The Schooner Freedom Is A Trip Back to the Civil War

Posted on August 3, 2014 by floridatraveler

florida traveler Schooner-Freedom

 

There are a lot of ships in Florida offering a cruise from the largest fleet of luxury ocean liners to replicas of pirate ships, but in Saint Augustine, visitors can take a relaxing day or romantic sunset cruise on the Schooner Freedom, an unusual boat.

The Schooner Freedom is an authentic replica of a nineteenth century blockade-runner.  150 years ago during the American Civil War era dozens of such boats sailed from hidden Florida ports and sheltered bays to Cuba and the Bahamas, carrying Florida goods and bringing back supplies to keep the Confederacy going.

People willing to risk sailing one of these personal double-masted, gaft-rigged, topsail schooners were exempt from Civil War service.  Their owners were controversial for the successful ones became quite rich (Remember Rhett Butler at the start of Gone With the WInd?) until  their boats were captured or sunk by the Union navy.

There are a lot of sailed craft powered by motors in Florida, but the staff and crew of the Schooner Freedom hate the hum of the engine so most nights as you watch the sunset over Saint Augustine and you can pretend you are back in the 1860’s.

 

 

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Florida’s Most Forgotten International Airport Is Booming

Posted on July 28, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler Sanford Airport

 

If you saw the 1992 film Passenger 57 starring Orlando’s Wesley Snipes, you probably view the Orlando-Sanford International Airport in Sanford as a backwater country airport.  You would be very wrong.

The Airport, owned by the international firm of ADC & HAS, is, due to flight training, one of the 30 busiest airports in the world in total flight operations each year.  While it handles all of Allegiant Air’s flights into Central Florida, the airport is primarily the landing point for dozens of charter flights from Europe headed to Walt Disney World.

In the busy winter and summer travel months destinations and flights are added.  Arkefly goes to Amsterdam.  Thompson AIrlines operates charters to London and Birmingham.  Starting in October, Jetairfly will deliver passengers from Brussels.  Monarch flies to Glasgow and Manchester.

I was impressed to see SSTAIR flights arriving from Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil.  More interesting to me was the fact I could take an Icelandair  plane to Rekjavik and than hop over to Paris, Frankfort, and Amsterdam.

The Airport hardly resembles its original role as a Naval Air Station and a Master Jet Training Base.  While you’ll land further away from Disney, you will be closer to the beaches of Daytona and Saint Augustine.

 

 

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Florida’s Most Expensive Thrill Ride Costs $4,950 plus tax

Posted on July 22, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler ZERO-G

Summertime across the USA is the time people hit the thrill rides at amusement parks and beaches.  Florida has its share of traditional fun rides, but there is one experience offered in three locations that might be the the most expensive thrill ride in Florida.

Since 2004 ZERO-G has been flying customers in specially modified Boeing 727s to 34,000 feet at a 45 degree angle (1.8 Gs) and pushing over to produce 20 to 30 seconds of zero gravity.  Gently pulling out so people can stabilize on the aircraft floor, the pilots repeat the parabolic arcs 12 to 15 more times.

Flights can be booked (406-546-9345) for Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX) and Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) .  The firm also offers a Non-Flyer Guest Package for people who just want to watch their friends and family members do pre and post flight activities.

Besides the flight and special training, customers get their own ZERO-G flight suit, merchandise, a certificate of weightless completion, and photos and video of your experience.

If you own a business, you might want to spend $165,000 to take 35 employees or participates on a private charter ZERO-G Experience, taking off at Cape Kennedy Space Center.

 

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Florida Island Vacations Only Via A Ferry Boat

Posted on July 14, 2014 by floridatraveler

Florida Island Vacations Only Via A Ferry Boat.

Posted in Florida parks, Historic Hotels & Inns, Recreational Experiences | Leave a comment

Florida Island Vacations Only Via A Ferry Boat

Posted on July 14, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler palm island

 

There are hundreds of island resorts in Florida, but very few of them are only accessible by ferry or private boat.  Our choices here show the strange diversity of the remaining unattached island vacation choices.

