Dolphin Watch! 1/23/18

Henderson Beach State Park, Destin, Florida

(Destin sits on a spit of land between the Gulf of Mexico and Choctawhatchee Bay about two-thirds of the way across the Florida Panhandle.)

What a difference a day makes!

Yesterday in the rain

Today in the bright sunlight and clear skies!

We began our day slowly and super tired, after only actually sleeping about 3 ½ hours. Road work near the campground in the middle of the night! Ugh!! It’s definitely not a quiet campground – day or night. During the day, there are jets from the military base, traffic and construction. We don’t really mind the daytime noise, especially once you get close to the beach, because then all you hear are the waves. 😊

Once we got motivated to move about, we took off for the beach. Bright sun! Blue sky! Turquoise water! Breathtaking!

This a leftover curb from an old road. It used to run right along the beach until 1990. This asphalt seems to be all that’s left.

And yes, you’ll probably think there are too many water pictures, but I love them all, and it’s my blog . . . : )

A fish out of water . . . .

Small planes of all types fly right over these condos!

This is a Royal Tern
If you’re curious like I was, here’s a couple of differences between a tern and a gull.
The shape of the beaks – terns are pointed, gulls have a curve. And terns dive 20-50 FEET to snatch their prey.
One last thing . . . gulls eat anything. Terns stick to fish.

The birds on this beach don’t seem to care about people being around.

Oooh! That’s cold!!

After our feet were numb, we were able to walk in the surf. (ha!)

How cool would that be!
There’s a guy out there paddleboarding and the dolphins are swimming all around him!
We watched them for quite a while.
I’m positively green with envy!!

Not sure if I like this black and white. . .

Right after we hit the beach, we saw dolphins just off shore swimming and playing and a passerby (who must be a local) told us it’d been two weeks since she’d seen them. She also gave us our itinerary for Thursday morning. At 10:00am, she said they’d be releasing all the cold-stunned turtles that had washed up on the beach. Won’t that be fun! Can’t wait!

After about 2 ½ hours, we headed back for tuna lunches. We bought a flavored kind (sweet and spicy) to try out. Yuk! We’ll not buy that again! It wasn’t that it was particularly spicy, but it had this really weird taste neither of us cared for at all. I can’t even describe it, except – – Gross! But we ate it anyway because our mothers always impressed upon us the necessity of not throwing food away because of the starving Armenians. Although as I got older, I often wondered how eating my food kept those Armenians from starving . . . I kept eating. I just couldn’t bear the thought of having those starving people on my conscience.

Lunch

We needed some down time to regenerate, and then headed back to the beach with chairs on our backs, intending to sit and enjoy for an hour or two. Little did we know – – the wind had picked up and was blowing from the water, which is quite cool. Needless to say, we didn’t sit long.

This guy came hovering right in front of us, then landed.
He was closer than he looks!

Since we couldn’t do that, Blaine wanted to tool around town. We found the little “restaurant” our campground host recommended for lunch. You can only go for lunch. They’re open 11-3. Wait’ll you see it later! We were also looking for a place to put in our kayak, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Too choppy!

This evening we had the opportunity to witness God’s canvas. What a blessing He has chosen to give us in something as simple as the sun rising or setting!

You may think there are too many of these as well, but they’re all too wonderful! Some look like they’re out of focus, but they’re not. Just broad watercolor brush strokes!