Tropical Breeze - Happy 12 Year Anniversary!

We have been so blessed to own this beautiful piece of paradise on Cape San Blas called A Tropical Breeze.  Today is our 12 year anniversary of moving into A Tropical Breeze. It's been a great 12 years with lots of wonderful family times for us and our guests. In that 12 years we have experienced weddings, engagements, graduations, silver and golden anniversaries, important birthdays and one Ohio State National Championship. There's been a few bad times too with hurricanes, oil spill worries and the frustration of the salt water air trying to rust every piece of metal in site.

We want to thank our wonderful guests who have treated A Tropical Breeze as their own, especially the guests that come back year after year.  You Bless us in so many ways!  Thank you!

Cape San Blas Light House Move

Well it's finally happening - the Cape San Blas lighthouse is moving to Port St. Joe. Very sad to lose this iconic landmark from the Cape, but its new home in Port St. Joe looks pretty good too.

King Mackeral - Fish On!

We didn't start out fishing for King Mackeral but sometimes you have to go with what's biting that day. Today we caught 8 large king mackeral, 1 lone red snapper, a few shark a Jack Cravelle and Cody even speared a flounder.  It was a really fun day of family fishing.

Scalloping in St. Joe Bay

We are having an action packed 4th of July weekend and it's scallop season.  We found quite a few but forgot to take a good picture.  We were stashing them in the live well of our boat. Overall we found about 80 in the St. Joe Bay by the time we were done.

4th of July in Port St. Joe

The last time we were in Port St. Joe for the 4th of July was 2002, the year we came to see what this #1 beach in the USA, Cape San Blas had to offer.  Little did we know we would come home under contract for a beautiful home called A Tropical Breeze.

This year we were just back for fun and there was a lot of that in Port St. Joe and on the tip of Cape San Blas. The city organized a parade, a big band outdoor show and amazing fire works plus The Thirsty Goat at the Port St. Joe Inn had entertainment every evening. During the day there were lots of boats out at the tip of the Cape and we ran into friends and enjoyed cooking out on their boat.  It was a really fun 4th of July evening and I think we will have come back next year too.

Red Snapper!

First Day of Snapper Season and we caught our limit. So happy to have a whole week at A Tropical Breeze and celebrate Memorial Day with Rob's brother who is a Vietnam Vet.

12 Red Snapper, limit 2 per person

Brothers

It's Something Big!

Shark!

This fish looks fake but it's the real thing.

So serious

Beautiful Sunset out on the Gulf

Atlanta Magazine Has Found Cape San Blas and The Forgotten Coast

Cape San Blas will rekindle your love for the Florida Panhandle

The "Forgotten Coast" provides quiet relaxation

by Rebecca Burns

Photograph courtesy of Rockin M Ranch Beach Horseback Riding

“Well,” I said to my husband, “I don’t think I have ever dined out looking so grubby in my life—but I don’t remember when I last felt this relaxed.” With another swig from a bottle of PBR, I leaned back in the wooden bench on the wide front porch of Indian Pass Trading Post and listened as Kerry James, whose sun-streaked hair and leathered skin testified to decades of beach bumming, belted his way through “Sweet Caroline.” 

Just ten minutes before, Jim and I had been sprawled on a blanket, watching horses clomp through cottony sand and splash through azure surf. I wore a Braves cap over a wet ponytail, and—good God—a tank top and ancient gym shorts over a damp bathing suit. Flip-flops. Salt water was still drying on my skin.

A half hour later, seated inside, we shared a plastic picnic table with a family of locals and watched the kitchen crew shuck just-caught oysters with the breakneck pace of contestants in a Top Chef challenge. Popped open, sparkling with brine, and arrayed directly on school cafeteria–style trays, oysters were delivered to crowded tables in a room where beer was available by self-service—and on the honor system—from two draft taps.

The Trading Post (Indian Pass Raw Bar my notes)traces its roots to 1903, when it opened as the company store for a turpentine concern that operated along Cape San Blas, a seventeen-mile barrier island that curves along St. Joseph Bay at the eastern edge of the Florida Panhandle. In the 1930s, Gypsie McNeill added food service for the few travelers who ventured to this distant strip of coastline.

Today the Trading Post (Indian Pass Raw Bar), located on the edge of Highway 30E, bustles thanks to its minutes-from-the-water oysters, harvested by Gypsie’s grandchildren and other members of the McNeill clan. It’s also busy because, frankly, only a handful of restaurants operate on this still-underdeveloped stretch of coastline, where turpentine and timber businesses occupy acres of land, and wildlife preserves take up much of the rest. The two-lane highway runs up the center of the cape, with most locals’ homes fronting the calmer waters of St. Joe Bay (known for its freshwater scallops).

This crescent of the Panhandle is known as the “Forgotten Coast.” Once a thriving center of commerce anchored by the Port of St. Joe, it fell into hard times during the latter part of the twentieth century. This beachy escape may be called forgotten, but spending a few days there made me remember why I fell in love with the Panhandle when we first started going to Seagrove Beach more than twenty years ago. Back then there were no mega shopping centers, no gingerbread-bedecked developments or colossal beachfront mansions with six-car garages. The only place to eat was the family-owned Wheel House, where the catch was fresh and you sat a few feet from the fishermen who’d reeled it in.

“I know that I promised to write about this trip,” I told Jim. “But now I don’t know if I want everyone else discovering this place.”

Where to stay: Most people opt for rental cottages or houses, available by the week or month (visitgulf.com). If you plan to visit for just a few days—or don’t need a family-sized house—Cape San Blas Inn has rooms and suites ranging from $175 to $285 and provides breakfast; coffee service; minifridges; and use of beach chairs, bikes, and canoes.

Where to eat: The Indian Pass Trading Post’s raw bar (850-227-1670) is a must-visit. Cape Tradin’ Post (850-229-8775) stocks beach essentials, fishing tackle, groceries, and a few takeout items (the hoagies are a good bet). It’s adjoined on one side by a closet-sized but impressively stocked liquor store and on the other by Cape Coffee Shop. If you go into Port St. Joe, Dockside Cafe serves fresh grilled fish and bay scallops, and provides a great view of the marina. My note: Of course you should stay at Dunes Club 2A or A Tropical Breeze.

What to do: Thanks to its unique geography, Cape San Blas offers fishing for freshwater bass and scallops in St. Joe Bay and deep-sea grouper and king mackerel in the Gulf. For mellower adventures, try kayak and canoe tours by Happy Ours, or Two-Bit Stable’s horseback rides in the surf. Shelling, sunbathing, snorkeling, and lolling in the surf are the amusements of choice at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, which covers more than nine miles of untouched beach.

- See more at: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/travel/2014/04/01/cape-san-blas-will-rekindle-your-love-for-the-florida-panhandle#sthash.3rwO4DHb.dpuf