FOR THE VERY RICH: You can almost swim over from South Beach to the expensive Fisher Island Hotel and join the 226 households on what was once the one-family island retreat of the Vanderbilts.  Fisher Island is the richest per capita island in the USA and staying here will make you feel you are Oprah Winfrey or Julia Roberts or Andre Agassi..

FOR THE SIMPLE ADVENTURER, we have the Pelican Inn on Dog Island on St. George Sound in the Panhandle.  There’s just eight small A/C kitchenettes, but you’re right on a beautiful, probably deserted beach.  Dog Island got famous when a You Tube group satirized Dog Island as a retreat only for dogs.  You can bring Fido to the Pelican but that will be $10 per day extra.

FOR THOSE WHO WANT PRIVACY, I suggest renting a beach house on Don Pedro Island, north of Boca Grande in Charlotte County.  Rental prices are incredibly low for modern vacation homes and condos, but you’ll need to ferry over all your food and drink. Part of the island is State Park, again accessible only by boat so your moonlit walks on the beach will mean you might be all alone.

FOR FAMILIES: (see photo) Just north of Don Pedro is Palm Island, with the southern part dotrted with beach homes and the northern half Palm Island Resort. There are condos and beachside villas of all sizes, but the resort has the Rum Bay Restaurant and Coconut Cafe for those who want to entertain others. And tons of recreation facilities and pools and boats to rent.

 

Posted in Florida parks, Historic Hotels & Inns, Recreational Experiences, Restaurants | 1 Comment

Best Florida Snorkel Spots Outside the Florida Keys

Posted on July 8, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler bathtub reef

 

Some Florida visitors believe you have to go to the Florida Keys and even rent a boat to snorkel in Florida.  While it is true, Florida’s shoreline limits snorkeling locations, there are plenty of opportunities to snorkel off Florida beaches.

Here are our choices of the BEST SHORELINE SNORKELING SPOTS:

BATHTUB REEF PARK (picture) on the south end of Hutchinson Park in Stuart is a mile long, usually clear snorkeling fun place.  A short swim at low tide puts you in the best conditions for fish.

JOHN U. LLOYD STATE PARK in Dania Beach has a nice reef in front of Parking Lot 1.  You can even rent kayaks to explore the entire area.

The DATURA AVENUE SNORKEL TRAIL in Launderdale-By-The-Sea is well-marked with white buoys, but disregard the shipwreck myths about the site.

On the Gulf Coast South SIesta Key in Sarasota has a great spot just south of the CRESCENT BEACH ROCKS and a good but deeper location at Point of Rocks opposite Beach Access 12.

EGMONT KEY STATE PARK requires a snorkel boat trip to the island, but on some days the shallows by the old lighthouse make you think of the Bahamas.

The ST. ANDREWS STATE PARK jetties in Panama City have been a popular snorkeling area although the lack of dive buoy enforcement has been an issue.

The shallow sea grass beds of ST. JOSEPH BAY provide an exotic and different type of snorkeling.  The other snorkelers you’ll see will probably be licensed scallop collectors.

 

 

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The Best Florida Lighthouses To Visit

Posted on June 30, 2014 by floridatraveler

FHIC bocagrandelight

It’s summer in Florida and its the time the native Floridians really hit the beaches. Popular attractions are some of Florida’s surviving 30 lighthouses which are open to the public, thanks in part to groups like the Florida Lighthouse Associations.

The lighthouse was an important asset in protecting shipping along Florida’s 1,350 miles of coastline. Boaters along the Keys know there are operational lighthouses still keeping ships away from the dangerous reefs. I prefer lighthouses I can visit in my car.

The Best Lighthouses To Visit: PONCE DE LEON LIGHTHOUSE (Daytona) is “Big Red”, at 175-feet and 213 steps, the active light is the second tallest brick light in the USA. There are also three keepers dwellings, an oil storage house, and a pump house to see.

CAPE FLORIDA LIGHTHOUSE (Miami) was rebuilt in 1846 after the Seminoles attacked it and with its Lighthouse Keeper’s Museum, is a great attraction at Bill Baggs State Park.

SAINT AUGUSTINE LIGHTHOUSE (1871) resembles a 167-foot barber shop pole and is wonderfully haunted. Kids under 44″ are restricted from the 219 steps. Nice museum.

