Fort Walton Beach and Destin both put on their over-water fireworks displays on Friday night, July 4th this year. Both shows start at/after 9pm. The Destin display is held in Destin Harbor while the Fort Walton show is held at the Landing just west of Brooks bridge. Both shows can attract a large number of boats, so plan ahead if you’ll be using a public launch ramp and be patient and safe on the water. Read more for a local boating map…

Tomorrow, June 24th, kicks off the 2008 Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic at San Destin’s Baytowne Marina. This year’s activities include Dockside Party, ‘mini-Gras’, and Fireworks on Tuesday at the Baytowne Marina and Village of Baytowne Wharf, another Party and the Captain’s meeting on Wednesday, Thursday fishing start and boat parade, Friday and Saturday weigh-ins, and final awards ceremony at 11:00am on Sunday.

Local Bouys and Markers

If you’ll be boating as a part of the tournament this year, here’s a quick reference map of the local area complete with main channel markers and lights, courtesy of EarthNC.com.

The 1st up is the Fort Walton Beach Parade on December 2nd at 6pm at the Landing on Brooks Street.

Next is the San Destin Parade on Saturday the 8th at 6pm. The San Destin Parade is visible from Baytowne Marina and the Village at Baytowne Boardwalk.

Finally, the Destin Harbor Parade will be held on December 9th at 6pm.

Our partner website, EarthNC.com has posted a Google Earth Map with more than 50 Parade Locations across the U.S.

Offshore racing is exciting to watch, whether from land or sea. We invite you to browse our past coverage, videos, and photos from last year’s Destin Championship and this year’s Thunder on the Gulf races in Orange Beach.

Quoting the Kansas City Star:

Bruner and his fishing buddies were on a 52-foot charter boat with Capt. Robert Hill, about 70 miles southwest of this beach city in the Florida Panhandle.

The fishermen first noticed the big mako because it kept eating grouper and scamp they had hooked.

“It was like ‘Jaws,’” Hill said.

Hill hooked a two-foot amberine on as bait and tossed it out. The shark eventually hit it.

After the long fight, the shark was gaffed and eventually gave up after its tail was roped. But even then, the men could not get the big shark in the boat. They tied it to the stern with three ropes and made the four-hour trip back to land.

Be sure to link through to the article for more pictures.

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.

Just some of the maps include:

• Trent Severn Waterway (shown below)
• Block Island
• Boating Magazine’s 10 Island Get-Aways

and many more.

Trent Severn Waterway Map by theWaterway.ca

The accident victims were gracious enough to release the video of the accident to help promote boating safety. As the video shows, the boat was driving mostly south at high speed into the mouth of Destin Pass were it ‘hooked’ after landing from a big wave jump. Destin Pass, like most passes, is subject to unpredictable wave patterns due to tide/wind conflicts, shallowing water, and busy boating traffic by vessels of all sizes. To help provide context to the video, our sister website EarthNC.com - Marine Charts for Google Earth put together the simple map below with the approximate boating path. They’ve also posted a link to their online Google Earth marine chart for Destin Pass here.

Approximate Accident Path and Location

For reprint information, please contact us at reprints@destinsharks.com and if you should ever need on-water, outdoor portrait, or other photographic services along Florida’s Emerald Coast, please consider DestinShark’s lead photographer Sarah for your photographic needs.

Click on the jumping boat photo for highlights from Sarah’s Saturday race coverage. For best viewing, use the resolution option to view at it’s largest online size. Sea conditions where rough enough to make for lots of ‘air’ coming around the corners and over wakes. Sarah also captured the starboard engine fire on CatAttack which was extinguished without incident.

We also spent some time at the wet pits this morning watching the delicate operation of moving million dollar boats from their trailers to the water and back again. Click on the craning photo for highlights. We’ll be out again tomorrow for the races and will post our complete photo sets early next week once we get time to review them all.

For those with an interest in digital cameras, DestinSharks uses Canon DSLR cameras with a mixture of Canon, Sigma, and Tamron lenses. For the race photos this week, we are using the Canon 300mm F/4 IS L with a Sigma 1.4x Teleconverter when we need a little extra reach.

This weekend is also the weekend for the Emerald Coast Poker Run - one of the largest such events in the world. If history is any guide, over 400 boats will ply the waters between Destin and Pensacola to get their cards.

We wish everyone a great time on the water - boat safe, sober, and hydrated!

For official event information and schedules, please visit the Thunder on the Gulf Website. For more OSS race action, visit our coverage of the 2006 Championships in Destin.