Destination Clearwater: Sand Key, Part I – Off the Water

Sometimes the best parts of my days are the ones I never even consider when I am still lying in bed, anticipating what the day has in store.

Take this past Thursday, for instance. I hadn’t been to Sand Key Park since March, so I thought a relatively uncrowded weekday would allow me to enjoy the sand and the surf all to myself.

I thought about parking my car, making quick work of sand so hot it feels like a thousand searing needles on the bottoms of my feet, and joining the bathwater-warm Gulf of Mexico for a tumble in the water. I pictured the shells, the sand, the water – the only thing I didn’t picture? The vegetation.

There is no doubt that Sand Key showcases the beauty of Clearwater’s beaches – rough pearls of sand against sublime aquamarine waters is the stuff of paradise and at the very core of why we live here. So you really can’t blame me for having mini-fantasies about it, but I should have known better. And realized that I wouldn’t end up writing about the sand and surf after all.

Usually when I go to Sand Key I park as close to the water as possible and hit the beach directly.

For a Thursday, though, the park had a few too many folks for my taste. So I drove to the southernmost end and opted for the last walkway, where, to my surprise, I didn’t fall upon the beach immediately. Instead, I found myself immersed in a sea of vegetation.

I’m no dummy; I understand that the point of the wooden walkways are to allow for passage over grasses and other plants that help keep the sand in place. I’m just unaccustomed to feeling temporarily alone on a populated beach.

Cabbage palms, sea oats, and a host of other shoreline trees and grasses sidled up to my walkway as I made my way to the beach. It was no forest – although upland on Sand Key there are, I noted, quite a few nature trails – but it was unexpected, serene, and delightful.

Instead of making my way directly to the beach, I opted to linger along the walkway, looking for signs of marsh hare or birds in the underbrush. I saw nothing; save for the pink hotel looming in the distance, I may as well have been alone in the world. I savored the isolation, then moved along to the beach.

As the walkway gave way to an ever-increasing amount of sand and diminishing greenery, I came upon a beachy clearing and I found myself among others: .

I never know if these birds are intimidated by me or merely annoyed at my presence. Something about not being able to distinguish what I am certain are beady obsidian eyes from sleek black faces makes me nervous. They point their melon-colored beaks at me; some take flight while others stand their ground, shuffling their wings nervously, keeping their most prominent features between me and them.

I stare at them and try to get a photo. A few more take flight, looking as though the weight of those beaks will pull them back down to the sand at any moment. I put the camera away and try to edge around them without disturbing them; the pack scuttles away from me and poses their wings for liftoff.

I sigh and glance back at my wooded path. I look past the skimmers to the beach, farther away here than at the end of any of the park’s other boardwalks. I look at the people, laughing and shouting along the shoreline in the distance. I look back at the sea oats and palms whispering at beach daisies along the path.

I return to the path. The beach can wait another day; for now, I will linger along the walkway, enjoying the last remaining vestiges of the wild amidst the high rises.