1 post tagged “destin”

This trip is another annual event for the family as we spend a week at the beach at the Chateau La Mer II condo complex. This was one of the first condo complexes near the beach before the recent (last 10 years) development of the area with high rises, etc. As such it has its own undeveloped beach (no houses in place of the dunes) which is now very rare. Also its complex is like a secluded garden oasis compared to the more recent ones.

My favorite time at the beach is either early in the morning or late in evening when the sun is either rising or setting. I am not one to bake in the sun. Nothing is better than going down to the beach with a large cup of coffee to watch the sun come up when no one else is around. The first half of the week had a fair number of thundershowers yet this same instability in the air made for some great cloud formations.

Public access to the beach is limited to a few public areas (always over crowded) so if you ever go to this area make sure your rental unit has beach access. Hurricane Katrina did some damage to this area. In the case of the Chateau La Mer Beach is eroded the dunes all the way to the highway and damaged all the beach houses enough so that they probably could not rent for nearly a year. The dunes still do not really exist two years later.

This year the beach was doubled in width by a replenishment project which pumped sand from offshore onto the beach. We heard that despite great efforts a few sea turtles were killed in the process. The company doing this even had a person is a boat patrolling the suction entrance. After the 2nd or 3rd sea turtle was killed the operation was shut down for a while. Yet this method is probably the best way to minimize hurricane damage although a better way would not be to build right on the beach in the first place!

During the day the water is the classic Caribbean emerald and the beaches are composed of that sugar white sand. Overall the best beach area in the nation. And the water is warm!