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BOOKS
TRAVERSING 30A
Coffee-table book celebrates coastal development
by WYNN PARKS
Pathway to Paradise is the kind of volume that leads a reader, after a few pages, to suddenly ask, “What kind of book is this?”
Appearance-wise, it’s a double-wide, coffee-table type book, lavishly produced, the kind of book that one might find gracing a blue, Mexican-tile-top table in the Florida room.
The front cover? It’s a full-bleed, artsy photo of a gateway through sea oats to the beach beyond, a blurred realm of unformed possibilities of infinite glamor. On the back cover, a coastal landscape — old school “expressionism.”
Inside, there are 136 slick pages of heavy stock, redolent with color photography and a plethora of maps and other graphics one has to see to appreciate and appreciate to see. There’s no question that Robert O. Reynolds invested considerable sweat equity in researching, editing and publishing Pathway to Paradise, but considering how many thousands of words are represented by the photography alone, the actual text could have been left out. In fact, Paradise might have been a more readable publication if it had.
Chapter one’s notes on the Panhandle’s prehistoric cultures, and later, its frontier days with its timber and turpentine economy and presidential land grants, are quite interesting. So, too, are the chapters that describe the flora and fauna of the region and coastal dune lakes.
But there the fascination stops, and all too soon, the narrative turns to singing the immortal real estate sagas of each designer community from one end of Scenic County Highway 30A to the other: Dune Allen, Santa Rosa Beach and Gulf Place, Blue Mountain Beach, Grayton Beach, WaterColor, Seaside, Seagrove Beach and Eastern Lake, WaterSound, Seacrest, Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach, and Inlet — naturally — Beach, ad infinitum.
Dropped are the names of Panhandle notables, paired with summaries of their investor-visions, and details of who bought which parcel of swamp, scrub or dune land. We learn how boundaries were revised by half a degree west, perhaps, to conform to whatever the new Land Politics had decreed.
↑ Above: Jeep owners gathered for a Fourth of July event at Seagrove Beach in the 1980s. Top: The east end of Lake Allen and the area of the Dune Allen Beach plat and first addition. The Oyster Lake outfall is visible in the foreground.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert O. Reynolds was raised in Montgomery, Alabama. His family started vacationing in Northwest Florida in the 1950s. His parents discovered Seagrove Beach in the 1960s and bought a house there, and he has been returning ever since. Reynolds is the author of Simply Seagrove about the history of that community. With his latest book Pathway to Paradise, he addresses all the communities along Scenic Highway 30A, which since its creation in 1937, has become home to architecturally and culturally significant coastal developments.
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↑ CARRYING ON A TRADITION Author Robert O. Reynolds with his son on a dune walkover at Seagrove Beach. Throughout his life, Reynolds has been a regular visitor to South Walton County.
Cover blurbs describe the book as a kind of Cliff’s Notes that will serve to introduce the well-heeled to the “folklore” of the Emerald Coast, that is, to shops, stores, eateries and other miscellaneous revenue generators.
Yet the book’s great undercurrent seems to be the corporate creation myth of 30A, the Silk Road of the Panhandle, and the instant traditions of the cleverly coined “New Urbanism.” It is a theme that breaks with the folklore coziness almost every other page. So abundant are the appearances made in the text of “develop, developing, developer, developed or development” that anyone paying attention wonders if Pathway to Paradise is a Come to the Land of Flowers real estate brochure, a hardbound Fodor’s Guide to the Panhandle, or a section out of the county plat book.
In the book’s final chapter, “The Future of the Emerald Coast,” Reynolds notes: “Since the early 2000s, a few years after St. Joe broke ground on both WaterColor and WaterSound, some wellcapitalized investors have been betting that this land, bought at historically low prices, was destined to increase in value as more was developed and the population grew.”
In olden times, there was a special member of a king’s retinue called a skald whose primary duty was to create praise verses glorifying the king’s triumphs and wisdom, often in quite long, overblown poems designed to Photoshop, nay, immortalize his liege’s image. Today, the verses go on paper, but otherwise, the more things change, the more they remain the same! EC
Touch People with Your Story
For fundraising entities, including the Ascension Sacred Heart Foundation in Pensacola, annual reports are a key communication piece.
They are a means by which foundations stay in contact with their contributors, recognize donors and report the impacts that their generosity has had on the betterment of a community. When effectively designed and written, the annual report can serve to stimulate additional gifts from the established and prospective donors who receive it.
In 2018, Carol Carlan, the president of the Ascension Sacred
Heart Foundation, contacted a trusted partner, Rowland
Publishing, seeking assistance with freshening and enhancing the report. At that point, the relationship between RPI and the foundation was well established.
