per·i·pa·tet·ic
ˌperēpəˈtedik/
adjective
  1. 1.
    traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods.
    "the peripatetic nature of military life"
    synonyms:nomadic, itinerant, traveling, wandering, roving, roaming, migrant,migratory, unsettled
    "I could never get used to her peripatetic lifestyle"
  2. 2.
    Aristotelian.
noun
  1. 1.
    a person who travels from place to place.
  2. 2.
    an Aristotelian philosopher.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Make It Happen, Boat Cap'n--at Navarre Beach!

Make It Happen, Boat Cap'n!

Somebody celebrated a birthday this week. Since she missed someone else's birthday celebration back in May, complete with a "party barge and brownies and cupcakes" per his request, she had a bright idea. Make it happen again. Boat Cap'n. Only this time there would be sandwiches, chips, and cookies. And this time the boat didn't set sail from Destin Harbor. Navarre Beach is more her style. More laid-back. Fewer people. Less expensive.

View of the bridge across Santa Rosa Sound to Navarre Beach from the Best Western on Highway 98.

She is, after all, of the age where night life is now defined by a comfortable bed, quiet, and lights out by 10 p.m. The other day she asked a couple of much younger friends to guess the year of her birth. I'll give you a hint, she said. It was the year John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. They were stumped. She didn't think it would help to add that the year ushered in a decade of literary jewels like To Kill A Mockingbird, Catch-22, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. According to this excellent website that chronicles America's cultural history, people, especially the younger crowd, were being drawn like flies to the idea of change in that decade. No, not that stuff that's left in your pocket after you get to pay your fair share these days.


And it's not "the change" often dreaded or maybe anticipated by women of a certain age. Speaking of drawing flies, there were some sort of blood-sucking critters taking over the beach for most of the weekend. The only way to avoid them was to keep on the move or jump in the water. The birthday girl and her party did a fair amount of both...

...whenever they could convince Boat Cap'n to give up on the fishing. If the flies were biting, the fish sure weren't.
One thing that hasn't changed much since the birthday girl first moved to Northwest Florida eight years ago is the amount of development at Navarre Beach. There's no pass like at Destin or Pensacola to enter the Gulf of Mexico so there's no fleet of fishing vessels or hordes of tourists clamoring to charter them. No fancy yachts here.

Tourists who do visit Navarre (and like it) don't mind stepping out of their room to see snapped off trees in a vacant lot next to the hotel--remnants of some hurricane or tropical storm that blew by. Sunrise has a way of softening the effect.

The early bird gets a good spot on the beach too. Even later in the day there aren't any bad spots on the beach. A state park occupies a large chunk of prime beachfront property. According to a gentleman who was out early picking up what little trash had accumulated from the night before, there will soon be artificial reefs in place here for fish to hide in and for snorkelers to explore. He's been a resident of Navarre since the mid 90s and looks forward to this kind of change. A gentle tweaking of the natural beauty rather than a facelift, tummy tuck, or breast enhancement.

Locals and tourists alike enjoy visiting the Gulf's longest fishing pier at Navarre Beach. The pier is celebrating its first anniversary. It had to be rebuilt anyway after being hammered repeatedly by storms a few years back so why not make it the longest? Before the birthday girl headed back to Tallahassee (after doing a drive-by snooting of the old homestead to see if the tenants have changed anything else by landscape looting), she and the original boat cap'n stopped by the pier to purchase some coffee. It was too early for beer...

Navarre Beachside Church

...and it was Sunday morning. If it hadn't been for the biting flies and the drive-by snooting still on the day's agenda, this church without walls would have been a fine place to spend an hour or two. The wind carried the sound of worship music and prayer all the way out to the end of the Gulf's longest fishing pier.

11 comments:

  1. What lovely picts! Thanks for sharing the experience with us!

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  2. How very beautiful and a Happy Birthday to the lucky one! Navarre Beach, I've heard of that surely? Sounds like my kind of place too.

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  3. A happy birthday from me too though belated. Pictures are eye pleasing, particularly the blues. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. *sniff*sniff* you took me "home" today... I miss Navarre so much, I put it in my very first MS! :D

    I first visited with my parents when I was 17, and then I'd drive the girls over periodically when we lived in so-Ala. It's so beautiful. Thanks for the memories~ (and happy b'day! :o) <3

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  6. Happy birthday Walk. In spite of the buting bugs it looks like you had a great day...

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  7. Hi W2W

    I enjoyed reading your post like a pleasant witty short story.
    Navarre Beach seems a perfect place for your Boat Cap'n. Did he enjoy the catch? Emerald green sea and blue sky in the broad daylight are beautiful and so is at dusk when the glowing sun is dyeing horizen madder. Beachside Church is ...a church?
    Belated Happy Birthday, W2W!

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  8. So she had a wonderful birthday time all the day boating at the Navarre beach? I wud say that was a wonderful idea..and thnks fr those beautiful pix..

    u asked me abt my fav music that I watch in youtube..coming to music, my favs are everyone's favs, like Boney M, Abba, MJ, Britney, Enrique, Ketchup girls, and nowadays I listen to Rebecca Black also..I also like to listen to the Bulgarian contemporary musician Dyana Dafova. Yes..and I had once interviewed Dyana. The details u can find in my blog itself..

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  9. Happy b'day to some one :-)
    Like that church w/o walls, and the one of the fishing.

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