I’ve been on enough whale-watching or dolphin-spotting outings to know not to expect much.
“There’s a minke whale at 11 o’clock,” a voice will announce excitedly over the boat’s PA system. I and everyone aboard rushes to the rail, looks at 11 o’clock and, several hundred yards from the boat, sees a tiny dark bump on the water.
Big whoop.
So, even though the locals will claim Panama City Beach is home to the largest population of bottlenose dolphins in the world, I was thinking, “So what?”
But, Capt. Lorraine Frasier made me a believer. Dawdling in St. Andrew Bay on her outboard-powered boat was like a visit to bottlenose heaven. For a few hours there was seldom a time when we were not seeing dolphins gracefully arcing out of the water. A pod of three here, another of five over there, two more breaching next to the boat.
Seemed like every time we were about to move on, another pod or two persuaded us to stay a bit longer.
Eventually Frasier, owner of Dolphin and Snorkel Tours Panama City Beach, guided her boat over to Shell Island, another of this area’s natural gems. A separate part of St. Andrews State Park, Shell Island is a roughly seven-mile-long undeveloped barrier island reached only by boat. It’s more peninsula than island, but why nitpick?
The attraction here is nothing. No concession stands, no rest rooms, no picnic tables and — on this late afternoon last November — no other people. There are the remnants of a few earlier structures, but otherwise it’s just miles and miles of dunes and sugar-white sands that beg you to take off your shoes and pad barefoot along the beach, enjoying the sight of the golden sun sinking into the sea.
As Frasier slowly motored away from the beach on the bay side, I looked back and gasped. The sky was a brilliant pink that reflected on the bay and silhouetted a solitary dock. Can’t get any better than this, I thought — and then the dolphins returned, escorting us back to the dock as night fell.
My companion and I had gotten a bird’s-eye view of Shell Island and the 27 miles of beaches that make up Panama City Beach on our first day here, thanks to Ronald Jarmon of Island Air Express. Flying out of the 4-year-old Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, Jarmon took us up in a small single-engine plane that gave a unique perspective just a few hundred feet above the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The sea was clear enough that we caught glimpses of more frolicking dolphins.
High-rises built in the early part of the 2000s during the real estate boom poked up from the beaches, while farther west some of the lodgings hinted at old Florida.
There are lots of lodgings and price points to choose from, ranging from condos to hotels and motels and beach houses. The tourism folks say there are roughly 16,500 rental lodgings available.
Unlike south Florida where winter is high season, Panama City Beach and other areas of the Florida Panhandle see the biggest influx of tourists during the summer, when families flock here. Among the family attractions are water-based outings such as Frasier’s dolphin and snorkeling trips as well as land-based fun that includes adventure parks with go-karts and dune buggies, miniature golf and a Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
We stopped in at the Gulf World Marine Park, where you can get face time with dolphins, penguins, exotic birds, alligators, sea lions and more. The park has a variety of shows that feature trained dolphins, but it’s also heavily involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of injured and stranded marine animals. Stephanie Nagle, the park’s education coordinator, told us that during winter cold spells, the park is sometimes filled with hundreds of sea turtles that might die if they weren’t given shelter.
Nature gets lots of loving care in this area. At St. Andrews State Park, one of the state’s most visited, work was underway to move a pier. Park ranger Hannah Myers said the pier was encroaching on the dunes, which would be able to continue to expand after the pier is moved.
The park offers hiking and lots of water-related fun, including swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and canoeing. A sheltered lagoon in the park, across from Shell Island, was a perfect place for us to try our hands (and feet) at stand-up paddleboarding, with Gabriel Gray of Walkin’ on Water Paddleboards providing the boards and instruction. It’s a fun way to enjoy the water, though learning to stand on a board takes some practice.
We found more recreational opportunities west of town at the 3,000-acre, city-owned Conservation Park. It has a mile of boardwalks over wetlands as well as 24 miles of unpaved trails for hikers and mountain bikers. We got a workout biking about six miles of trail that sometimes changed from hard dirt surface to drifted sand. Clouds helped keep the heat of the sun to a manageable level, and chirping birds provided the soundtrack.
Chirping birds. Breaching dolphins.
So nice to have choices.
If you go
Getting there
Panama City Beach is the Florida Panhandle, about halfway between Tallahassee and Pensacola. You can fly into Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport on Delta, Southwest or United.
Attractions
Activities mentioned in the story include:
Dolphin and Snorkel Tours Panama City Beach, 850-866-8815, dolphinandsnorkeltours.com
Island Air Express, 850-814-6407, islandairexpress.com
St. Andrews State Park, 850-233-5140, ext. 5141, tinyurl.com/kck8wl5
Gulf World Marine Park, 850-234-5271, gulfworldmarinepark.com
Walkin’ on Water Paddleboards, 850-588-6230, wowpaddleboards.com
Panama City Beach Conservation Park, tinyurl.com/pdkcx79
Lodging
Thousands of choices, and you can research them at the tourism website below. We stayed at Sterling Resorts’ Reflections at Bay Point, which offers one- to four-bedroom condos with lovely views of St. Andrews Bay. Depending on the season, rates may be as low as $129 per night. 877-865-3890, tinyurl.com/lxmlneh
Info
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, 800-722-3224, visitpanamacitybeach.com
