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Honeymoon Island State Park

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Honeymoon Island State Park
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
Gulf of Mexico shoreline at Honeymoon Island
Honeymoon Island State Park is located in Florida
Honeymoon Island State Park
Location within Florida
Honeymoon Island State Park is located in the United States
Honeymoon Island State Park
Location within the United States
Map
Interactive map of Honeymoon Island State Park
LocationPinellas County, Florida, U.S.
Nearest cityDunedin
Coordinates28°04′08″N 82°49′52″W / 28.06889°N 82.83111°W / 28.06889; -82.83111
Area2,824.52 acres (11.4304 km2)
EstablishedDecember 7, 1981; 44 years ago (1981-12-07)
Visitors1,528,178 (in 2022–23)
Governing bodyFlorida Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Recreation and Parks

Honeymoon Island State Park is a 2,824.52-acre (1,143.04 ha) Florida state park protecting most of Honeymoon Island, a barrier island on the Gulf coast of Pinellas County west of Dunedin. The park protects approximately 4.25 miles (6.84 km) of Gulf shoreline together with extensive seagrass beds, mangrove swamps, slash pine flatwoods, and coastal dunes and grasslands. It was acquired by the state in 1974 and formally opened on December 7, 1981.[1]

The island is south of the Anclote Keys and north of Caladesi Island, being separated by a hurricane in 1921. The two islands originally formed a single island named Hog Island, with the inlet between them being known as Hurricane Pass.[2] The park's landform includes a wind and wave shaped finger at its northern end that has grown outward by more than 50 m (160 ft) per year since the late 1970s.[3]

Honeymoon Island supports a healthy gopher tortoise population, one of Florida's most concentrated osprey nesting colonies, and nesting loggerhead sea turtles. It is a wintering and stopover site of state and federal importance for migratory shorebirds, such as piping plover and red knot.[4] The island has been ranked among Florida's top sites for wintering shorebirds.[4][5]

Over 1.5 million visitors were recorded in fiscal year 2022–23, making Honeymoon Island Florida's most-visited state park, ranking behind only two multi-county linear greenways in the state park system.[6]

History

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Initial inhabitation

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Honeymoon Island lies within the traditional territory of the Tocobaga, a group from the Safety Harbor culture, that inhabited the shores of Tampa Bay and its estuaries from approximately AD 900 until coming into contact with the Spanish.[7] Archaeological evidence of prehistoric occupation on Honeymoon Island itself is scarce. The Florida Master Site File documents two sites within the park: a scatter of lithic material designated as 8Pi747 (Osprey Breeding site), first mapped in 1982, and 8Pi11664 (Sand Spit site), a sand mound containing shell middens near the Osprey Trail.[8] At the Sand Spit site, artifacts such as two projectile points and a stone scraper have been recovered and are currently on display at the park's nature center.[8] On the near by island of Caladesi, Clarence B. Moore documented the Hog Island mound (8Pi9) in 1903 as a burial mound containing skeletal remains.[9]

Colonial period

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Pottery shards and fragments of 16th-century European chain mail have allegedly been recovered from the island, suggesting that the Spanish used this barrier island as a stopover point during the early colonial period.[10] Formal excavations or cataloging have not taken place concerning these items.[10] An archaeological sensitivity model developed for the park in 2013 by the University of South Florida's Alliance for Integrated Spatial Technologies identified the Osprey Nesting site as an area with a high probability of containing additional cultural resources.[10]

Sand Island and Hog Island

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"Sand Island" was first identified in the 1830s on United States coastal maps.[10] By the middle of the nineteenth century, the island had been renamed Hog Island for a farm on the property, and this name stayed in use for nearly a century.[10] On October 25, 1921, the hurricane described later in Hurricanes, cut through the barrier and divided Hog Island into Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands.[11]

Honeymoon Village

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In 1939 the New York advertising executive Clinton M. Washburn purchased the northern half of the former Hog Island for $25,000 and, aided by a friendship with a Life magazine editor, launched a national publicity campaign to reimagine the site as a honeymoon retreat.[12][13] Washburn built roughly 50 palm-thatched cottages in a Polynesian style, together with a "king's palace" pavilion, a wedding chapel, a dance hall, a water tower, and a communal building.[12] The resort opened to the public on March 8, 1940, when its first guests, Marjorie and Earnest Burkett, arrived.[12]

The complex was promoted through a Life magazine feature on April 8, 1940, and a Paramount newsreel the same year, drawing more than 200 couples to a contest whose winners were awarded a two-week stay in the huts, with rowboat, gas stove, and no electricity or plumbing supplied. Notable applicants reportedly included the actors Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman.[13][14] A total of 164 couples were accommodated before the United States entered World War II in December 1941.

