Florida Beaches:
The beaches along the Sun Coast of Florida are some of the safest and nicest in the world. These include the following: 1. Clearwater Beach 2. Anclote Key 3. Fred Howard Park 4. Honeymoon Island 5. Caladesi Island 6. Treasure Island 7. St Pete Beach 8. Fort De Soto Park === The string of beaches from Anclote Key in the north to Fort De Soto in the South covers 36 miles and has some of the best beaches in the United States, including Hawaii. These beaches range from isolated, undeveloped tropical islands accessible only by boat (Anclote Key, Caladesi Island) to packed tourist beaches with all the souvenir shops, grouper sandwich shops and nightclubs. The people that rank beaches, place Caladesi Island State Park, Anclote Key State Park, and Fort De Soto park in the top ten beaches in the United States, with most of the other top ten beaches being in Hawaii.
Clearwater Beach is the most famous of the beaches that are on the barrier islands. On an island all its own, Clearwater Beach is the major 'tourist beach' on the Fl Sun Coast. Every type of beach oriented activity can be found here. There are many great grouper sandwich shop where you can enjoy lunch relax with a cool beverage. With its many shops and miles of beach, the entire family can have fun here. The gentle slope of the beaches into the water & the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico make all the beaches on the Florida Sun Coast very different from the Atlantic ocean beaches on the east coast of Florida where large waves crash onto the beach. Anclote Key State Preserve, more than 1,000 years ago, this island was pushed up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico to rest on a limestone platform. It is still slowly growing today & its size has increased by more than 25% since 1956. This 4 mile long island is one of the few truly unspoiled and undeveloped islands left along the FL Coast
Lighthouse:
Anclote Lighthouse, the abandoned lighthouse on the southern end of this remote island adds to the islands fragile beauty and character. It was built in the 1880's and served almost 100 years to protect the mariners in the Gulf of Mexico. With the advent of more modern navigational tools such as the Long Range Navigation System (LORAN) and later the Global Position System (GPS) it became obsolete. It was decommissioned in 1984 and for the last 16 years has been abandoned. Fred Howard Park was first opened in 1966 and is located at the end of a mile long causeway west of Florida Ave. in Tarpon Springs, this is a beautiful beach area. The swimming and sunbathing is excellent. The facilities include very nice sheltered picnic areas, playgrounds for the kids, restrooms, BBQ grills and beach showers. Bring your fishing poles and your wind surfers. This is a very popular park with the local Floridians and over 2 million people visit the park annually.