BOCA GRANDE LIGHTHOUSE (see photo) is unlike the others for it and its twin keeper’
s house are 44-foot white frame buildings, that survived 150 mph hurricane a few years back.

PENSACOLA LIGHTHOUSE is a 150-foot conical tower, white on the bottom and black on top. It is not only an active lighthouse – the U.S. Coast Guard will be your host.

KEY WEST LIGHTHOUSE is a 86-foot white conical brick tower used from 1847 to 1969 and open daily.

CAPE CANAVERAL LIGHTHOUSE is a 1848 masterpiece of 145-feet and 179 steps. You will need to contact Patrick AFB to take the Wednesday and Thursday full tours.

(This will be part of a series “BEST OF FLORIDA” seen at this blog at my other sites.)

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Florida’s First Controversial Film Is 100 Years Old

Posted on June 21, 2014 by floridatraveler

Florida's First Controversial Film Is 100 Years Old

The Florida Enchantment (1914, Vitagraph Company), Florida’s first controversial motion picture was distributed across the nation one hundred years ago.

Variety announced that “The picture should never have been put out.” Virginia Woolf loved the movie.

The film, based upon a 1891 novel and 1896 play by Archibald Gunter and Fergus Redmond, was a gender-bending comedy of manners in which a woman discovers magic seeds that transform women into men (and men into women) without seriously altering their outward appearance. The woman takes the seeds in response to her fiancee’s womanizing activities.

The male star and director of the film was Sidney Drew, uncle of John Barrymore, and the woman was played by Edith Storey. They would later team up in other film comedies. What is unusual was the controversial film about gender was that Drew directed the film in Fort Lauderdale. The movie industry had boomed in Jacksonville, but was slowly moving to California at this time.

The film would be very unpopular if shown on today’s screens since all the roles of African-Americans were played by whites in black makeup. Yet this lesser known movie is often shown today by women’s film groups for its study of female and male roles in society.

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St Pete’s Home Shopping Network Started With 112 Can-Openers

Posted on June 15, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler hsn-officeIn 1977 Lowell “Bud” Paxson, owner of WWQT 1470 AM Radio in Saint Petersburg had a problem – an advertiser dropped out leaving the station with 112 avocado green-colored can openers.

Paxson assigned his top on-air personality Bob Circosta three hours station time to unload the can-openers for $9.95 each. The can openers easily sold and Paxson realized the power of using the media for home shopping.

As a result of the can-opener crisis, Paxson and Roy Speer in 1982 started the Home Shopping Club, on a local cable channel in Pinellas County. The popularity of the televised sales pitch boomed and three years later the Home Shopping Network was offered to cable firms around the nation.

Bob Circosta was the original HSN selling over 75,000 different products in over 20,000 hours of live television for a value over “one billion dollars.” Circosta, who lives in Clearwater, now helps other firms make use of television and the social media.

With call centers all over the nation, a Spanish network, other electronic retail ventures, websites, and retail outlets, locals in Florida often forget HSN’s roots. Just off I-275 is the headquarters of HSN and their far-reaching studio and broadcasting facilities.

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Ride And Drop Bike Riding Comes To Tampa and Orlando

Posted on June 8, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler CITY BIKE TAMPACentral Florida has recently joined a popular trend of recreational biking: bike sharing where people rent the use of bikes by the hour or have a monthly membership and pick up the bikes at hub locations thanks to a unique GPS-enabling locking system.

In Tampa some 300 bikes have been set up by the first-of-a-kind alliance between CycleHop and Social Bicycles, the two innovators in this technology. Vacationers using the app will discover they can now set up a bike trip almost at a moments notice with their cellphone.

For example you could reserve a bike, pick it up for example at one of City Bike of Tampa’s two downtown locations (they are mechanical support for Coast Bike Share), ride over to Ybor City and stop for Cuban coffee while locking your bike with a 4-digit pin number, and finally ride down Bayshore Drive, Florida’s longest sidewalk to Ballast Park.

“The smart bikes” will also be useful for local people riding around downtown to get to lunch or a meeting. The Social Cyclist app turns every ride into a social trip since you can record your distances and locations, add photos, request bike parking, and even report road conditions.

For more details on this topic – go to http://www.coastbikeshare.com.

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