WATER & COAST
Shell Point Beach
Wakulla County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
The county's other public beach, on the north edge of Apalachee Bay about thirty miles south of Tallahassee.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Shell Point was a private beach for years. In 1995 people in the community petitioned to have it opened, and it passed to the Wakulla County Department of Parks and Recreation, which runs it now with help from state grant money. The area sits inside a federal Opportunity Zone. It is a family beach and it is quiet: sand, shallow water, a view straight out over the bay, and no commercial strip behind it. The steady wind off Apalachee Bay has made this a known place for windsurfing and kiteboarding, and on a breezy weekend the sails are the first thing you see from the road. Fishing and boating are the other reasons people come, with the flats close in and the deeper bay beyond. The community around it is a small unincorporated one of houses on stilts, most of them second homes and weekend places. For anyone considering the Wakulla coast, Shell Point and Mashes Sands are the two beaches the county keeps open to everybody
Not identified in this guide as an officially clothing-optional beach. This is a visit category, not a safety rating—check surf, lifeguards, water quality and posted rules.
BEACH CONDITIONS
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