EARLY RISING ON CHAUTAUQUA LAKE: Grayton Beach Day # 3

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Grayton Beach Day # 3

An Egret In The Morning

6:04

6:05

6:08

Launching A Charter Boat

After I had been on the beach for 20 minutes, catching photographs of a couple of herons and what I think is an egret, a bright, shiny sun began to rise at 6:10. A few yards from me was another photographer with a tripod, taking photos like me of the birds and sunrise. I then went for a drive, got some coffee at the General Store, then drove beyond Seaside to DonutHut and picked up a 'huge' apple fritter, at least 10 inches in diameter. It's now 8:10 and we are sitting in our living room, sipping coffee, eating breakfast and watching Michael Smerconish on the tube.

Heron

Portrait Of A Sun Kissed Heron

After we put the blog to bed yesterday morning, had our coffee and I had my brief walk early on the beach, we planned out our day, beginning with a drive to Seaside, as I mentioned about five to ten minutes away. One of the things we don't understand is the lack of parking available. Tourists are not allowed to park in the Seaside neighborhoods and only on one side of the main street is available, enough space for 30 to 40 cars max if that. We were lucky to find a place, maybe the last parking space around 11:00, on this a Friday morning. What must it be like on Friday night and the weekends?

Residential areas of Seaside:

Anyways, we walked along the quaint streets of Seaside, every house more interesting than the next, most with great southern porches, well landscaped, with a sign on the fence in every front yard, naming the owner and where they have come from. It's an amazing community of wealthy people, with their own swimming pools, tennis courts, workout gyms and a downtown within in walking distance which is filled with restaurants, shops and even a Pavillion in the center of town for concerts.
We cannot help thinking of the movie THE TRUMAN SHOW as we walk around the town as it was filmed here. We also walked some on the beach, taking photographs of the amazing pavilions that lead to the beach every twenty to twenty-five yards. Most interestingly, only one of the beach pavilions is available for the public, the rest are private, for the community, not tourists.

We had planned on coming back late afternoon to watch the sunset but realized we probably would have to park a mile away from the restaurant and it most likely would be crowded. So we ended up buying a pound of cooked shrimp at Publix and some sauce and we would just enjoy the sunset on the beach by our condo. When we got home, Evie made some sandwiches, packed our lunch and we quickly gathered up chairs, towels, and food and we went down to enjoy the day at the beach. It was perfect, sunny and warm but not hot and we stayed there for close to three hours, even swimming a couple of times as well as walking the beach every so often. We were worried about getting too much sun but we used enough lotion to avoid any problems.

Willets

Fresh Catch From A Charter

Sun setting at Grayton Beach:

We went home just after 3:00, after another swim and relaxed and showered, getting off the sand and the salt. Evie then got our shrimp, cocktail sauce, and drinks together and we hurried down to the beach, just making it before the sun started to set at 4:53. We enjoyed the post-sunset the most, as the sky turned orange, the clouds like an abstract painting, the Western sky still lit, the Eastern almost dark.

At 6:15, we finally figured out how to walk from our house to the restaurants one block behind our condo. We knew the Red Bar would be crowded and were shocked to see people waiting outside at 7:45 when we were through eating at the casual restaurant across the street called Chiringo, a Spanish restaurant.

Chiringo At Night

We had no trouble finding a seat at the bar which was open as well to the outdoors so we could have sat outside on stools as well as inside. We ordered what the bartender recommended, a Margarita and grouper sandwich for Evie, their special burger and a beer for me, both with hand cut fries, neither seemingly Spanish The fries and grouper were the bomb, my burgers pretty good as well. By the time we left, the bar was getting crowded.