Since 2016, the foundation’s
“Stories from the Heart” have been a regular part of Emerald
Coast Magazine.
Carlan knew that RPI is a highly experienced provider of consulting and editorial services, print vendor and project management, and publication design.
The foundation’s role is a critical one in the life of the hospital it serves. As a not-for-profit organization, Ascension Sacred Heart relies upon donations from compassionate people who share its vision of ensuring that no one goes without quality patient care and lifesaving treatment.
The 2021 campaign of the foundation will benefit the Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart, which supplies families from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Port St. Joe with the finest medical services possible in areas including prenatal and neonatal care, pediatric cancer care, pediatric internal medicine and many more.
The professional contributions made by RPI to the annual report have worked as intended. In the years since RPI got involved in improving the report, it has generated more than $500,000 in new donations that have saved lives and improved the health of the region.
» DO YOU NEED HELP WITH A CUSTOM PUBLISHING PROJECT?
Contact us today to learn how Rowland Publishing can help make your upcoming project a success. For more information, visit RowlandPublishing.com.
AT
WITH THE WATER
Free divers explore depths unencumbered by tanks
STORY BY STEVE BORNHOFT // PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEAN MURPHY
↙ Freediving instructor Joe D’Agostino surfaces through a curtain of bubbles from a scuba diver. His descent carried him to the wreck of the Miss Louise off Destin.
Ordinarily, he would have pulled pound three times. “But I would rather have FREE DIVING back the bands on his spear gun and drawn a bead on the good friends who look out for my best interests than to have a record few people would ever
WITH A “suitcase,” as the thick-skinned fish are sometimes called. know about.” Such reasonable restraint characterizes PARTNER, JOE But his partner, Fred Cardet, a retired orthopedic generally D’Agostino’s approach to the sport of free diving, which, he said, “can be one of D’AGOSTINO, surgeon, took over by way of an agreement the two men had the easiest things you will ever do and also one of the most dangerous.” SPIED A LARGE reached topside. D’Agostino was coming off rotator cuff D’Agostino is an instructor, certified by Freediving Instructors International, at Benthic TRIGGERFISH. surgery, and rather than allow him to risk setting back his Ocean Sports in Destin. Free diving has been his passion for 26 years. He was 20 when took recovery, Cardet helped out by a job as a lifeguard in his home state of New preparing the gun for firing. Jersey, and his supervisor, a man named Jeff D’Agostino’s shot was true. The fish, placed Carpenter, introduced him to the activity. on certified scales, topped 10 pounds, a world “My very first day in the chair, I watched spearfishing record weight. But D’Agostino him go out and swim back and forth along could not legitimately claim that distinction. a jetty with the Manhattan skyline in the Doing so would have required that he had background,” D’Agostino recalled. “He’s got a harvested the fish unassisted. pole spear, fins and a catch bag. When he gets D’Agostino, however, readily puts things in out, his bag is full of fish and I start peppering perspective. him with questions.” “People care about records, they do,” said Carpenter invited D’Agostino to join D’Agostino who, in particular, has been him, in part because he was looking for chasing the world record for red snapper taken someone to provide him surface support as a with a pole spear for years, coming within a safety consideration. Soon, D’Agostino had
←Joe D’Agostino prepares to set the anchor during a trip aboard the Spaniard 2. He was introduced to the sport of free diving as a teen in New Jersey by his supervisor a t a lifeguard job. → Armed and ready, Julie Augustine checks the water column for possible targets.
gained his first experience as a breath-hold spearfisherman.
The fish was two inches short of legal size, a rookie mistake.
Free diving, according to D’Agostino, is the fastest-growing segment in water sports. Almost all of that growth relates to spearfishing, he said, although there are, he conceded, a few sightseeing free divers who frequent freshwater springs and lakes.
D’Agostino has made spearfishing trips to Australia, Fiji, Tahiti and Mexico. But he especially loves the northern Gulf of Mexico from the Big Bend of Florida to Texas.
The Level I class that D’Agostino teaches takes place in the course of a weekend.
“I have people come in here on a Saturday morning, and by Sunday at lunch they are 66-foot divers,” he said, adding that a student need only have basic swimming skills.
On Day 1, students receive a half-day of classroom instruction covering topics including the history of the sport, equipment, physics and physiology.
In the afternoon, instruction moves to a pool where students work on entering the water and moving from a horizontal to a vertical, headfirst posture. D’Agostino discusses safety issues and problems that may affect divers such as loss of motor control or blackouts. He teaches people how to “diaphragm breathe” versus breathing from the chest, and students then attempt breath holds.
