Morning Light Along Panama City Beach’s Gulf Shoreline

Panama City Beach sits on a barrier peninsula along Florida's Gulf Coast in Bay County, roughly 100 miles southwest of Tallahassee. Its sand is composed largely of quartz washed down from the Appalachians over thousands of years, giving the beach its notably fine, white texture and cooler surface temperature compared to darker sands elsewhere in the state. The city incorporated in 1936 and grew through the postwar decades into one of the Florida Panhandle's primary tourist destinations, with high-rise condominiums replacing many of the smaller motels and cottages that once lined the shore. The Gulf here is part of a wider marine system that supports sea turtle nesting, including loggerheads, which return to these dunes each summer to lay eggs.

Photo taken in February 2011.