2017 Florida RV Trip, Days 26-27, Seafood, Pesky Pelican, Lynns, and Heading West

Our first stop on this gray Friday was at a Dail’s Seafood trailer on St. George Island who buys directly from the boats and sells their very fresh (he said the shrimp were swimming last night) seafood several dollars a pound cheaper than others.  I bought grouper, snapper, shrimp, shucked oysters, and crab cakes to the tune of $240 and packaged it in meal sized portions with water and froze for the trip home. 

Here are a couple of the Grouper fillets on a 12"x15" cutting board.

The next stop was the Pesky Pelican for an early lunch – if I hadn’t heard about the place I may have been reluctant to go in.  They have the option of eating inside or out – too breezy this day.

Pat had a burger, Bev had the oyster plate and I had the grouper basket and a bowl of gumbo because the online ratings said be sure to treat yourself to it if available – took most of it home.

This was a totally delightful experience as it was like being in someone’s home with everyone talking to each other – mostly locals – and the food was all very good – maybe the best ever gumbo and she told us where the recipe came from.  I would go back in a heartbeat even though the menu was not expansive. 

Late afternoon, I headed back to Lynn’s Seafood for a last dozen oysters and to buy some more of their smoked mahi mahi and a couple pounds of bay scallops.  While I was there, I tried a dozen of their Capt Jacks Oysters  - butter, bacon, hot sauce, cheddar cheese, jalapeno, cream cheese, nuked for a short time - and they were delicious – a must make when we get home.  By the way, Lynn’s is the number one rated restaurant in Eastpoint and they don’t even have a kitchen but what they serve is very good.

I really enjoyed our time in the area and the relaxed pace of things vs. most of Florida’s coastal areas but I made one shocking discovery.  Upon entering Lynn’s Seafood, I quickly ordered a dozen raw oysters commenting that I’d waited a long time for fresh Apalachicola oysters and was told theirs were from Texas.  When I got my dropped jaw back in place, I asked why and they advised that the bay was producing very view oysters and they were even considering closing it to oyster harvesting for three years.

When I did a search on line I discovered that there seem to be two main issues – over fishing and diversion of water to Atlanta from the Chattahoochee River which is a major feeder of fresh water to Apalachicola Bay which helps keep the salinity right for the oysters.  The bay was also impacted by the oil rig spill several years ago in that they were overly harvested in fear the oil would reach the bay and the oysters would go to waste and they have not recovered.  Since the economy of this area is pretty much based on fishing I can see this being very harmful.  Perhaps this situation is why the folks at Cedar Key are getting into oyster farming.

While it was sad to hear of the situation with Apalachicola oysters, I could easy imagine staying in the laid back area for a month and going down to Lynn’s most afternoon’s for a dozen raw and a beer.

We departed mid-Saturday morning to head west to Navarre, FL and the navigation was pretty simple – turn right out of our RV park and stay on US-98 until we get to the next campground – I still used the GPS to alert me to turns, etc.  The road surface was better for this leg of the trip and US-98 was four or six lane for at least half the trip.  As we approached the more developed areas, traffic got pretty heavy and it took just under an hour to go the last 30 miles.  I put this trip together last spring and didn’t pay enough attention to our travel dates – what was I thinking traveling through a tourist area on the Saturday two days before Christmas.  We weren’t  in any hurry, checked things out as we rode along, and made it without incident.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/22-12/23/17 Event Dates