Within three attempts, D’Agostino students
← From left to right, Julie Augustine, Fred Cardet, Mike Pooler and Joe D’Agostino head offshore on a cool spring day. → D’Agostino retrieves a sheepshead taken with a speargun. He was diving on Army tanks off Destin.
manage to hold their breath for an average of two minutes and 45 seconds.
“Infants breathe from their bellies,” D’Agostino said. “It’s natural and more relaxing. Then we get jobs and spouses and mortgages and other stressors, and we start to breathe through our chest, more stress. If you breathe from your diaphragm, purse your lips and control your exhale, basically you are holding your alveolar spaces in your lungs open longer.”
On Day 2, the class takes place in open water, usually from a boat or at Vortex Springs in the event of rough water.
Students invert themselves and pull themselves down a rope, working on equalizing the pressure in their ears as they proceed. Later, they practice kicking themselves down through the water.
D’Agostino has students from pre-teens to people in their 60s. His regular dive partners include retired orthopedic surgeon Dr. Fred Cardet, age 71.
↑ From left to right, Julie Augustine, Mike Pooler and Joe D’Agostino run through checklists and get their minds right before making a dive. Basic free diving equipment consists of a mask, snorkel, wet suit, weight belt and fins. Pooler is the owner of Benthic Ocean Sports in Destin.
↘ Fred Cardet, 71, a retired physician, was a self-taught free diver growing up in Miami before he eventually took formal classes. He once shot a 150-pound yellowfin tuna off Venice, Louisiana.
For years, Cardet, who grew up in Miami, was a self-taught free diver. He started spearfishing at age 17. Over time, as he visited increasingly deeper waters, he thought about and then decided, in 2004, to take a certification class. His most memorable spearfishing triumphs have been a 131-pound amberjack, taken during a trip that left out of Destin in 2018, and a 150-pound yellowfin tuna, harvested near an oil rig off of Venice, Louisiana.
The big amberjack, Cardet said, “was probably the easiest fish I ever shot. It swam up to me and I was looking to my left, and when I looked to the right, he was right there. I didn’t have to move the gun or anything. I just pulled the trigger, the spear went through his head, and he rolled over.
Cardet’s favorite spearfishing target is the muscular, hard-fighting cobia, which he sometimes encounters just off the beach during its westerly spring migrations and at other times at depth.
He attributes his longevity as a free diver to good genes, staying in shape and refraining from risk-taking.
“There are old divers and bold divers, but there are no old, bold divers,” D’Agostino likes to say.
“That’s about right,” Cardet agreed.
Cardet just once experienced a loss of motor control while free diving. He was surfacing when he encountered and shot an amberjack. As a result, he stayed down longer than he intended and developed a problem while fighting the fish. Never has he blacked out, but his brother once did.
“During our class, my brother went to 120 feet and came back only 110 before he blacked out,” Cardet explained. “The last 10 feet, the instructor had to assist him. One minute, he looked dead — all the color was gone from his face and his eyes were rolled back — and within a few seconds of taking a breath at the surface, he was wide awake again. That was incredible.”
D’Agostino said the most frequently occurring safety rules violations are diving
↑ GOING DOWN Julie Augustine heads for the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico near Destin. Free divers use fins much longer than those typically used by scuba divers.
alone and improper weighting. Some divers will load their belts up to the point where the weight carries them all the way down from the surface, eliminating the need for kicking.
“But if they black out and don’t make it all the way back to the surface, they sink and they may never be found,” D’Agostino said.
Cardet praised D’Agostino’s work as an instructor.
D’Agostino is looking forward to the Destin arrival on June 5 of Martin Stepanek of the Czech Republic, who set 13 world records as a free diver, founded Freediving Instructors International and developed the standardized curriculum it uses.
Stepanek will teach a Level I course at Benthic Ocean Sports and is also working to make D’Agostino a certified instructor trainer.
D’Agostino is set to become just one of a halfdozen such trainers in the United States. EC
UNFAMILIAR SPECIES ENCROACH UPON THE COAST
→ Snook, a fish usually associated with the mangrove-lined shorelines of Southwest Florida, has been expanding its range northward as the product of a series of warm winters.
Last winter, along much of the Emerald Coast, purple finches, a bird that had not been known to commonly frequent the area, showed up in numbers. Biologists and birders call such sudden increases in the population of a species in a given area “irruptions.” The finches were, in effect, vacationers. But there are other species — an outsized amphibian, a prized game fish, a homely blowfish, what appears to be a muskrat on growth hormones and a
NEW
TOWNto
duck that hangs out in trees — that appear instead to be intent upon permanent residency. They may be exploiting available ecological niches or responding to climatic changes or to a combination of factors. All serve to remind us that, as a charter boat captain once told me when a surf fisherman improbably caught a blackfin tuna off Panama City Beach, “There ain’t no fences out there.” — Steve Bornhoft
The way the fish was fighting, Capt. Garrison Rosie thought it might be the biggest speckled trout ever taken about his inshore charter boat.
