Karl and Bridgett insist that I have to come back to see the water I've been missing by traveling on the inside. It's a beautiful blue and the sand is blindingly white. I think I will have to come back. Karl hosted an awesome cook out to which a good group of folks came out for. Lori, a reporter I had met, brought some kick-ass salsa dip. Another great recipe to collect.

I'm sitting here at the moment in Karl and Bridgette's guest room. A giagantic red "no swimming" flag that they slavaged from the water decorates one wall. In their collection of stuff by the bed they have the same funny little retro football bank that my Carl picked up at a garage sale.

Water quality issues seem to be hitting this part of the Gulf particularly hard. In Panama City, my host Roseanne drinks only bottled water because she doesn't own a TV and therefore has a hard time keeping up with the drinking water alerts. When I was in Port St. Joe, the lady at the hotel desk had me fill up at the water station, rather than the tap. In Perry, of course, where Joy Towle lives and where the Proctor & Gamble-owned Buckeye papermill basically ruined the water for everyone.

You simply don't drink the water there.  You would think that since so many folks have no choice but to drink bottles water, that the state of Florida would have a recycling plan for plastic bottles. But it does not!

Yesterday in Panama City I spoke with some local fishermen. One complained about the decline in the scallop beds. He said when he was a kid, the scallops were everywhere. Now there are hardly any to be found. At. Andrews Bay is interesting. It seems there used to be another inlet, bit it closed up, thus preventing the Bay from flushing itself as frequently as it used to.

Here in San Destin, Karl has noticed an increase in the frequency of boat bottom cleaning. His business, "Bottom Slime," is in cleaning boat bottoms. I remember former Congressman Saxton telling me that his own boat's bottom had to be cleaned with increasing frequency where he kept it on the Chesapeake. Increased amounts of improperly managed storm water run definitely spikes nutrient load in our coastal areas, that's for sure.

When I paddled northwest from Pat Lamar's rockin' Canoe Shop, going under the bridge and up to the intracoastal cut, I kept getting wifts of that funky odor I had smelled by the Fenholloway. Most definitely not as strong, but most definitely there. As I neared the cut, I noticed a couple of decent size puffs of brilliant white foam that were very out of place there. Crab pots dotted the water, and I wondered about the smell, my extra squeaky paddle, and the floating foam.