Pensacola Beach Blogger

Pensacola Beach has a different shape this fall, after several weeks of the Gulf re-claiming its sand, or, at least shifting it around. Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike seemed to have left their mark on our beautiful beaches. There are four, seven, and even some ten-foot drops on the east side of the island:

I’m curious to see what the future holds. Will the SRIA somehow bring sand in, or reshape the beach? Will the beaches take their normal, flat shape again over time? Leave a comment if you have any input on this:

The walkway near my home is officially closed now, due to the big drop off at the end of it:

When I came home tonight, there was nearly a full moon out, perfect to get a night shot of the beach!

I’m still a beginner when it comes to manual modes on my camera, but I can usually figure out what I want after some fumbling around. For shots like these, a tripod is necessary. The shutter was open for 15 seconds, which is why you can’t really see the huge waves that are still crashing in from Hurricane Ike. Everything seems to level out, to what appears as a peaceful beach scene. You can also see some blur in the clouds, since they were moving so fast.

Speaking of night shots, I got this cool shot during last week’s Bands On the Beach:

This one was also taken under moonlight, with some help of the stage lighting from the band. The purple wavy lines you see are trails from children running around with glow sticks. If you look close, you can see where one kid threw the glow stick into the air!

Hurricane Ike is out in the gulf, and will be missing Pensacola Beach completely. But we are seeing very high waves, and the Santa Rosa sound is getting pretty high. These are some pictures I took this morning:

Charlie’s Beach doesn’t look like a beach I’d want to be on today:

This is behind the Boardwalk on Pensacola Beach. There is usually a beach behind it:

You can see the water crashing through the dock behind the big stage:

To get that last shot, I had to run out on the dock while timing and dodging the waves shooting up through the wood:

Forget sea-side dining. How about dining IN the sea?

Some of these scenes were amazing, but this flooding is making a mess in some areas:

As with Hurricane Gustav, the flooding has taken over the picnic area on Pensacola Beach:

Well, I’ve never seen this. Waves actually crashing over the Pensacola Beach Pier!

The pictures I took from under the pier ended up looking like scenes out of an Indiana Jones movie. Check this out:

Run for your life!

These are some of the biggest waves I’ve ever seen out here on the beach:

Hurricane Ike is causing some high tides and flooding over in my neighborhood on Pensacola Beach, the sound-side in particular. I woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise:

But water rushing down the street is never a good sign:

Looks like the Gulf is coming over the dunes! Not a good thing for our expected turtle hatchlings on Pensacola Beach.

In fact, I found this screen covering used to keep crabs out of the turtle nests. I’ll be sure to let Barrier Island Girl and Traveling Turtle Girl know.

The Santa Rosa sound is rising:

And it is causing plenty of problems for my neighbors on the sound-side of the island:

I took many more pictures down at the pier this morning… I’ll have them up shortly!

I certainly don’t like the projected forecast for Hurricane Ike. Ike is now a borderline category 2 or 3 hurricane headed to the Keys of Florida, along with Haiti and Cuba. Computer models are now showing that Ike will most likely end up in the Gulf of Mexico, which is bad news for Pensacola and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Later next week, we may be closing up hurricane shutters once again.

Many of my neighbors have kept their windows borded up and the hurricane shutters closed since taking action for Hurricane Gustav. Let’s hope we can open up our windows again soon!