The St Aug Blog

by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com).   Follow us on Facebook.

We love our tourists in St. Augustine.  We are grateful for their business and that they decide to spend their money and their time here.

However, there are always a few that bring their bad taste along with their awful beach tents.  These are Tourist Morons, or “Tourons” to those of us who live here.  As such I bring you the Second Annual Touronathon, or, Things Not to Do to Look Like a Touron.  It must be something about late July or August that brings the touron out, because my Touron Blog Post from last year was posted about the same time.

1. When the tide forces you to move, do not put your stuff on top of other people’s stuff.  Close to the pier where the space is tight, it’s a little harder to find wiggle room and you might have to move down the beach.  But on down the beach there’s room for everybody…so when you move don’t drop your 57 pounds of paraphernalia, 6 beach chairs, three wet towels, cooler and radio on someone else’s towel or sandals.  This has happened twice to me this year…on wide open stretches of the beach.  I personally don’t mind, but when you put your stuff down on my four-year old’s stuff, then we have a problem.
2. Do not, and I repeat, do not fish in the surf where people are swimming and surfing.  Fish at the pier, in the state park, Vilano, Crescent beach a bit north or south of Beacher’s Lodge, or any other open stretch.  Not A Street ramp.  Pretty much not A Street north to 16th.  There are kids in the water and those huge treble hooks can cause some damage.  You’ve got the entire coastline to work with…why are you in an area packed with bathers?  Those surfers may look mellow out there but if they see your lines they’ll treat you like Carl Spackler treated Judge Smails: they’ll cut your achilles tendon.  You’ll never cast right again and you’ll give up fishing.
3. This next one is kind of a push: footballs at the beach.  It’s not really a touron thing, but it does scream “I haven’t seen beach sand since I was at Lake Lak-A-Pooka-Mucky when I was six.”  Since tossing the football at the beach is mostly the activity of high schoolers I’m inclined to give it a pass (no pun intended), but just make sure you can throw the thing with some accuracy.  No one likes a bomb from the heavens landing in their lap.  The same thing goes for horseshoes and cornhole at the beach.  In fact cornhole screams, “I just escaped from Wisconsin.” 
4. The dangerous dog thing again from last year: don’t bring them to the beach.  And for goodness sake don’t leave them off leash.  Pit bulls + kids equals jail time, euthanization of the dog, and a civil judgment in the millions if anyone gets hurt.  I love seeing dogs on the beach, just not your inferiority complex that requires the need for a dangerous dog at the beach.