Rosie had been fishing on the flats in St. Andrew Bay near the Navy base in Panama City Beach when a large school of jack crevalle passed by. Rosie directed his charter, a young man named Ryan from Tennessee, to toss a live pilcher into the jacks. Moments later, he was hooked up.
When whatever it was on the end of Ryan’s line jumped — something that trout and jacks don’t do — Rosie wondered, “What in the world is that?”
As the fish neared the boat, there was no mistaking it. Its bold, black lateral line gave it away as a snook, a species Rosie had caught on trips to South Florida but one that is rarely seen north of Taylor County.
“I was like, ‘You gotta be kidding me. I better get this thing in the boat or everyone will think I’m crazy when I tell them what I caught,’” Rosie said.
Ryan brought the fish to net, and Rosie took a celebratory photo.
Was the catch, made in 2019, the product of the Luck of the Amish?
Possibly.
Ryan grew up in an Amish community but separated from it when he became old enough to live independently. Over the last two years, Rosie has seen another couple of snook in Bay County waters, but he hasn’t hooked one.
Tommy Thompson, a photographer and one-time charter boat captain — he had to give up guiding after losing an eye to infection — writes Big Bend “Action Spotter” reports for Florida Sportsman magazine and has been tracking the northerly drift of snook for years with interest.
Now, according to Thompson, guides operating at the mouths of the Waccasassa and Withlacoochee rivers are targeting snook when the season is open.
Snook, throughout their historic range, relate closely to mangroves, which attract prey fish and, in turn, predators. Not coincidentally, the plants, which spring from water, are popping up in areas where they had not been seen before.
In a blog entry, Savanna Barry, an extension agent at the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Services, terms snook that are wandering north “pioneers.” Researchers, she wrote, “think snook are expanding their range and population numbers as average sea surface temperatures increase.”
Barry describes a study conducted by UF graduate student Emma Pistole, who worked to determine if there are genetic differences between pioneering snook and relative homebodies.
Analyzing DNA samples from fin clippings collected by fishing guides in Yankeetown, Crystal River, Cedar Key and Hernando County, Pistole found that snook along the Nature Coast had lower genetic diversity in comparison to those in Tampa Bay. Further study of genetic variation observed in pioneer fish may lead to the creation of a separate management plan for northern Gulf Coast populations.
Thompson said researchers have discovered snook 20 miles inland in the Suwannee River.
Before long, he predicted, “you are going to have numbers of them in the backwaters of Panama City.”
A fish far less likely to figure in university studies is the smooth back puffer, which like the snook, is surprising anglers in the northern Gulf who may be pursuing speckled trout on grass flats and reel in a fish that resembles a club of the sort that Fred Flintstone toted.
“When people first started catching them, they didn’t know what the hell they were,” Thompson said. “They
↙ Smooth back puffers, with increasing frequency, are surprising anglers along the northern Gulf Coast with their vicious strikes and improbable appearance.
BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCKS, ACCORDING TO BAY COUNTY AUDUBON PRESIDENT PAM OVERMYER, HAVE ENTERED THE UNITED STATES FROM MEXICO AND FROM THE CARIBBEAN.
↙ Black-bellied whistling ducks, long established in Louisiana and Central Florida, are taking up residence along the Emerald Coast. A breeding population has been observed at Conservation Park north of Panama City Beach.
were familiar with porcupine blowfish that will take a chunk out of your cork, but these things are fierce. They’ll hit just about anything.”
In 2015, via a post on his website headlined “Gulf Coast Smooth Back Pufferfish — An Invasion?” Thompson solicited information about catches of the species and received more than 40 reports.
“I grew up fishing, but I had never seen any until we had a big batch of them at Steinhatchee in Taylor County about seven, eight years ago,” Thompson said. “You would catch two or three, usually while fishing on the flats with some kind of artificial lure. Before the water gets too warm, I like to fish with Paul Brown soft plugs, and boy, they will chew one of those in half in a heartbeat.”
Catches of smooth back puffers, sometimes called ocean puffers, ranging to three feet and 20 pounds have been reported along Florida’s east coast.
“Seeing one that big, I wouldn’t even get in the damn water,” Thompson said. — Steve Bornhoft
Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks
Norm Capra, who chairs the Conservation Committee of the Bay County Audubon Society, lives in a house on a pond at the west end of Panama City Beach, very near the BayWalton county line.
“One day several years ago, we saw eight strange-looking ducks on the pond and got pretty excited,” Capra said. “Shortly after we saw them here, the same number of ducks showed up at Conservation Park (located west of State Highway 79 and north of Panama City Beach). They were most likely the same ducks.”
