Beach Town

The beauty of Gulf Shores, Alabama, resists the winds of change.

by

I believe people are drawn to the beach by instinct. For our distant ancestors expanding out of Africa, coastal regions provided plentiful food. Ocean breezes made the weather mild — except when big storms blew off the water. It is believed the first wave of settlers in North America worked their way down the coast of Alaska and Vancouver before spreading out over the continent.

Around 600 CE, members of an unknown culture scooped a kilometer-long canal from a Mobile Bay backwater now known as Oyster Bay through the dense coastal forest to Little Lagoon, which separates the thin strand of Gulf Shores, Alabama, from the mainland. This ingenious earthwork, discovered in early 2019 by University of South Alabama archaeologist Greg Waselkov and a mostly volunteer team, saved its creators from paddling their dugout canoes through 14 miles of dangerous ocean waters to get to one of the richest fishing grounds on the coast.

The wildlife in these waters still draws throngs of people to Gulf Shores every year, but not in dugout canoes. Fishing boats from Orange Beach marinas squeeze through the Perdido Pass and fan out into the Gulf of Mexico to harvest the fresh shrimp, crab, and grouper that forms the base of the area’s vaunted seafood industry. Among them are tourists on deep sea charters, paying for the privilege of dipping a line into the Gulf’s depths in hopes of bringing back a big game catch. But the majority of people who come here experience the open ocean on a dolphin cruise.

Mere moments after we set out from Caribe Marina on a boat crowded with families, our guide points out a graceful grey ghost in the water. We crowd towards the bow; a little kid, straining to see over the rail, asks her mother, “Where are they?”

On cue, a pair of bottlenose dolphins swimming so close they almost touch breach the calm waters of Perdido Bay, grabbing a quick breath before diving back underwater. Like the humans, they’re looking for fish to eat, but they need a lot more than we do. The average dolphin spends up to one-third of its life hunting and eating, consuming 10 percent of its body weight in fish every day.

This pair is a mother and child. “They have their own names that their mom gives them. They communicate using over a thousand whistles and squeaks,” says our guide. “When they’re born, their mom sings them a lullaby, and gives them their own name. We do think that the animals know why we’re here, recognize the boat, and recognize my voice. We’re out here talking to them all the time.”

We and a small flotilla of tourist boats — one of them outfitted to look like a pirate caravel — chase the pod around the bridge over Perdido Pass and Robinson Island as they herd their prey into aquatic cul de sacs, but it’s really no contest. They could shake us at any time, and eventually, they grow bored and disappear like ghosts. The captain takes the boat up Bayou St. John to find the perfect spot for us to watch the sunset over the condo towers of Orange Beach.

Castles Made of Sand

Alabama has 32 miles of white sand beaches. The coastline stretches from Fort Morgan, which watched over Mobile Bay until Union Admiral David Farragut damned the torpedoes in August 1864, to the Florida state line. Everything from the tide line to the sea is public beach by Alabama law, and the Gulf Shores community is very careful to keep the beach as pristine as possible. “We do a good job of sustainable tourism, keeping things in balance and in check,” says Faith Henley, public relations coordinator for Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism. That’s one thing I’ve been very impressed with since I got here. Not just with visitors, but with locals as well.”

Few people know the beach better than Janel Hawkins, the proprietor of Sand Castle University. She says the Gulf Shores community goes to great lengths to protect the three species of endangered sea turtles which lay their eggs in nests along this stretch of coastline from mid-March until October. “During turtle season, we smash our castles,” she says. “Anything that is taller than a foot, we smash, to make it easy for them to get to their nest. We do not dig any holes during sea turtle season, because turtles will fall into the holes while they’re trying to lay their eggs.”

The turtles remind us what newcomers we are. They have been nesting on this beach for about 100 million years, some of them traveling thousands of miles to get here and lay a clutch of a dozen or so eggs. Most of the juvenile turtles get eaten by predators before they reach maturity, but the loggerheads that survive will grow to an average of 200 pounds and can live more than 50 years. By law, the lighting along the shore is kept sparse, as the bright lights will disorient turtles trying to swim to safety in the deep ocean.

Hawkins grew up playing on these beaches, too. “I was always an artist, but never really with sand,” she says. “I moved to Florida for college and got a job with an established sand sculpture company. I ended up managing that business while I was in school. When I got out, I moved back home and realized that Gulf Shores and Orange Beach didn’t have anything of the sort, so I decided to make a name for myself and start sculpting.”

