While the traditional North American boating season runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, September and October mark one of our favorite times on the Gulf Coast. Daytime temperatures are ‘moderating’ into the mid-80’s and nighttime lows on the water finally get to the low 70’s.

When the weather so beckons, we usually find ourselves running down to Spectre Island, a small island in Santa Rosa Sound on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway about 5 miles west of Fort Walton Beach. Spectre offers a deep water harbor off the ICW and quiet beaches for the kids. Evening during the summer, we usually have the island to ourselves if we go out during the week. Click on the photo to see some highlight pictures from one of our trips out.

Our partner website EarthNC.com has been scouring the web for user-generated Google My Maps of interest to boaters. They’ve started posting their finds in their ‘Featured Maps‘ section. Even better, with EarthNC’s new TakItWithMe My Maps Embedding Tool you can paste any My Map on your own website with easy links to Google Earth, a large map, and even download to GPS in some cases (see our example below). (more…)