States from Mexico and from the Caribbean. She believes that the birds seen along the Emerald Coast took the latter route, getting as far north as Tallahassee before hanging a Louie.
The ducks have a distinctly upright posture, as if they have all been to an avian finishing school, and have pink feet, an orange beak and white eye-rings. They spend large portions of their time on land and in trees, and they peep while in flight. Because they are not hunted, they are less skittish than other ducks. In the last couple of years, they have been observed with ducklings at Conservation Park.
In March, a New Orleans television station, WWLTV, broadcast a news story about thousands of whistling ducks that had overtaken Lafreniere Park in Metairie and Audubon Park in uptown New Orleans. The cacophony of voices captured by the news crew might fairly be called a clustercluck.
Whether they may have deleterious effects on other more established species is an open question. Overmyer likened them to cattle egrets, another species that expanded its range northward from South and Central America through Texas.
Overmyer, who serves as Bay Audubon’s rare bird coordinator, pays close attention to so-called vagrants, birds that depart from their usual travel patterns.
Last winter saw irruptions of purple finches and pine siskins. Wintertime sightings of vermillion flycatchers have been made at the one-time Hombre Golf Course, currently being redeveloped, and the Lynn Haven Recreational Park.
Vermillion flycatchers breed in Arizona and typically winter in Central and South America. For the past 10plus winters, though, a population of the birds has been seen at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge at a spot called Twin Dykes, where two canals pass beneath a road.
“Maybe at some point they decided to fly 800 miles instead of 2,000 miles,” Overmyer theorized. Or maybe they chose to avoid the political unrest in those other Purple Finch Americas, which can from time to time be as bad as it is in the United States. — Steve Bornhoft
Nutria
For Rick O’ Connor, the nutria presents a classic invasive species tale: a critter is introduced to a new country, escapes captivity and, with no natural predators, explodes in population.
In 2019, O’Connor, a Florida Sea Grant extension agent and Pensacola native, found a dead nutria around Perdido Key. Immediately, he wondered how prevalent they might be in Escambia County.
Nutria, characterized by their orange, iron-tough enameled teeth, skinny tails and webbed feet, can produce their first litter at just eight months of age. Birthing between two to 12 pups per litter, nutria may have up to three litters per year.
They are a sizable rodent reaching 40 inches in length and weighing an average of 12 pounds. They travel in small groups and have a notoriously voracious appetite for plant roots and stems. That, coupled with their tendency to burrow and tunnel through banks and waterways, has earned them pest status in Louisiana, where nutria destroy some 100,000 acres of coastal wetlands per year.
Nutria overpopulation and destruction is so severe, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has established a bounty at $6 per tail.
↙ The nutria, a porker of a rodent with an insatiable appetite for stems and roots, undermines marshy shorelines with its activities. In Florida, coyotes and gators may help keep their numbers in check.
been wiping out large sections of marsh that protect the shoreline from hurricane damage,” O’Connor said. “So, I became concerned about our marshes. We’re calling nutria an EDRR species, that’s early detection, rapid response, to let the public know before they get out of control.”
O’Connor oversees a database at eddmaps.org where people can log nutria sightings. There have been several sightings around the Perdido Key golf course, as well as a report of nutria at Grand Lagoon in Panama City.
But, there’s no need to panic. According to O’Connor, something is holding nutria in check along the Emerald Coast.
“Alligators seem to prey on them,” he said, “and, other than that, I would speculate groups of coyotes on our barrier islands may be involved. So, we don’t see nutria as a big issue, but we have them on our radar and do ask that people report any sightings.” — Hannah Burke
Reticulated Siren
When wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist David Steen checked the turtle traps he’d set in a swamp at Eglin Air Force Base, he didn’t expect to unearth his personal white whale.
But, after two years of searching, Steen came face-to-face with a reticulated siren, an aquatic salamander species thought, until his 2009 encounter, to be the stuff of legends.
With its 2-foot-long, spotted, eel-like body and puffy, protruding gills, the nocturnal amphibian certainly looks like the stuff of exaggerated tales.
Steen first heard of the mysterious giant while attending graduate school at Auburn University in 2007. An advisor showed him a massive specimen jar mislabeled “greater siren” and suggested it might be an undescribed species.
And, according to a book by Robert Mount, The Reptiles and Amphibians of Alabama, published in 1975, people had reported sightings of what they referred to as “leopard eels,” but none had been trapped.
Steen, along with graduate student Sean Graham, wouldn’t find another reticulated siren after 2009 until five years later. In 2018, the pair finally published a paper officially describing the species in the scientific journal, PLOS One, compiled by the Public Library of Science.
