Beachin' It!

We've (read: I've) not been posting much lately. Life has been super duper crazy lately. We are constantly on the go around here. And when we aren't... we are still somehow always busy. We have two things we have been making time for though as a family over the last few weeks on Sundays after church. Disney and the beach. With it getting warmer out though lately, we have been focusing more on the beach and less on battling the crowds at the House of Mouse. We have priorities.... the sun, salt water, and sand are near the top of them. With that, I wanted to make a quick post to highlight our favorite beach of the moment. We visited this beach once last year and then didn't visit again for some strange reason. One day earlier this year we were planning our normal beach day and remembered it. We decided to give it a go again.

Ponce Inlet is about an hour and a half (maybe a little more or less depending on the amount of traffic on the route there) away from us and totally worth it for even an afternoon at the beach. A lot of beaches around this area on the East coast have rougher waves (or rocks like Jungle Hut that we visit a lot when we go to see Steven's parents), but Ponce Inlet is a calmer beach destination with the soft white sand that is less typical of Central Florida East coast beaches. We specifically like to visit Winterhaven Park.

Winterhaven park is a tougher park to get into. Well, it isn't hard to get there or anything, but the lot for free parking is small. I googled it and there are 82 parking spots. That seems like a good amount... but for beaches, not so much. We have learned that on Sunday afternoons there is a lot of turn over on the parking lot situation though and if you sit or circle long enough, you can find a spot. It is worth it to us to spend a bit of time waiting because we love this beach. Our hope is to get out there one of these Saturday mornings once t-ball ends and spend the entire day. We haven't even set up the tent yet there because we haven't spent long enough on the beach to need it but this is the perfect all day beach in our opinion.

At low tide, there is sand forever before you get to the water which the kids love. We haven't yet hit it at high tide, but we can tell by the sand, that even at high tide, there is a good amount of beach. Because of the smaller waves, the kids are in love with the water. Kenzie would gladly ride her boogie board all day. At low tide, there are some really shallow tide pools which is right up Will's alley at this present point in time. The larger beach also lends itself to really fun rounds of catch between Will and Steven. 

So far this year, the water has been quite chilly (though I don't think the kids feel it at all) so Steven and I haven't been more than knee high in it yet this year but it shouldn't be too long. This beach has quickly replaced all the other East coast beaches we typically visit as our favorite.

As far as extra amenities go, there aren't a lot of extra picnic tables or anything. There are a few and I think they are mostly covered if I remember correctly. I haven't paid a lot of attention to those yet. I know there are charcoal grills because I saw someone using them. There are four pretty nice restrooms. Two men and two women. Each are single person and really big so they work as changing rooms. We just put a towel down on the floor so the kids don't stand barefoot on the bathroom floor. There aren't any benches or anything in the restrooms which is the only real downfall but I do appreciate the ability to move around and help the kids change. That is a necessity when the kids are wet and sandy. They still need help.

We highly recommend checking out Ponce Inlet (specifically Winterhaven Park) if you are looking to try a new beach and haven't been there before. Let us know if you plan to check it out. The kids love having beach friends.