Thousands of Monarch butterflies are fluttering all around the sixth best beach in the world right now, this very day.

    I went two weeks too early to Florida’s St. George Island State Park or I might have breathed within their fluttery abundance.

    They’re only here a few weeks,” says Joshua Hodson, the park manager with the glorious job of walking every day on the beach among America’s top 10.

    Who makes such a claim? The Laboratory for Coastal Research at the Florida International University. “Dr. Beach” to be exact: Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman.

    His 2011 declaration of the nation’s top beaches is the 21st annual, using 50 specific criteria, including sunny days, color of sand and water, absence of oil or tar balls.

    Squeaky clean this beach is, and pristine. Nine miles of high dunes and undeveloped beach form the State Park. The oil spill never arrived here.

    Nesting seabirds and migratory birds show up just like the Monarchs. This is a barrier island between the Gulf of Mexico and the mainland.

    Here’s my tip when you drive through the Park gate, pay the $6 and choose your spot for a day at the beach:

    Don’t stop at the first pavilion, bathroom and parking lot. Go to the next, or the end and find even more tranquility.

    Go to the very end and pay $6.00 additional—only 20 cars allowed in that last five-mile stretch of beach. Solitude suits me at the beach.

    I’m a slowpoke kayaker and I appreciated the ease of renting one from Journeys outfitter; liked the hammock in the patio garden when I returned.

    Strong kayakers paddle to the primitive St. George Island campground and spend a night or two; other kinds of campers pitch tents or pop-ups in 60 campsites, a five-minute walk to the beach. I saw a tent with an air conditioner zipped into its doorway.

    Lots of ways to walk this beachy State Park: in the sand, along three miles of trails through pine hammocks and the boardwalk to the East Slough. It’s ADA accessible.

    This is a thoughtful spot—five percent slope with handrails most of the way and raised wood along the bottom to prevent slipping off an edge.

    Neat touch on the big deck at the end, overlooking land and water: narrow picnic tables, butting against the railing and perfect for gazing.

    Simply be. Take in the moment. Watch the birds. Breathe.

Maybe that’s what Dr. Beach had in mind.

    He’d find the calm beyond the beach too because 87 percent of this Florida county is public, not privately owned, land: nature preserves, state forests and protected lands.

    I skipped hiking in pine forests and hardwood hammocks to claim the waters. Two boating adventures in three days. 

    Something grand about boating with a boat builder. George Kirven Floyd founded the Apalachicola Maritime Museum and he’s brimming with new ways to bring old traditions back to these waters.

    I’m looking forward to booking a week on his paddlewheeler when she launches, perhaps in 2013, complete with opulent staterooms he says.

    Right now, he guides eight-day canoe and kayak trips from the river’s headwaters to the Gulf. That involves launches in Columbus, Georgia, and Floyd’s just-built Chattahoochee Landing.

    He’s starting a Wooden Boat School at the Maritime Museum in Apalachicola to “bring back traditional culture and leave something beautiful behind. This happens all over New England.

    “We’ll design our boats to be well suited for these waters,” says Floyd whose family traditions in this water go back to the 1840s.

    “My great-great-grandfather was a stevedore from New England who settled here and my dad was born in the Apalachicola River Inn built in 1898.”

    Dad and grandpa worked the water as game wardens and now Floyd is home again loving this 106-mile river.

    He’s a modern entrepreneur, redirecting big profits from the sale of his company Health Logics Systems Corporation to care for the river and its banks, for its traditions and crafts.

    “What we need is people on this river as a resource for the human spirit,” Floyd believes.

    His favorite kayak? Made from recycled plastic. His musing about the boats to be built?

“Oyster boats here used to be sail boats so I’m just thinking with the cost of oil …” and he gazes off, maybe spinning another new endeavor.

    The Apalachicola Maritime museum has a nice collection of photographs, artifacts and some wooden boats inside.

    Out back on the River find a 58-foot wooden ketch, the Heritage, a 40-passenger catamaran, pontoon boat with dinner cruises and a fleet of sailing dories, rowing shells, kayaks and canoes. Airboat too.

    The next day I heard more water stories with Captain Gill’s River Cruises.

      Gill Autrey says the back river is his preference.

    “Most always see manatees,” he says, and he always spots the tupelo trees, specific to this region, famous for the honey.

    “See the black tupelo blooming first,” Capt. Gill says, “and it granulates. That goes to the bakeries.”

    White tupelo honey is the prize because it does not crystallize and is safe for people with diabetes. Gill uses it to make mead.

    The Lily is enclosed and air conditioning can be used; seating on top is hot but breezy with a big view of other boats, the stretch of the river and fancy houses and fishing shacks along the way.

    I stayed mostly on the bow for the view, a breeze and the smells of the outdoors.

    No individual tickets. Charter this experience, maximum seven people. Pets welcome.

    With water excursions my emphasis, I chose a beach house for sleeping instead an historic inn or bed and breakfast experience.

    Hundreds of houses on the beach to rent — many big enough to sleep a dozen or more friends and relatives. Plenty are old style cottages and beach bungalows.

Do not look for skyscrapers on St. George Island, unless the lighthouse counts.

    I think it’s worth putting a little time into website research to explore abundant housing options in the county connected by the 48-mile Big Bend Scenic Highway.

    The Coombs Inn in Apalachicola is a completely different kind of experience from my backyard beach. This is elegant Victorian mansion life.

    Consider Coombs a boutique hotel with 23 suites in four neighboring buildings, all a gracious yellow exterior, and exquisite furnishings and architectural details in each.

    Proprietors Lynn Wilson and Bill Spohrer set aside time from international careers to renovate the long vacant home on an Apalachicola corner.

    To this mission they brought savvy, skills, exquisite taste and a passion for the little fishing community.

    “The American dream is still possible in small towns,” Wilson says, “if they don’t try to copy the big places.

    “Be true to what you are.”

    Impressed me twice in two days to find corporate world movers and shakers choosing this very spot to invest and to live—on purpose and with passion.

    Dr. Beach isn’t the only one who recognizes a glorious place.

    

Oyster Festival

    The Oyster Festival, Oct. 7 – 9 on St. George Island and next-door Eastpoint features oyster eating, shucking contests and a tonging demonstration

    Those are the very long handled tools like rakes oystermen use to pry the catch loose and lift them to the boat.

    Free concerts each evening and three on Sunday, lighthouse climbing, fishing tournament, 5K run, educational displays and kids’ activities are part of the weekend events.

    Spat is what you call a baby oyster, just a little dollop that attaches to an oyster shell and takes 18 months to grow to three inches, the legal size for harvesting.

    How many oysters in a bushel? Twenty four dozen.

 HYPERLINK “http://www.OysterFestivalFC.com” www.OysterFestivalFC.com