According to Kevin M. Enge, an associate research scientist who works under Steen, the reticulated siren population is plentiful but has specific habitat requirements. Enge, along with Matt Fedler of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, has been working to expand upon Steen’s work and establish the taxonomy of other sirens.
Enge said the reticulated siren eats “like a vacuum,” inhaling vegetation, substrate and small aquatic invertebrates. “The excess sand gets pushed out through their gill slits,” he said.
Enge and Felder have helped record reticulated siren sightings from South Alabama to the Escambia and Chipola rivers in Northwest Florida and flowages in between. In doing so, they discovered a new, 7-inch-long salamander they are calling the seepage siren.
The case of the seepage siren is like that of the reticulated variety. Reports of the seepage siren have been around for about 30 years, but no one had bothered describing it. In fact, there may be another undiscovered siren species out there.
“Sirens may not be very visible, but they are abundant,” Enge said. — Hannah Burke
↑ Little was known about the reticulated siren, variously referred to as a leopard eel or a greater siren, until recent years. The species was first officially described in a scientific journal in 2018. It feeds by sifting organic material from bottom sediment.
↘ Joe Moore of the 30A Sea-life Discovery Center prepares visitors from Atlanta for what they will see during a kayak excursion to Western Lake.
story by THOMAS J. MONIGAN
photography by MIKE FENDER
Fostering Connections
Sea-life Center introduces visitors to marine wonders
For five years, Joe Moore and his family have been inviting people to discover the natural wonders of South Walton County and beyond.
Moore, his wife Sheryl, and daughters Lexi and Zea, own and operate the 30A Sea-life Center, located on Logan Lane, off County Road 283 just north of Scenic County Highway 30A.
“We have another business called Appleseed Expeditions, and we take kids on science trips and had our office there,” Joe Moore said. “I thought it would be great to have a marine science center because it’s right next to Grayton Beach, which is one of the biggest outlets for coastal dune lakes, and there’s an artificial reef right off the coast.
“We thought it would be great to teach about all the different species that live along 30A because it’s such an unusual ecological area,” he said.
One of Moore’s favorite snorkeling trips visits a cove near Shell Island in St. Andrew Bay in Bay County.
“Between 20 and 50 green sea turtles, between 2 and 8 years old, hang out there until they get big enough for the open ocean,” Moore said.
David Demarest, director of communication for the Walton County Tourist Development Council, said preservation and ecology are “hugely important” for South Walton.
“They’re a big part of who we are,” he said. “As the TDC, we’re behind the funding that makes the nearshore snorkeling reefs. When we reach out to potential visitors, we definitely reach out with a message that’s related to the natural qualities of the area.
“Businesses like 30A Sea Life help to tell that story,” he said.
Demarest said people who experience marine life and natural systems while in South Walton develop a strong connection to the area.
“Their experiences and the lessons that parents can teach their children are going to last a lifetime,” Demarest said. “And what we see happening in later generations, those kids grow up and bring their own kids here. And the cycle repeats itself. The more we can do as a community to facilitate an appreciation and an understanding for the natural ecology and biology of South Walton, the better.”
Moore grew up in Texas and said that at age 9 or 10, he knew he wanted to be a marine biologist.
“I loved the research they were doing at the South Padre Island University of Texas research facility,” he said. “So, when I was older, I wanted to develop a marine science program that plants a vision and a purpose in the lives of young people, especially at-risk kids.
Moore discovered the Emerald Coast when attending the University of West Florida.
Lexi Moore is 7 and Zea is 13.
↖↑ CLOSE TO NATURE Joe Moore, on the stand-up paddleboard, leads a group of visitors as they explore the waters of Western Lake, a coastal dune lake. He aims to expand the appreciation of people for the natural world through hands-on classes and field trips. ↑ Top: Josh Cobb, 10, of Atlanta inspects a horseshoe crab, a species that has remained unchanged for millions of years. Above: A sandbox holds shark jaws that visitors are free to touch.
Moore said. “They help collect creatures with me.”
Last summer on a snorkeling trip to Panama City Beach, Lexi got to swim with dolphins near the pass to St. Andrew Bay.
“We put her in the water, and they swam around her; she actually touched one of the dolphins,” Moore said.
Lexi is also fond of her pet stone crab named Bella.
The family has a video of a thimblesized octopus walking along Zea’s arm.
