All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others
Creatures from Other Places (Florida and the Caribbean)
These photos are from a month long trip to Florida and a two-week Caribbean cruise most of May of 2012 as a graduation and farewell gift for my German friend Annea as she prepared to return home to Stuttgart, Germany to begin working on her Doctorate. She had never seen the ocean and tropics before. In November, she would return to the area on her honeymoon. I will try to stay with the nature theme along with adding a few general photos of interest. Sunrise and sunset photos from the trip are posted at the end of the discussion "The Glory of Scenery touched by our God".
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Permalink Reply by Ricprimus on
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Another 5 miles south and we arrived at the Tampa Bay area. On the coast is Clearwater (population-110,00; southeast and inland St. Petersburg (pop. 245,000) and Tampa proper (350,000). Tampa has many attractions, I did take Annea to see the night life of the old Cuban cigar factory area, Ybor City that is a collection of art studios, galleries small shops and bars and clubs, most of which cater to the Gay/Lesbian/Trans-gender crowd, hence Ybor's nickname of Gaybar City. )None of the photos we took off Ybor are suitable for AAG posting.
St. Petersburg is noted for three things: 1) The Salvador Dali art museum, 2) having the highest crime rate of any Florida city including the 1996 Florida Race Riots and 3) being a popular retirement area it boasts a large population of elderly, earning the nickname of "God's waiting room"- (a common joke is that "old people don't live in St. Pete, their parents do".) Nothing special in our photos except a collection of Salvador Dahli paintings).
Clearwater (pop. 110,000) is of interest for having some of the most popular beaches in Florida, and most of the shoreline is occupied by condominiums and hotels. We did spend several hours at the main beach. -
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Clearwater Beach
Clearwater beach is an extremely popular tourist beach and nearly entirely artificial. Due to constant erosion due to being open to unimpeded waves from the gulf, including surf enough to surfboard, the beach is constantly being washed away (hurricanes do massive erosion). To counteract this pure white quartz sand is constantly dredged and cleaned from offshore in the Gulf and dumped onto the beach. During the night the sand is cleaned of seaweed and debris and raked. I came her maybe twice in 15 years, since by 10am, it is wall to wall people the entire length of the beach.
Photo is at daybreak looking west at the Gulf before the crowds arrive showing tire tracks of the cleaning/raking machinery. -
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On Pier 60 looking north toward Caladesi and Honeymoon Islands. One of the reasons this part of Florida (Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties) is so popular is that it boats an average of 361 days a year of sunshine.
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At 8am, we decided to walk over to a restaurant for breakfast before going out on Pier 60 so Annea would get an idea of the daylong crowds. At 10, we walked back to Pier 60 and already the pier 60 market was packed; further out pier is lined with people fishing. Pier 60 is around a mile long and stretches into pretty deep water. The market is pretty much designed for tourists, t-shirts, sea-shells, hats, sunglasses.
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About hallway out on pier 60, only a few fisherman. I mentioned to Annea they have bi-monthly shark fishing tournaments here, she looked at me and said: "Um, right next to the main swimming beach?" The look she gave me told me she did not believe a word.
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Fisherman had caught a very nice grouper, another prized Gulf eating fish.
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And this one a fine Red Snapper. Snapper, grouper and flounder make up the three most prized fish, and most expensive at even local restaurants.
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Nearing end of the pier we stopped at a small fishing supply shop to grab some cold drinks and she started to believe what I said when she saw various small shark jaws around the shop.
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And this fisherman catching a 6-footer rated a loud "Oh!" along with several steps back from the railing".
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And at end of pier this casually cruising by 12, 13 footer with at remora by head rated "Can we go back to the hotel to swim in their pool, the sun is awful hot on the beach here?" "And wipe the big smile off you face, Rick". I told her "It's only 11am, I had planned just one more stop for the rest of the day further south, but if you want, after I show it to you, we can go back and swim and eat at the hotel." So back along the pier and we started an hour drive south down the coast to the small town of Venice.
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