Barefoot Beach

We finally started our beach adventures! We've had a few picnics on the beach, but yesterday we went out in the middle of the day and set up our umbrella in the sand.  We started at the northernmost County beach which is actually a State Park called Barefoot Beach. The drive was longer than usual, but well worth it. The park is off of Bonita Beach Road and passes through a very nice neighborhood (called Barefoot Beach.) There are plenty of nice beach houses and a beach club that I've heard a lot of good things about in the neighborhood.

To get to Barefoot Beach, you pass right through until you get to the State Park entrance where a ranger in a guardhouse is waiting.  The entry/parking fee is $8.00 unless you have a Collier County Beach pass (free for all County residents.)  We passed right through with a friendly wave from the ranger.

On our way in, we saw a giant Gopher Tortoise ambling along the road.  After seeing that guy, we noticed a lot of signs along the entry road telling drivers to be on the lookout for these endangered creatures as they like to wander across the road and hang out in the shade of your parked car. The signs also said to check under your car before you pull out to look for the Tortoises just in case.

We managed to find a lucky parking space right by the main building.  I was hoping that the snack bar would be open, but was somewhat disappointed to find it closed. Maybe it's only open in the winter when all of the tourists were there? There were restrooms and drink machines ($1.50 for drinks!) available though. The tide changes were noted, as well as a the temperatures for the day. I'm suspecting that this was done in the morning since it was way over 87 degrees!  Water temperature was also noted as being 87 degrees; it felt somewhat warmer than that though.


With all of the gear that we could carry, we set out to find our spot on the beach.  There was a boardwalk leading directly to the beach, but we took the long way to enjoy the scenery.  The boardwalk took us to the next entry that connected to the next parking lot. We found a good spot on the beach and dropped everything. I realized that our umbrella gear in general was sub-par compared to our neighbors. We had some trouble getting out umbrella to stay in the sand. It managed to fly away into the preserve once, so after that, I only kept the umbrella open when I was sitting right next to it. I was a little embarrassed, but we managed.

After setting up camp, we were hot and decided to jump in the water. The water was nice and cool.  Most people would say that 87 to 90 degrees for water temperature is warm, but it felt perfect since it was about 95 that day! We attempted to make sand castles on the beach with a kit, but we're not very good at that yet. I'll do some research to get some tips. The Park Ranger made a pass to check on everything while we were there too.

We decided to head for home at around 4:00 since we usually get some big thunderstorms in the afternoon (didn't happen that day though) and we wanted to watch a movie and do some other things in the evening. We packed up our gear and walked back to the main building.  There were showers available in the shade on the boardwalk, so we took advantage of that to get as much of the sand off of ourselves and our gear as possible.  As we headed through the parking lot, we saw another one of those Gopher Tortoises crossing the road.  This one was following people around and seemed to be greeting people. There was a nice kiosk set up with information about the wildlife at the Park, which is actually a preserve, so we took a look at the Gopher Tortoise information and learned that they follow the same path to find food everyday.  They also like to eat grass and other plants - very cool!  We spotted about 8 Tortoises on our way out!

All in all, we enjoyed our time at Barefoot Beach.  It was nice a and well maintained beach.

What we learned:
1. We need a better method of setting up our beach umbrella.
2. Always bring drinks, especially water.
3. If you go out to the beach after noon in June, it will be very hot!
4. Beach chairs are much better than towels.
5. Bring extra towels if you plan on sitting on them cause they get sandy and you can't use them to dry off.
6. We need some better equipment if we're going to build sand castles.

Hi! This is the beginning of a family adventure that starts right in our own backyard! We are excited to explore our town and have the most fun we can possibly have this summer and beyond. Beach Buddies Forever! Enjoy!