“Zea helps kids make sea turtles out of clay,” Moore said. “And she can make sea turtles, dolphins and sharks.” EC
EMERALD COAST MAGAZINE’ S2021 BEST
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RULES To preserve the integrity of the voting process, the following contest rules must be observed in order to cast a ballot and ensure it is included in the voting tabulation process. These rules are for the printed ballot only, otherwise visit EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/ Best-of-Emerald-Coast-2021Ballot to vote online:
• Only ballots printed on original Emerald Coast Magazine pages will be accepted; no copies or facsimiles of the ballot will be counted as a vote. • Ballots must have votes marked in at least 10 different categories in order to be counted. • Each vote must list the name of a business/company. Individual names alone will not be counted. • All votes must be for locally owned Emerald Coast-area businesses.
Locally owned and operated companies are defined by the owner
or managing partner living in the Emerald Coast area or within a 30-mile radius of the Emerald Coast. • Only ballots cast for locally owned and operated companies will be counted. • Only one ballot per envelope is permitted. • All ballots must be mailed directly to Junior League of the
Emerald Coast, a third-party organization responsible for processing the ballots. The address is: Junior League of the Emerald Coast C/O: Best of the Emerald Coast PO Box 265, Destin, FL 32540-0265
• Ballots must be postmarked by June 20, 2021. • Obvious attempts at ballot stuffing will be disqualified. • Any winning business must be in good standing with Rowland Publishing, Inc. in order to be promoted as a “Best of” winner and still in operation by the date of the results printed in the magazine.
Once ballots are counted, all tabulations are final.
Emerald Coast Magazine will recognize the results of the winners for every category in the October/November 2021 issue. Rules apply for winners.
The business must offer the product or service the category states as “best,” otherwise that business will be disqualified from winning that category. A business can win the “Best of” award in no more than one category. If a business is the leading vote-getter in more than one category, that business will win only the “Best of ” award for the category in which it received the most votes.
FOOD & BEVERAGE
Appetizer ______________________________________________________________________________________ Asian Fusion ___________________________________________________________________________________ Atmosphere __________________________________________________________________________________ Bakery ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Bar/Tavern _____________________________________________________________________________________ Barbecue _______________________________________________________________________________________ Beer Selection/Craft Beer _______________________________________________________________ Bloody Mary __________________________________________________________________________________ Breakfast _______________________________________________________________________________________ Brewery __________________________________________________________________________________________ Brunch __________________________________________________________________________________________ Cajun/Creole _________________________________________________________________________________ Chef ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Chinese _________________________________________________________________________________________ Crab Cakes ____________________________________________________________________________________ Crawfish ________________________________________________________________________________________ Dessert _________________________________________________________________________________________ Distillery ________________________________________________________________________________________ Fine Dining ____________________________________________________________________________________ French ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Frozen Treat (Ice Cream, Yogurt, Gelato, Snow Cones) ________________________ Gluten-Free-Friendly ______________________________________________________________________ Gourmet/Food Shop/Speciality Food Store _____________________________________ Grouper Sandwich _________________________________________________________________________ Gumbo __________________________________________________________________________________________ Hamburger ____________________________________________________________________________________ Happy Hour ___________________________________________________________________________________ Healthy Menu Options ___________________________________________________________________ Hibachi _________________________________________________________________________________________ Italian ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Margarita _______________________________________________________________________________________ Martini __________________________________________________________________________________________ Mediterranean _______________________________________________________________________________ Mexican/Latin American ________________________________________________________________ Mojito _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Nachos _________________________________________________________________________________________ New Restaurant (6-12 months) ________________________________________________________ On-site Catering ____________________________________________________________________________ Outdoor Bar __________________________________________________________________________________ Outdoor Dining ______________________________________________________________________________ Oysters __________________________________________________________________________________________ Pizza _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Restaurant in Bay County _______________________________________________________________ Restaurant in Escambia County ______________________________________________________ Restaurant in Okaloosa County ______________________________________________________ Restaurant in Walton County __________________________________________________________ Romantic/Special Occasion Restaurant ___________________________________________ Seafood Market _____________________________________________________________________________ Seafood Restaurant _______________________________________________________________________ Seafood Steamer ___________________________________________________________________________ Shrimp Salad _________________________________________________________________________________ Sports Bar _____________________________________________________________________________________ Steakhouse ___________________________________________________________________________________ Sushi _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Tacos ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Thai _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Tuna Dip ________________________________________________________________________________________ Waterfront Restaurant ____________________________________________________________________ Wedding Caterer ___________________________________________________________________________ Wine List/Wine Bar ________________________________________________________________________ Wings ____________________________________________________________________________________________
