Navarre Beach, January – February

After six years of full-time travel, we decided to experiment with a longer winter break. Northern Florida has its cold, windy days, but retreating to a warm, cozy condo beats scampering to find warm places to camp this time of year. For our break, we chose to return to a familiar condo in Navarre Beach, FL.

Santa Rosa Island is a narrow 40-mile barrier island along Florida’s Panhandle. The south side of the island borders the Gulf; the north side faces Pensacola Bay. Navarre Beach is on the island, nestled between Pensacola Beach and Fort Walton Beach.

Parts of the island are within the Gulf Islands National Seashore and thus are protected from development. Long stretches of dunes and seagrass edge the most impossibly white sand and aqua waters. The beach is like soft white sugar. Far out, on the horizon, the waters turn to navy blue. During this off-season, it’s pretty quiet.

Our condo sits across the street from the beach. We have a bay view from our balcony.

White caps promise that our daily walk will be windy and chilly. And for our Northern friends, that’s sand, not snow in the foreground.

On New Year’s Day, we stumbled upon members of the Emerald Coast Kite Fliers club taking advantage of a windy day. They made managing these giant kites look easy, but it was obviously a practiced art.

The kites are huge. Notice the size of the onlookers on the beach.

Although it’s generally quiet, there’s one Saturday that certainly isn’t.

Mardi Gras Parade

Navarre Beach holds a Mardi Gras parade the first Saturday in February. It’s quite the event. Music blares, people scream, horns honk, and cannons fire. It’s an excuse to dress up and let your hair down. The parade goes right down the main street, so it’s a great day of people and pirate watching.

The young folks act silly.

The adults act even sillier. What do you think this guy does for a day job?

John joins in the bead catching frenzy.

We always manage to come home with more beads than we need, but it’s a good time.

Around Town

For Valentine’s Day, we went to a Candlelight Concert at the First United Methodist Church in Fort Walton Beach.

The Palafox String Quartet performed a program of romantic pieces. It was a sweet evening in a very pretty church.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

We read that once a month, the Pensacola Opera has a free Brown Bag lunchtime recital. So, in February, we went into Pensacola and attended. The recital was held in their rehearsal hall, so no frills. But what fun to be in a small, up-close venue and enjoy an hour of operatic performance. The program featured four artists performing arias and selections from their upcoming run of Oklahoma! The baritone who opened with Oh, What a Beautiful Morning! really shook the rafters.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to attend again next year. Maybe even take in a full opera?

Food!

Pensacola is less than an hour from our condo. On Saturdays, there’s a large Farmer’s Market on Palafox. This year, we found several vendors selling fresh mushrooms.

These mushroom clumps were the size of basketballs! The market has all kinds of goodies, but mushrooms are our favorite find.

We both enjoy cooking and having a full kitchen – with lots of counter space, an oven and a toaster – is fun. Even if only temporarily. I got into baking bread (and having toast for breakfast.)

We love visiting a favorite sushi restaurant. The Slippery Mermaid is tucked in a little house near the bridge out to our island. It’s a hidden gem surrounded by shops, beachy restaurants and tourist spots. We hope it stays busy enough to do really well but still remain a bit of a secret.

Friends

The western end of Santa Rosa Island is where Fort Pickens National Park and campground are located. We’ve stayed there every year of our adventure. I sometimes think we’re Fort Pickens homing pigeons. We’ve met super people there whom we’ve been fortunate to stay in touch with.

We met Manny and Ed, a couple from Wisconsin, during one of our earliest stays at Fort Pickens. And lucky us, we were able to connect with them once again this year. It’s been fun getting to know them. We hope for more get togethers in the future. Maybe Wisconsin?

So, our time off-road is coming to a close. We’ve got some travel ideas for 2026 but are still working out details. I can’t close a post about Navarre Beach without adding a few sunsets. We feel very lucky to see these technicolor events from our living room. We’ve enjoyed these so much, that we’re returning in 2027! Stay tuned for more posts from the road!