Beaches, They All Beaches

Today (Monday) was “walk on the beach day” in Pensacola for us two touristas. First we found a beach at Fort Pickens with a picnic shelter and restrooms. We walked on the white sand beach – billed as the whitest sand in the world. I wore my flip flops so I could get my toes wet. And I did. I put a little bit of that “whitest sand in the world” in a baggie so I could take it home. Photo: top row = photos from Fort Pickens beach, bottom row = photos from Pensacola Beach

We drove to Pensacola proper to buy Mary a new phone charger and cord to replace the one I lost last night (see story below). It was getting close to our dolphin cruise, but I didn’t want to wear flip flops on a boat, so we drove back to the campground for my shoes. That campground road is really long and parts of it have a 25 mph speed limit. Needless to say, we missed our 2 pm dolphin cruise, but Mary rebooked it for 5 pm. That meant we would miss Martha’s 5 pm zombie walk.

With time on our hands, we drove over to the Pensacola Beach strip in Gulf Breeze. We took photos at the Pensacola Beach signs (very retro and fun). And we visited their actual beach. It was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit that day, but people were swimming and sun bathing there. Pensacola Beach has several huge piers and we walked out on the one behind Captn Fun’s bar. I rolled up my pants and walked into the water on a tiny sandbar on the beach – and Mary took photos. We got drinks at Captn Fun’s (mine was a Southern Comfort hurricane that came in a sand bucket). BTW, don’t give the bartenders at Captn Fun’s any large bills. They claimed the $20 I gave them was a $10. We sat on their patio overlooking the beach and had a lazy day in the sun and sand.

Around 4 pm, we drove over to the pier where the dolphin cruise with Chase-N-Fins was going to push off from. We took another photo by the even more retro Pensacola Beach sign over there, and then hopped aboard our boat. Surly Mike was the captain and Charlie, the master of bad jokes, was our guide. I really enjoyed the trip out of the bay and into the Gulf of Mexico. We watched the buildings and houses on both sides of the bay slip by us. Pensacola seems to be a very long, skinny city that sort of morphs into Mobile, Alabama – which is on the same sea coast.

We saw dolphins jumping up for air near Fort Pickens and Charlie told us that is a dolphin nursery. The come there from deeper in the ocean to birth their young. They nurse their babies with mothers’ milk for 2 years, so they spend a lot of time in the nursery. We saw three more schools of dolphins out in the Gulf of Mexico, including one that was “surfing” our wake on the boat. I took a photo of the sunset from the boat. Mary paid for my ticket. Thanks, Mary! It was an experience that I will never forget. We tipped Charlie $10 after the cruise and may have been his only tipping customers that night.

When we got back on dry land, we picked up take-out Thai food and walked across the parking lot to The Bridge bar to meet Martha. There were quite a few zombie runners and walkers there, so did not have a lot of time to talk. She invited me over to her house for breakfast the next morning.