Acupuncture Clinic ________________________________________________________________________ Aesthetician __________________________________________________________________________________ Alternative Medicine Facility ___________________________________________________________ Architecture Firm ___________________________________________________________________________ Audio/Visual Provider ____________________________________________________________________ Automobile Dealership __________________________________________________________________ Bank ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Builder/Contractor _________________________________________________________________________ Cabinets & Countertops _________________________________________________________________ Cardiologist ___________________________________________________________________________________ Car/Limo/Shuttle Service _______________________________________________________________ Charity/Nonprofit __________________________________________________________________________ Charter Boat Service (Fishing, Diving, etc.)_________________________________________ Cheerleading/Gymnastics Facility ___________________________________________________ Chiropractic Practice _____________________________________________________________________ Commercial Real Estate Group _______________________________________________________ Computer Services/Tech Support ___________________________________________________ Cosmetic/Plastic Surgery Practice ___________________________________________________ Credit Union __________________________________________________________________________________ Customer Service __________________________________________________________________________ Dental Practice ______________________________________________________________________________ Dermatology Practice _____________________________________________________________________ Electric Cart/Golf Cart Dealership __________________________________________________ Event Planning Firm _______________________________________________________________________ Event Venue __________________________________________________________________________________ Eye Doctor Practice _______________________________________________________________________ Eye Surgeon Practice ______________________________________________________________________ Family Physician/Practice _______________________________________________________________ Financial Planning/Investment Firm ________________________________________________ Flooring _________________________________________________________________________________________ Florist ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Full-Service Spa _____________________________________________________________________________ Gym/Health Club/Fitness Center/Studio _________________________________________ Hair Salon _____________________________________________________________________________________ Heating and Air Service __________________________________________________________________ Hotel _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Insurance Agency __________________________________________________________________________ Interior Design Firm _______________________________________________________________________ Landscaping/Lawn Service ____________________________________________________________ Law Firm _______________________________________________________________________________________ Lighting Store ________________________________________________________________________________ Locksmith _____________________________________________________________________________________ Martial Arts/Karate ________________________________________________________________________ Marine Sales and Service _________________________________________________________________ Medical Center/Hospital ________________________________________________________________ Medical Practice ____________________________________________________________________________ Medical Spa ___________________________________________________________________________________ Mortgage Lender ___________________________________________________________________________ Orthodontist Practice ____________________________________________________________________ Orthopedic Surgical Practice __________________________________________________________ Outdoor Service Provider _________________________________________________________________ Pediatric Practice ___________________________________________________________________________ Pharmacy ______________________________________________________________________________________ Photo Booth Company ____________________________________________________________________ Photography __________________________________________________________________________________ Physical Therapy Practice _______________________________________________________________ Plumbing Fixtures/Service ______________________________________________________________ Pool Building/Service Company ______________________________________________________ Printing/Copying Services ______________________________________________________________ Property Management Group __________________________________________________________ PR/Advertising Agency ___________________________________________________________________ Residential Real Estate Group ________________________________________________________ Roofing _________________________________________________________________________________________ Screen Enclosure ____________________________________________________________________________ Specialty Fitness (Pilates, Yoga, etc.) _______________________________________________ Specialty Pet Services/Products _____________________________________________________ Storage Facility ______________________________________________________________________________ Title Company _______________________________________________________________________________ Vacation Rental Company/Service __________________________________________________ Veterinary Practice ________________________________________________________________________ Wedding Hair/Makeup Artist __________________________________________________________ Wedding Planner Company ____________________________________________________________ Wedding Photographer ___________________________________________________________________ Wedding/Reception Venue ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Facility _______________________________________________________________________ Videography____________________________________________________________________________________
SHOPPING
Antiques Shop _______________________________________________________________________________ Children’s Clothing Retailer ____________________________________________________________ Consignment/Resale Shop _____________________________________________________________ Cosmetic Provider/Vendor ______________________________________________________________ Furniture Retailer ___________________________________________________________________________ Jewelry Store _________________________________________________________________________________ Locally Owned Retailer __________________________________________________________________ Men’s Accessories/Apparel/Shoes __________________________________________________ Outdoor Furniture Retailer _____________________________________________________________ Scuba Dive Shop _____________________________________________________________________________ Specialty Retailer ___________________________________________________________________________ Sporting Gear/Paddleboard Retailer_________________________________________________ Wedding Shop _______________________________________________________________________________ Women’s Accessories ____________________________________________________________________ Women’s Boutique _________________________________________________________________________ Women’s Shoes _____________________________________________________________________________
ENTERTAINMENT/PEOPLE
Artist/Art Gallery ___________________________________________________________________________ DJ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Event ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Golf Course ___________________________________________________________________________________ Musician/Vocalist/Band __________________________________________________________________ Nightlife/Live Music Venue ______________________________________________________________ Place for a Date _____________________________________________________________________________ Place for Kids Birthday Party ___________________________________________________________ Place to Take the Kids ______________________________________________________________________ Place to Watch a Sunset __________________________________________________________________ Radio Personality ___________________________________________________________________________ Resort ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Tennis Facility ________________________________________________________________________________
