At the Point

I am writing this on the deck of our rented beach house at Alligator Point, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.  Craig and I come here a few times a year, sometimes with friends and sometimes not.    Winter is the off season, and I haven't seen any other people on the Point the two days we've been here.  I have seen a few dozen dolphins and countless assorted sea birds, including brown pelicans, terns, sanderlings, willets, great blue herons, loons and gulls.  Monarch butterflies stop here in the fall on their way to Mexico, and there are still a fair number who must have decided to stay.  I know I would.

Alligator Point is a narrow spit of land just south of Ochlockonee Bay along Florida's Forgotten Coast.  On a map the Bay looks like someone poked a finger into the shoreline, separating St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge to the north from Bald Point State Park to the south.  Alligator Point attaches to the eastern end of Bald Point and runs westward for eight miles before ending in a bird sanctuary.  There are no stores or restaurants on the Point, only ocean, beach, dune grasses, beach houses, and a two-lane road running from one end to the other.

The closest town is Panacea, just across the Ochlockonee Bay in Wakulla County.  Founded as Smith Springs, the name was changed to Panacea in 1889 to promote the health benefits of the many natural mineral springs that bubbled up from the ground into ponds. The area became a tourist destination with a hotel, baths, pavilions and restaurants.  Unfortunately the double whammy of the Great Depression and a hurricane in 1928 put an end to prosperity and the springs fell into neglect.  Today, according to Wikipedia, "some appear as potholes."

Panacea is now a fishing village with a population of about 950 and a different set of charms.  There is a small IGA, a large bait and tackle shop, a hardware store, and a handful of restaurants serving fish caught the same day.  There are also a fair number of fish markets.  Our favorite is just a walk-in cooler where a few boats bring their daily catch and the guy out front will slice off a chuck of grouper any size you want.

Panacea also boasts the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratories which supplies marine creatures to schools and researchers and has an aquarium open to the public.  GSML was founded by environmentalist Jack Rudloe, who is still the Managing Director.  Rudloe is known for many things, including the first live exhibit of the giant sea roach, research on fouling organisms (look it up), and an unlikely correspondence with John Steinbeck in the 1960s. The aquarium is small but fun; it specializes in small invertebrates like starfish and sea pansies.

The nearby town of Sopchoppy is smaller than Panacea but better known because of the world-famous Sopchoppy Worm Gruntin' Festival held annually the second Sunday of April.  In case you don't know, worm grunting is a way of coaxing earthworms to the surface by rubbing a stob with a rooping iron.  (If you still don't know, check out this video.)  Catching worms for bait is one of the major industries in Sopchoppy, the other being the production of tupelo honey.  Tupelo honey comes from the blossoms of a swamp gum that only flowers for a few weeks in the spring, so to make pure tupelo honey you have to set clean hives out into the swamp at exactly the right time.  It is only produced commercially along the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers.

As I'm typing this, a flotilla of white pelicans is sailing, almost drifting, along the shoreline in front of our house.  It's almost time for a glass of wine on the deck.  Later we'll go to a seafood restaurant that looks out over Ochlockonee Bay.  We hope to get back while there's still enough light to walk down the beach to the bird sanctuary.  I heard that when a Panacea resident was asked by a tourist, "How far is it to Disney World?" he replied "Not far enough."  I can't wait for someone to ask me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Qro_Gn7Gdg