The next frontier: Island Adventures

We decided that we wanted to visit a Gulf coast island in the panhandle, that was not over-developed, and this is the island that we chose- St. George Island.

We wanted to stay at an Inn that had a lot of beach character- definitely not a 4 star chain hotel, and the St George Inn was just what we were looking for, from the exterior weathered, peeling paint, to the lack of clocks and telephones in the rooms. It has functional shutters on the windows for storms. The Innkeepers were fantastic, the bed extremely comfortable. This is an inn where you can leave and not worry about locking the door. Our room was called Total Escape.

In continuing with the tradition established in Central America, when we arrived it was starting to cloud up and get windy and cold. There were reports of rain in the forecast.

By the next morning the weather started to deteriorate. It was cold and windy. By noon there were lightning flashes everywhere and weather alerts of 1-3 inches of rain an hour. Dave and Annabelle spent a long time on the porch watching the weather. Judy brought her kindle with her and spent the time reading inside where it was dry and warm. The storm continued throughout the evening and night. At 4:45 am, it got really bad, with the chairs being blown around on the porches. Some really weird sounding wind, but no locomotive sounds. Our Innkeepers stayed up the night checking the weather so that they could wake us if there was any danger. There were several waterspouts close by in the Gulf, but none came to shore.

By mid-morning the weather had gotten much better so that we could explore the beach. We found a number of jellyfish on the beach- this is the smallest one we saw, and as you can see, it's bigger than my foot. This was the first time that we had seen them since we arrived, and we don't know if they were a casualty of the waves or the waterspouts.

Although the storm was over, the waves remained rough- surfing anyone?

We were finally able to wander along the beach.

Once the sun came out, one could see that it was a really nice beach. This is the access across the street from the Inn. It remained really cold and windy for the rest of our stay.

We decided to get in the car and do some exploring, only to discover that the car wouldn't start. Thank goodness for AAA, because remember, we were on an island that had no service stations or towing companies. We had to wait for a tow truck from the mainland. Luckily, the car started up right away with a jump, and it was discussed that the problem had possibly been the rain and wind getting into the engine from the grill.

There are new beachfront homes along both ends of the island. These places are huge, and with the price of just the beach lot being up to 500K, I can't imagine the prices of these places. The most amazing thing to me was the fact that I could only count about 5 houses that had hurricane shutters. How could you build one of these houses and not make sure it would be safe from storms? It boggles the mind.

Eddy Teachs became our favorite place to eat on the island. It was right across the street from the Inn, which was good during the rain, plus we really had a good time there. This is James- he's the owner and a wannabe pirate. He used to be an English teacher, but opened Eddy Teachs in 2006. Harry A's was also a good place to eat, and we had some great pizza from BJs.