“The stronger your sand, the more details you can do, and the more daring you can get with your design. Luckily our sand down here makes us a top-five sandcastle location in the country.” — Janel Hawkins, Sand Castle University

She has seen many changes in Gulf Shores. “Ivan was our last big hurricane, in 2004. Pre-Ivan Gulf Shores and post-Ivan Gulf Shores are completely different,” she says. “We had quite a lot of damage after the storm, but it allowed people to kind of have a clean slate. There were lots of new condos, lots of new beach houses. Over the years, we’ve been put on the map as the relaxed version of Panama City or Destin. It’s a very hometown feel. Our thing is big beach, small town.”

In the summer, Hawkins and her team conduct five classes a day, seven days a week, and teach people how to construct castles superior to anything you did with a pail and shovel when you were a kid. “Water is glue for sandcastles,” she says. “It’s a simplified version of concrete.”

More water mixed with the sand means stronger structures, and fluffy sand holds water the best. “The stronger your sand, the more details you can do, and the more daring you can get with your design,” she says. “Luckily our sand down here makes us a top-five sandcastle location in the country.”

Hawkins shows my wife and me how to fill forms with wet sand to construct towers, and then carve out the details to resemble a medieval keep. She says her instructor in this art started out as an architect, and she took an online course in historic architecture from Harvard to make her creations look more like castles. When she’s not teaching travelers, corporate team building seminars, and honeymooning couples the art of sand sculpture, her beach creations can get stranger. “I did a big hand holding a trident coming out of the sand the other day,” she says. “I did a mouth with a tongue coming out, and the mouth became a zipper, zipping up the beach.”

In addition to the sand, the sun, and the peaceful roll of the waves, she says she loves the forgiving nature of her chosen medium. “The great part about sand is, if you mess up, you can cover it up and do it again. There are very few mistakes you can make that can’t be corrected. That’s definitely my kind of art.

“Gulf Shores is very dedicated to maintaining a small-town feel, a small community feel,” she says. “Even though our population multiplies about eight times or so during our high season, everyone comes down here because it’s chill. It’s nice. It’s relaxing. I tell people, it’s just sandcastles, it’s just the beach.”

The Old and New

We have quite a big art community down here, but I can only take so many pictures of swordfish,” says Hawkins.

One of the other Gulf Shore residents making a living in the art realm is Jamie D’Cruz, owner of Hammer and Stain, a DIY art store across the bridge on the mainland. Like Hawkins, she grew up here along the sea. “My sister and I were on the first swim team in Gulf Shores,” she says. “There were only five or six of us to begin with. Now it’s a huge swim team that competes year-round.”

Later, D’Cruz became one of the first woman lifeguards on the beach. She left the community after high school to see the world as a flight attendant, but recently moved back to Gulf Shores to raise her two children. “It’s always been family-oriented,” she says. “We had tons of stuff to do, but it was more of a quiet, relaxed atmosphere. It wasn’t as busy.”

Hammer and Stain, a woman-owned company that began in New Jersey, helped D’Cruz realize her dream of opening an art-oriented business. She helps non-artists realize their painting dreams, and helps people create fun art pieces for their walls. Everyone from kids to seniors comes here to create something new. She does birthday parties, open paint classes, and nighttime BYOB painting parties.

Since the catastrophe of 2004, the area has been steadily expanding. Now, it’s a great place to hang out a shingle. “I was driving around the other day and saw three new businesses that were coming up,” she says.

Before Hurricane Ivan, the Lodge at Gulf State Park stood in the middle of 6,150 acres of unspoiled coastal habitat. “It was basically just a lot of concrete that they put on the beach,” says Kurt Fedders, the hotel’s marketing and social media manager. “It was more than twice the size of this one, although it had fewer rooms. Then Hurricane Ivan came in in 2004 and demolished it. The state of Alabama took about 15 years to figure out what they wanted and who they wanted to go with.”

