Indian Rocks Beach is part of a chain of barrier islands that runs for hundreds of miles down Florida's heavily developed west coast. For reasons of history and topography it is much less awful than many Gulf resort towns like Clearwater immediately to the north where skyscraping condos and big box shopping centers have taken over. Even on the coveted gulf-front lots smallish cottages and old-fashioned two and three-story condos vastly outnumber the new and the tall. For anyone contemplating a non-glitzy Florida getaway next winter Uncle Jack suggests that you check out Indian Rocks Beach. Nice town.
Needless to say the residents of IRB and all the nearby towns were anxiously seeking news about the oil scourge that is steadily moving east through the gulf. Whether or not it will impact the local beaches is a moot point at this stage but it is horrible to contemplate nonetheless. Cries of "Drill baby drill" have been blessedly muted in Florida since the big blowout.
The formerly white sand beaches of IRB have been renourished a couple of times since 1991, a fact that is obvious to an experienced beach-watcher like Uncle Jack. The beach is wide at the moment and quite o.k. for all normal beach activities even though the powdery sand has been replaced by a kind of gray, finely ground shell gravel barged in from a dredging project somewhere in the vicinity. The cement-like stuff packs hard enough to resemble a sidewalk at low tide which permits bicycling along the water's edge---another strong argument for the efficacy of beach renourishment.
