Weekend Reflections: Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene, a category 4 storm, unleashed its fury Thursday, causing significant damages. It made landfall near Perry, Florida late that night, leaving tremendous destruction in its wake. The Florida Gulf coast - Bradenton, Longboat Key, Anna Maria, the Tampa Bay area, Cedar Key, Steinhatchee - bear the brunt of it. This morning reports are coming in with pictures of historic flooding and landslides in the foothills of TN and NC. It is heartbreaking to see so much devastation. CNN mentioned that at least 45 people were killed across five states. You can read more here.

To add insult to injury, many beaches and homes were rebuilt just last year! Storm surges are the scariest, as you can see in these videos below. The first is of Cedar Key, the second on Steinhatchee. We never stopped at Steinhatchee, but many cruisers, especially those who do the Great Loop, stop there as they cruise from Mobile Bay to Florida.

Just last week we were in the Florida Panhandle and had driven to Apalachicola for lunch, stopping at Mexico Beach. Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm, had devastated the area back in 2018. We were happy to see the rebuilding of the small town coming together nicely. Beaches were restored with the planting of sea oats to protect the dunes from future storms and erosion.

At Apalachicola, we ambled around town to find many businesses closed, likely due to Covid. Our favorite place, The Seafood Grill, is now a different restaurant. We settled for Hole in the Wall where we had fabulous fried oysters and shrimp.

Fried oysters and hush puppies

Our next stop was St George Island State Park. Dr Beach selected this beach to be number 1 beach in America last year, and we are not surprised. Miles of undeveloped beaches with fine white sand beckoned us to swim in the inviting warm waters of the Gulf. A yellow flag was flying indicating medium hazard; the slight breeze felt wonderful. Visions of the Cape Cod National Seashore danced in my mind when I saw the wind swept dunes.

Sand dunes

Nice facilities with restrooms, showers and pavilions for picnics

Cape St George Light

During our vacation in Panama City Beach, we ate at a popular restaurant called Schooners, a popular spot to watch and celebrate the sunset. When we turned onto the street where Schooners is located, this was what greeted us.

Shocking is an understatement. OMG, what happened here? We later learned that it was a tornado's doing. Which is even scarier because you never know where it's going to hit.

View from the beach

Schooners

No doubt lives have been changed. We pray people are safe and hope for the best.

This post is shared on Skywatch Friday Through My Lens and Art Journal Journey.

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Exploring Panama City Beach and Pensacola, Florida, part 2

The highlight of our week's stay in Panama City Beach is no doubt the exciting Blue Angels! We got up early and drove almost 3 hours to the Pensacola Naval Air Station to see them practice.

We were fortunate to have great weather that morning. The Blue Angels awed us with their famous aerobatic maneuvers, performed with utmost precision and accuracy. For the uninitiated, the Blue Angels are "the Navy's flight demonstration squadron of the United States Navy." You can read more about them on Wikipedia here.

 

After the airshow, we cooled off at the Naval Aviation Museum, admiring the collection of planes and soaking in the history. The amazing Navy veteran Liutenant Cash Barber, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May, was regaling visitors with stories of life in the navy and flying the amphibious aircraft, the "Catalina" during World War II. 

We stopped at the Pensacola Light around the corner for a picnic. Just as we were finishing lunch, it started to rain. Alas, no visit to the lighthouse. Or the Gulf Islands National Seashore, much to our disappointment.

Entrance to Pensacola Light

The next few days found us in Panama City Beach, where we swam and reveled in the warm, clear waters of the gulf. Thoughts of buying some tools to scoop up the blue crabs crossed our minds.

We enjoyed the glorious sunsets. A perfect ending to our vacation.

sunset at Schooners Restaurant 

sunset at SpringHill Suites, near the PCB Pier

Have you seen the Blue Angels?

This post is shared on Skywatch Friday, Image-in-ing Through My Lens and Little Things Thursday.

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Tropical fruits in Florida

This summer may have been hot, but it will be remembered as the summer with a bountiful harvest of tropical fruits from my aunts' garden. In July, three mango trees provided them and their extended families and friends sweet juicy mangoes for weeks. One tree is a Thai variety called Nam Doc Mai, apparently a "prolific fruiter." The pit is thin, the flesh is fiberless and the taste is awfully sweet. The texture is quite similar to the Ataulfo variety that you can find in local supermarkets.

The two bigger mangoes are Nam Doc Mai mangoes

Not sure about this variety, but there were sweet too!

The next month, we were blessed with a bounty of another fruit - longan, a cousin of the more popular fruit, lychee. The lychee trees had succumbed to some sort of disease, much to our disappointment. But the longans were simply fabulous! You peel the brownish skin to reveal translucent juicy flesh with a small black seed. They too were very sweet.

Mouth-watering longan, a cousin of lychee fruit

The longan tree in my garden is about seven years old. We counted 10 longans on it, and after Tropical Storm Debby came through, only two were left on the tree. We picked them even though it wasn't fully ripe; we were pleasantly surprised with the sweetness. 

 This 7-year-old tree produced but 10 longan fruits!

On the weekends our relatives like to shop at the Pinellas Farmers and Flea Market in Clearwater. Hawker-like stalls selling Som tum (Thai Green papaya salad) and sugar-cane drinks, transports you back to Asia, if only for a brief moment. Tropical fruits offered include coconuts, sugar cane drinks, jackfruit, dragon fruit, sugar apples, rambutans, mangosteens, durian, to name some. Most are locally grown, some are imported. 

Durian and dragon fruit

sugar apples, Mangosteens, guava

Jackfruit vendor

Vendor selling coconut drinks

You can find lots of Asian vegetables, herbs (Thai basil, culantro, galangal, etc), plants and flowers at the market.

turmeric, ginger, red chili, cucumbers

Thai eggplant

Nam Doc Mai Mango plant

My aunts had given us the longan tree and a mango tree. We don't know the variety, but they both seem to be doing well. Hopefully these tropical fruit trees will have a good harvest next summer.

Have you tried any of these tropical fruits?

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