We had a lovely day at the beach just recently - it was our first trip to the beach in several months.  We were accompanied by the fantastic Erin and Nick and enjoyed a lovely little picnic after frolicking in the waves :)

Can we just take a moment to drink in these few shots of some amazing sky?  

It's true that as a born and bred yankee from the snow belt (yes, there's a snow belt!), I'm not Florida's Biggest Fan, but sometimes you just have to hand it to this state for some beautiful skies.  These shots are from Destin and Gainesville. 

Two weeks ago, we went to St. George Island on the Gulf Coast.  Ironically, the only gas station on the island is operated by BP :-/

I think we were both secretly a little nervous about seeing a bit of oil, especially as we saw patches of UID brown stuff on a few of the beaches along the way.  Fortunately, the beaches on the island were beautiful.  Part of the island is a nature preserve, so it was great to see that everything was clean.  

The water was exceptionally warm, especially compared to the previous weekend's beach trip to St. Augustine on the 'first coast' as they like to call it.  The water was about 70 with huge waves (well, north Florida huge).  At St. George, the water must have been at least 85, if not warmer.  It was almost uncomfortably hot.  Anyway, we did see some wildlife: two types of jellyfish, horseshoe crab, your standard tiny beach crabs, porpoises (yay!), a large blue crab, a couple of little yellow-finned barb-like fish that tried to school with us, and all your standard beach birds.

It was a pretty good day, I have to admit :)