of the photos below are a few trees that made it among all the ones that were topped, and the smaller ones that have emerged.

We have been to all these beaches and most of the restaurants in the area so many times that we will probably make our way east next time toward Panama City where we haven’t spent so much time.  All in all it was wonderful and relaxing as always, and I did get to take a few photos while we were there.  You can see the complete slideshow of photos here on flickr.

Birds on the Beach

Sand on the Beach

Shells on the Beach

Water and Shells

Shell on the Beach

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On the Beach Again with the Whole Family :: Friday Feet

3 Apr

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Last weekend Deb and I went back down to Gulf Shores for a quick camping trip.  Of course, being that we were camping we had no Internet access (at least non-cellular) which was weird, so I have some catching up to do on my blog.  I haven’t missed a Friday Feet post since I started it last year so this post-dated version was from last Friday.

Always an interesting weather time weather wise down here where thunderstorms usually start to roll in and winter still tries to hang on.  One day it is freezing and the next is it hot.  Thursday we arrived to a blustering tornaic frontal system and Friday it was sunny and hot.  It was still a great time to relax away from the computer and start thinking about Holy Week coming up.

I have several posts coming up on photos from that weekend, a few book reviews, and many more, stay tuned.  Have a great Holy Week this week.

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

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An Empty Beach in Outer Banks North Carolina

14 May

Empty Beach in North Carolina

This is just one of probably 5,000 images I have of an empty beach. People often tell me they can’t find any beaches without big crowds anymore, especially here in the continental U.S., but I beg to differ. More often than not, Deborah and I find ourselves on a beach with less than 10 people in a 5 square mile area.  This beach is one of our favorites.  In North Carolina you can go to the Outer Banks and find empty beach after beach.

Of course one of the keys to finding an empty beach is going when everyone else doesn’t want to go.  This may sound stupid, but if you want to get a tan and lay in the sun, then go where everyone else is going.  If you are interested in walking on a place like the photo below, go in the off season, it is great.  So far, we have been able to find empty beaches in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and some incredible ones in Alabama.

Empty Beach in North Carolina

They are certainly nice places still left, you just have to look. This is one of our favorites spots, and it is usually empty all year long with white sand and no trash. It is COLD in the winter winds, but still a great place to spend an afternoon, and today, it is the image of the day.

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Dinner at LuLu’s Homeport and the Bama Breeze

25 Apr

bama breeze

We drove down to the coast today. We try to come down to the gulf coast as often as we can since this is where our sailboat is located (see this blog under the category coastal or tagged under sailboat). This is actually getting more of a challenge with the price of gas now close to $4.00/gallon down here, but it is still reachable, just would be nice in some gas friendly car.

Who knows, I may look back at this post in 6 months and the price may be $5.00/gallon by then. Makes our trip to Colorado in late summer a load of fun, gas wise.  Either way, we love it down here and we try to come as often as we can (which seems to never be enough).  Our favorite time to come down to the gulf coast is in the off season, you never have to wait for a table and the beaches are always clean and empty.  Of course one thing we love to do while we are down here on the coast is eat, and Orange Beach and Gulf Shores has no shortage of good places to eat.

There is Some Great Food Down Here

There are several restaurants we love eating at down here. Tonight are going to LuLu’s at Homeport, which is a localish restaurant (meaning it is half touristy and half locals) and tonight should be a great set by John Reno and The Half-Fast Creekers.

John Reno andthe half-fast creekers

The band played longer than we stuck around but they played a nice mix of their own music and the usual known pop most bands play for the tourists. I guess those here for their vacation expect to hear Cheese Burger in Paradise at some point when they come down here. Deborah and I enjoy hearing songs we know, but we do like hearing the original music each band creates, they all have their own flavor.

His music can be defined as trop rock – a mixture of rock-n-roll with an island theme. John Reno and the Half-Fast Creekers have been described as Hoagy Carmichael meets Toby Keith in Margaritaville! -LuLu’s

One reason we love to go to LuLu’s when we are down here is for the live music. It isn’t the most quiet place in the world for sure, and probably not the cheapest, but if you are in Alabama’s gulf coast, stop by and have their open faced crab melt sandwich and enjoy some local music.

