Nothing says Happy Friday like drinks with friends… on the water, of course!
Walks by the bay… beach cleanup parties… dinner, drinks, and dancing at the harbor… a day swimming in a friend’s backyard pool, complete with rain showers… concerts on the sound… waverunner adventures… paddleboard races… plans for upcoming island trips (St. Thomas – Florida Keys – Jekyll Island, Georgia – Aruba again)… a quick check of my Adventures! page finds an awful lot of water in my to-do’s… I think it’s fair to say my life revolves around the water. And this liquid-lover wouldn’t have it any other way!
When I’m not on the water, I’m usually thinking about it and figuring out how/when/where to make my next splash. My sis shares this water-worshipping trait, and whether we had fins and gills in our past lives or just have seawater in our blood, we agree that baby, we were born this way! It’s sheer luck to live where we’re surrounded by waves – bayous, the lake she lives on with her hubby, the Gulf of Mexico, Choctawhatchee Bay, rivers, the sound – and also be just a quick hop to the Caribbean, for those times when we need to satisfy the H2O-hankering for bluer and more tropical than what Florida’s emerald -watered panhandle has to offer.
Shunk Gulley Bar 
Summer here is a time to celebrate the cornucopia of coastline, so here’s a photo-look at my recent, not-so-recent, and upcoming water-ventures. Hope it inspires you to slather on some sunscreen and go for a dip, or maybe just relax in your hammock and daydream of la aqua vida!
Beach walk along South Walton County’s stretch of coastline, where we crossed paths with Draper Lake during an “outfall”, or breaching of the sand berm that separates the freshwater lake from the Gulf of Mexico.
These shallow coastal dune lakes appear in only a few places worldwide, including Madagascar, New Zealand, Australia, and here. When an outfall occurs, at times fresh water rushes into the Gulf, as seen here, or at other times saltwater spills into the lakes, creating a brackish, marshy ecosystem home to many species of wildlife including tortoises, birds, alligators, deer, squirrels, foxes, and both freshwater and saltwater fish – not to mention kayakers and paddleboarders!
Port St. Joe, Florida, where until last fall I drove to every other week for work 
Visiting Tulum, Mexico, Oct 2018 with my sister, my nephew, and his girlfriend
2015 – I won a trip to Palm Beach, FL, to see the Zach Brown band! 
Crab Island, 2018 
On one of my morning walks with Mac 
Jumping into 55-degree Crater Lake in 2014
I love how the water has aged this section of seawall, seen on our daily walk 
Destin, Florida
Waterside dining with my sis in Aruba 
Sarasota waterfront with my sis
I do love a good mud-race! 
Believe it or not, these are all in color! Taken early on a quiet, foggy, moody morning in South Walton County.
Beautiful reflections 
Welcome to the Gulf of Mexico! Morning walk with McGraw
McGraw loves the beach too! 
You never know what will wash up! Morning walk 
Walk through the park near my house
Port St. Joe, Florida, before Hurricane Michael. I stopped my car to take photos of this fisherman casting his net out into the knee-deep Gulf waters at sunset.
Cheers to Christmas in Florida! 
Stopped on the way back from the grocery store to catch this sunset from AJ’s on the Bayou
Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon 
Swimming in the Gulf with Mojo, my first dog, circa 1994 
Canoeing the Blackwater River with friends, 1992 (I’m on the right) 
Road trip to Bainbridge Island, Washington
Quiet morning on the bay 
Baby Portuguese Man-o-War 
Walk with Mac on Okaloosa Island 
Road trip to Jacksonville Beach and Ponte Vedra, Florida
Dinner at Dockside in Port St. Joe 
Gran Cenote, Tulum, Mexico, 2018
My sis and my friend, Kami, when she visited last fall. Wavy day! 
Destin Harbor
Grand Case, St. Martin… My first Caribbean love 
Multnomah Falls, Oregon, with my mom, 2009 
The south of Italy – On the inside, I’m Italian! 
Canal in Venice – I love how there are steps right up into the homes 
Tower Bridge (London Bridge), 1997 
Evening bay walk with a full moon 
Tiny Mac, big Atlantic Ocean – Jacksonville, FL 
Beautiful morning walk with Mac 
Mac with my sister’s dogs on their dock over Lake Lorraine 
Santa Rosa Sound in the evening, concert by boat 
Discovering tiny fishes on a morning bay walk 
Friday drinks at Destin Harbor
We walked down to these concrete piling remnants for our beach cleanup day on Okaloosa Island this weekend. How long have they been there, I wonder? If concrete could talk, I wonder what they’d have to say…?
I had to whittle down what’s here! I’ve got electronic piles of pics from adventures, and the large majority of them catch at least a peek of puddle, a smidge of surf, a bit of beach. But it’s fun to pull them together and whet my whistle in the early summer as prime water-time hits.
The morning after a hurricane 
For the “what’s next” I mentioned up above, water is of course on the menu! I’m attending a blogging boot camp in Jekyll Island, Georgia in August, followed immediately by a second trip to my One Happy Island of Aruba with friends. This fall, Mac and I will travel with my mom to the Florida Keys to explore for a few days. And then, to top off my salty year, I’ll be visiting St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands, in December.
Stay tuned for what’s to come! And I hope your summer is as salty, surf-y, sandy, and sunny as mine aims to be!
fifty & FIERCE 