With the first day of business being Friday, Russel-Fields Pier in Panama City Beach saw over 1800 people on Friday and just under 1,000 people on Saturday by 1 pm when I was there. They closed the pier down shortly before dusk to set off the fireworks a little after 9pm. The fireworks show left no visible damage that I could see, just as promised – thnaks Yankee!
So far the most common fish caught are Spanish and King Mackerel, although a small handful of people I talked today said they caught a higher number than usual of “lady-fish”, or the poor -man’s trout.
The weather is rather dreary, but seems to be wanting to clear up. I was actually harrassed by more fisherman than usual, must have been the umbrella, I’m sure I looked like a dweeb. I was just trying to keep my camera dry!
There were tons of surfers out, the surf looked great, good clean waves, nice break in between. In fact, the only complaint I would have had if I were a surfer would be that there were too many surfers.
I will say this, all weekend I was greeted by a great guy working the booth that seemed happy to be there. Today, I was greeted by a man named Terry who was real grumpy, must have been the weather. At least he’s got a/c! We do need polite people greeting our tourists – haven’t we been discussing this? Cheer up Terry, you live in the best place on earth!
On to the county pier that’s under construction!