Nature in View

Down here there is always something going on. When we got back from dinner we had a nice pod of dolphins that were having a feast on the fish they had pushed into the cove across from our sailboat. We watched them jump, play, and eat for about 30 minutes and then sat in the cockpit of our boat and listened to them until we went to sleep.

There is always the Pelican, Sea Gull, and all the other water birds constantly flying around but we also have a pesky Gray Heron that seems to think our slip is his domain. He squawked at me several times trying to get on the boat and then again as he reclaimed his territory. The dolphins were kicking up so many fish that he was just waiting to pounce and he several nice dinners.

Other Images

A few other images from LuLu’s last night. The Bama Breeze (from the song of the same name, but I am pretty sure this is not the original) is just off the sand mound from LuLu’s and for the previous year we had been coming to this restaurant we didn’t even know it was out there. There was also another photographer there last night, she was shooting some private party but we shot her shooting them (really cool dreds too).

Scott at LuLu's at Homeport

The wait for a table in the summer time is supposed to be very very long, but we have never had to wait for a table, not once. Of course we have been there mostly in the winter and early dinner in summer but, still, no wait at all.

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What You Do in January in a Cold Marina

11 Jan

View of the Sunset from the Marina

Now that the cold weather is here this is what you do, sit and knit. It is now to cold to sit outside in the cockpit for any extended period of time but we can still come down for the weekend and enjoy being here. Here is Deb sitting under a bunch of blankets knitting on the boat. Surprised she doesn’t have on her mittens and ear muffs but we did get the heater working this summer, thank goodness.

There will be warmer days but we still had a nice weekend down on the boat. Once again we were treated to wonderful sunsets, right off the transom but it was a little to cold to go outside and do much. What I should be doing right now is getting a list of all the things I want to do on the boat when it gets warmer but who can get motivated in this cold.

Deborah knitting on the boat in the marina

We did take several trips over to the beach where I could do some much needed walking and DK could knit, in the shelter of our tent. Photos of that will be coming soon, pictured above are two shots I took with my iPhone, not bad for a phone camera.  The first is of Deborah of course, knitting on the boat in the heat, the second was taken from the cockpit, both with my camera phone.

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Pitching a Tent on the Empty Gulf Shores Beach

14 Oct

The weather is wonderful. It is cooling down, finally, and we found this fabulous tent thing at the dollar store. Can I hide out here forever? Scott says no, so tomorrow it is back to the house and back to our day jobs.

When we arrived at the boat there was a pod of dolphins, about 50 to 100 individuals, there to greet us. They were chasing schools of fish toward the shore and having a feast. Fascinating! Today we are off to the Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores. Scott loves shrimp. Me, not so much. But I did spot a corn dog vendor yesterday while we were touring the arts and crafts part of the festival, so I’m set.  I love sitting on the beach with not another person around.  The photo here is just about what it is like here right now, empty on this beach.  It is October and everyone is doing other things.

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Annual October Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores

13 Oct

We were able to come down for the weekend but not much else. When we got here we discovered that this was the time for the annual shrimp festival so we figured we might as well check it out while we were down here. We didn’t get much work done on the boat but we did see several beautiful sunsets while we were here this time.

There really is not much better a time at a marina than those months between Memorial Day and Labor Day (or vise-versa I can never keep them straight in my mind).  Anyway, the time between October and April at a marina is cold and dreary sometimes, but is usually void of all the rebel that comes with the warm weather, so it is a toss up for us.  This photo above was taken on our boat from the slip just as the sun set over the gulf. It is amazing we can still be out here in relatively warm weather in mid-October but we will take it.

The annual shrimp festival was a lot of fun and there was tons and tons of food. We did not come down here for the festival but to enjoy being on the boat for the weekend but it was nice to get a flavor of the local society while we were here.

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Thunderstorms on Perdido Key and Bearpoint Marina

16 Jul

Storm at Perdido Key

Friday morning we left for the boat for a long relaxing anniversary weekend on the boat. Scott’s parents had rented a condo for the week in Perdido Key, so when we arrived in Orange Beach we unloaded the boat stuff and headed over to the condo to visit. Scott and his parents went for a swim while I watched from the beach. They all headed out of the water when something kept stinging or biting the guys. The stings weren’t terribly painful, something like ant bites, but they couldn’t tell what the culprit was so they opted to depart the waves for a shower in the condo and dinner.