“The hotel is designed for the preservation of the sand dunes from the winds, so that we help out the whole area. We do everything sustainable that we can.” — Kurt Fedders

The Alabama state government owns the Lodge, which is operated by Atlanta’s Valor Hospitality and Hilton. “I don’t know another hotel that a state government actually owns,” says Fedders. “Some of our profits go to the other 22 state parks in Alabama.” The new property features 350 rooms with views of either the Gulf on the south side or Lake Shelby on the north. For the Lodge, sustainable tourism is the watchword. “That was one of the main focuses the state wanted, and we were happy to do it,” he says. “The philosophy of sustainability is in almost everything.”

The structure is LEED Gold certified, and designed to survive the kind of hurricane that destroyed its predecessor. From the refillable shampoo bottles to the bamboo straws, everything is designed to reduce waste. Even the moisture removed from the air by the HVAC system is captured, filtered, and fed into the swimming pool with a beautiful Gulf view. Enough water is captured this way each year to fill the pool four times over. “The hotel is designed for the preservation of the sand dunes from the winds, so that we help out the whole area,” says Fedders. “We do everything sustainable that we can.”

In addition to a huge conference center, which at the time of our visit had recently hosted a formal ball for 650 Marines, the hotel complex boasts four restaurants, all serving a different kind of cuisine. Perch is the fine dining option, serving locally harvested fish such as snapper with saffron cream sauce in a dining room with exquisite views. Downstairs from Perch is Foodcraft, where the breakfast buffet is extraordinary. In the lobby sits Roasted Oak, a coffee and wine bar where you can grab a quick breakfast pastry or a bowl of oatmeal with your bottomless cup of java. In the summer, the outdoor restaurant Dragonfly serves up burgers and ice cream for active beach kids, and hosts a poolside bar for the adults.

Fedders, who moved here to work at the hotel after nine years in Cabo San Lucas, says his new home is different from any beach town he’s ever lived in. “Gulf Shores has a cool, small-town vibe,” he says. “The people are just ridiculously nice. The Southern hospitality thing is definitely true. You’ve got mild weather, a super-clean community, low crime, good schools, and great beaches that aren’t crowded like they are over in Florida. You’re not going to have the traffic and crowds that you would over in Destin. I love the fact that Gulf State Park is here. It’s almost ten square miles. It’s a unique thing with freshwater lakes and freshwater fish. We have a complimentary bike share program, where you can take a bike up to three hours.”

Walking through Gulf State Park’s trails and boardwalks, you get a sense of what the area must have looked like to the mysterious canal builders who once fished this lake. But while the seafood is equally fresh, they never had the range of options contemporary visitors have. At Picnic Beach, you can get a tuna poké bowl and play board games with your friends. The Flying Harpoon, an old-school, creole-inspired fish and beer joint overlooking a little lagoon, serves up a killer fried flounder basket with hand-cut potato chips. The recent history of the area is encapsulated by The Hangout. Begun in the 1960s as a hippie bar on the beach, today The Hangout is a sprawling complex with music stages, patios, and an enormous dining room decorated with a wall of vintage Pez dispensers. It’s also the epicenter of one of the country’s most prestigious music festivals. Hangout Music Festival attracts more than 40,000 people for three days of bands of all kinds. It has hosted musicians such as Tom Petty, the Foo Fighters, Stevie Wonder, and OutKast. This year’s festival, scheduled for May 15-17, features headliners The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Ellish, Post Malone, and Lana Del Ray.

On the other end of the island is the famous Flora-Bama, a honky tonk that straddles the state line. It was destroyed by Ivan, but the debris was salvaged and the place rebuilt on stilts to withstand a storm surge.

Sky Show

On certain days when you walk on the beach, you’re likely to be treated to one of Gulf Shores’ strangest, and loudest, surprises. The Blue Angels flight demonstration team is based just down the beach at the Pensacola Air Station, and they practice just off shore. You can be strolling on the beach and suddenly four fighter jets roar overhead, their wingtips separated by inches.

But that’s not the only sky show available in Gulf Shores. The low light conditions maintained for the turtles means lots of stars are visible at night, with meteors whizzing overhead. But the best is the sunsets. As my wife and I walked out on the pier at sunset, I told her about the “green flash,” an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs after sunset where a green after-image of our life-giving star briefly hovers above the horizon. You need still air and long, uninterrupted sight lines to see it. I had long tried and failed to catch a glimpse of it, but as we stood holding hands with anglers on either side, it suddenly appeared — Mother Nature saying goodnight to one of her most beautiful creations.