Up and out by 9 am today - got a lot to do. Clyde drove us all out towards the Pensacola area. We stopped at a beach along the way, where we saw a couple who were doing some unusual work - he was digging for something in the surf, and when he found one, he would toss it to a lady on the beach who put it in a bucket. Of course, we had to see what was going on. It turns out they were hunting for Ghost Shrimp, which look like a cross between a shrimp and a scorpion - not attractive. But they are apparently very good bait for Sheepshead fish. That white thing is his claw...
There weren’t a lot of shells there so we packed up and went on into Pensacola. First stop: Shoreline Foods. This is an old market that sells a little of everything, sort of like a large convenient store, with one important difference: the Greek owner’s family owns olive trees in Crete, and once a year he goes back to Crete to get olive oil to sell in his store here. We bought some here a few years ago, loved it, and have been coming back whenever we can for more.
Next stop: Joe Patti’s Seafood market. We didn’t even get inside the store before I saw something I wanted - fresh Beignets, covered with powdered sugar, fried to order in a cart in the parking lot. They weren’t as excellent as the ones at Cafe Du Monde, but they were pretty good. As we were eating them we wandered around to the back of the market, which is a dock for fishing boats. Several Brown Penguins were sitting quietly on the dock, dozing. When we approached they got up and started to leave. Then some guy walked up, tossed a fish head on the dock right in front of us, and suddenly a bunch of big, hungry penguins dove for it!
The guy gets fish scraps at Joe Patti’s to use as bait, and he has practically trained the penguins (or they have trained him!). He feeds them regularly, just to entertain visitors to at the market. This is the first time I've seen one close up . . . interesting.
Then we went into Joe Patti’s, which is a really big, really great fresh seafood market. As noted, the fishing boats dock at their back door, so the product is very fresh. And they have a huge variety: lobster, amberjack, grouper, snapper, swordfish, tuna, shrimp, crawfish, oysters, octopus, mussels, scallops - if it swims, they probably have it. There are two kinds of shoppers; locals, who come in to get one thing for tonight’s dinner, and visitors like us, who come in with a big cooler to fill. After Randy picked out a lot of seafood, he gave our cooler to the loading guys and as each item was rang up, they packed it in the cooler with a lot of ice.
After looking at all that seafood, we decided to go to nearby Joey Patti’s Seafood restaurant for lunch. We started with some great seafood chowder, and followed it with fried oysters and Bassa fish with sides of fries, hush puppies, coleslaw and cheesy grits. Ate too much, then got back into the truck to find another beach. As we drove out of town the fog came in. Fog around here is a little odd - instead of a general mistiness, here it looks more like a cloud sitting on the ground and you can see where it starts and stops. Last night there was heavy fog on one side of the road, while the other side was perfectly clear. Today the fog lay on top of the water like a thick white blanket, which was pretty cool.
We went to Navarre, where Randy and I vacationed several years ago. We drove across the bridge to the barrier island. The beach has lovely white sand and the water here is a gorgeous blueish-green color, which is why this area is sometimes called the emerald coast.
The water was too cold to go in very far, but we waded in the shallow edge, looking for shells. Since we didn’t find many, we paid a dollar each to walk out on the long (about 1,545 feet) pier, and it was a cheap price for the experience.
When we looked down, we could see the changes in the water color as the depth increased.
We saw a couple of stingrays and several bell jellyfish; it was hard to judge from the pier but the jellys looked pretty large.
At the end of the pier the view of the Gulf of Mexico was endless - one of those views so big that you can actually see the curve of the earth.
Several guys were fishing for sharks at the pier’s end but they weren’t putting a lot of effort into it. Below the pier was a small remote-controlled dingy which, unless they were pulling our leg, is used to pull baited lines out into the Gulf, where it drops them off. Then the fishermen drink beer and wait for the sharks to show up, which isn’t a bad plan if you like drinking beer better than you like fishing. But back near the beginning of the pier someone who was not drinking beer had more success and caught a great big 40 pound fish.
Some people, dressed in jeans and jackets, saw our shorts and light tops and said that we must not be from around there. It’s true that we were enjoying the weather more than they were, but it was getting later, which meant it was getting darker and cooler, so it made sense to move on if we wanted to see another beach. As we drove along the island we saw a lot of tall condos and beach houses similar to the Gulf Shore houses, with bright colors and wide porches. There is one main road that runs the length of the island with a bike path beside it most of the way. We lost sight of the bike path a couple of times, but it was probably just covered with sand.
The next beach was just as beautiful with more white sand that, especially with footprints in the fading light, looked so much like snow.
We continued to look for shells and didn’t find many, but in such a beautiful place, what could that matter? And we were still on that white beach when sunset came - absolutely gorgeous!
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