We dropped them off back at the condo after a good, but odd dinner at Doc’s Seafood Shack, Orange Beach and went for a walk on the beach before returning to the boat. If you haven’t been to Doc’s, you are missing quite an experience. The restaurant is an interesting little place to say the least. It is truly a shack in every sense of the word. Structurally sound, it is not. Driving by the place one has a sense that the food must be very good because the parking lot is always full. Upon closer inspection it is revealed that the parking lot is just woefully inadequate. This is not a reflection on the food, just poor planning.

This planning runs over into the construction of the shack itself. A building that should have been condemned many years ago, the restaurant consists of three to four rooms that seem to have been added one at a time to the initial existing structure, accommodating the increase in patronage through the years. Hence the lack of parking space. The walls are buckled in all the rooms from years of leaky air conditioning ducts, salt filled air and humidity.

There is a sign out front that reads “Local Food, Local Atmosphere”. Inside the entryway is a gum ball/game machine that we have personally witnessed several kids and more than one adult loose quarter after quarter in because they could not make the suction cup stick to a gigantic gum ball, which is the objective of the game. Even Scott’s father gave two quarters to his mom so she could try her luck. In another corner sits another game machine.

This one filled with water and a couple of pathetic looking lobsters. A claw hangs from above and for $3 you can try your hand at catching one of the lobsters with the claw. If you are lucky(?) enough to capture one of these creatures the restaurant will cook it for you for free. The place is quirky indeed, but the food is local seafood and the price is very reasonable.

The remainder of our weekend was spent listening to NOAA weather radio and watching the skies. The “showers and thunderstorms” that the NOAA voice reported to be imminent were and we enjoyed watching them roll in and over the boat. We were even treated to a rainbow while Scott tried his hand at fishing again. Dinner’s out were at the Oyster Bar in Perdido Key, FL and the Jolly Roger at the marina. Here are the photos, enjoy.

Storm at the marina

Pretty Bird

Scott fishing under the rainbow

Sunset from the bow of Laughalot

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Bought a Morgan Out Island 33 Sailboat Called LAUGHALOT

26 Apr

Laughalot

There is a lot in a name. We found this boat about three weeks ago and it was exactly the make, model and condition we were looking for. The only problem was we had to wait two weeks to get free to go down to Florida to see her. Luckily, we put a contract on her right away, subject to inspection, so we would be the first in line to buy her, if we liked her.

I am so glad we acted when we did. There were at least three other VERY serious buyers that we were able to beat to the deal. One of those buyers showed up at the boat last Saturday night to try and get a look at her and we had to inform him that she had been sold *TO US*! I couldn’t believe how sad he looked. This will be our third sailboat together and hopefully we will have a little bit more luck with this one than the last two.

Anyway, Laughalot is ours now and we have already started the process of bringing her into the 21st century. There is so much to do to her. She is in great condition to sail right now, but we want to update the electronics, work on the engine, electrical systems, rigging, and plumbing. Updates on her restoration progress will be posted here.

She did come with loads of extras that we weren’t even expecting. She has a gimbaled stove/oven, hot water heater, refrigerator, brand new stereo system, wind generator, water maker, dinghy, life raft, epirb, bimini with dodger, and even an air conditioning/heating unit that works perfectly. Unbelievable!!! We were truly “laughing a lot” at our good fortune when we made the deal and she was all ours. Enjoy the photos.
Our Second Home

Beautiful!

Galley

Salon

The marina where she is located is at the end of a long channel that leads out to the Gulf of Mexico. There used to be a restaurant in the big building you see in the photos, but it burned on the inside and never reopened. As you can see from the photos we are in the last slip on the dock and it is so private and peaceful there. When you are looking at the building from the channel Laughalot is to the right, tucked back in the corner.

Laughalot's Current Marina

The channel to the Gulf of Mexico

Our first weekend we spent on Laughalot was last weekend and we were surprised and excited to see all kinds of birds. We saw white herons, gray storks (or herons, not sure about that one), pelicans, seagulls, and one bird of prey who apparently is a local.

White Heron

Pelicans

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