Following the war, Washburn would lease the property to an Ohio defense contractor as a rest facility for war-industry workers, and the island was also used for amphibious vehicle testing.[12][14] None of the resort structures survived the war; a concrete pad and two upright elements near the Osprey Center are the only visible remains that might date from the period.[10]

Further developments

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The industrialist Arthur Vining Davis acquired the island in 1956, and in 1958 title passed to Robert E. Lee on behalf of Curlew Properties, Inc.[14] The Dunedin Causeway, connecting the mainland to the barrier, was completed in December 1964 to support a proposed development that would have enlarged the island from about 200 acres (81 ha) to 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) using dredged fill and construct 4,500 residential units to house 16,000 people.[15][16] Preparation involved the 1969 dredge-and-fill operation described above, which was halted mid-way in the face of opposition from local conservation groups. The dredging permit expired in late 1969, and the Army Corps of Engineers and state agencies declined to renew it.[15]

An eight-building, 449-unit residential complex known as Royal Stewart Arms was completed on 23 acres (9.3 ha) at the eastern end of the island in 1973 and remains the only non-park development on Honeymoon Island.[17]

State park

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Beginning on December 13, 1974, the Florida Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund purchased the remaining undeveloped land from Hyman and Fay Green in six successive tracts totaling more than 2,790 acres (1,130 ha) between 1974 and 1980.[18] This was accomplished using the Land Acquisition Trust Fund and Land and Water Conservation Fund as well as small donations from the city of Dunedin and Pinellas County in 1982 and 1983 respectively.[18] The Trustees leased the property to the Florida Division of Recreation and Parks on December 7, 1981, for a fifty-year term, and the park opened to the public later that month.[1]

The Rotary Centennial Nature Center, an interpretive facility built with support from local Rotary clubs and volunteers, was dedicated in May 2007.[19] A ferry to Caladesi Island State Park operates from a dock on the island's southeast shore, and a paved multi-use trail extending from the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail system enters the park by way of the causeway.[20]

Hurricane Impacts

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The island has been shaped by tropical storms as much as by any other force. Beyond the 1921 hurricane, Hurricane Elena stalled off western Florida in September 1985, driving severe beach erosion and cutting a small overwash pass across the northern end of neighbouring Caladesi Island; sediment mobilised by Elena and the subsequent Hurricane Juan partly refilled Dunedin Pass at Caladesi's southern end, which closed completely by 1988.[11][21]

Tampa Bay hurricane

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Hurricane Pass

Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands were a single landmass, called Hog Island, until the Tampa Bay hurricane struck west-central Florida on October 25, 1921. The storm produced tides roughly 3 metres (9.8 ft) above normal and cut a new inlet through the island, permanently separating what became Honeymoon Island to the north from Caladesi Island to the south. The waterway is now called Hurricane Pass.[11][22] Regional geologist Richard A. Davis Jr. has described the storm as "probably the most devastating in recorded history as far as the Pinellas County coast is concerned."[11] The same event opened Redfish Pass at Captiva Island and reshaped inlets from Anclote Key south to Sanibel.[11]

Hurricane Idalia

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Hurricane Idalia passed to the north on August 30, 2023, generating storm surge that stripped sand from the beach parking lots and eroded roughly 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 m) of dune elsewhere on Pinellas County beaches.[23]

Hurricane Helene

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On September 26, 2024, Honeymoon Island was struck by Hurricane Helene. The Florida Park Service kept the park closed for assessment until November.[24]

Hurricane Milton

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Sea oats found in the park

Hurricane Milton followed on October 9, cutting several new passes across the barrier and inflicting what park-support groups described as the worst damage since the 1921 hurricane.[25][26] The Florida Park Service contracted Gator Dredging of Clearwater to move about 168,000 cubic yards of sand from Hurricane Pass to rebuild the beaches and dunes. Additionally, volunteers planted more than 30,000 sea oats to help stabilise the new dune surface by March 2025.[25] The park partially reopened by late November 2024, with the north beach remaining closed into 2026.[26]

Geography and geology

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Honeymoon Island is located within the coastal lagoon and barrier island chain sub-zone of Florida's coastal lowlands, situated between St. Joseph Sound to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. Elevations range from mean sea level to approximately 7 feet (2.1 m) on man-made embankments; the highest natural features are the primary dune line along the Gulf coast.[22] Access to the park is via the Dunedin Causeway, which crosses St. Joseph Sound from the mainland; a residential complex of eight mid-rise buildings, constructed in the early 1970s, occupies the only area of ​​the island that is not part of the park.[17]

The underlying bedrock belongs to the Hawthorn Formation, dating to the early Miocene; it consists of an interbedded sequence of sand, clay, marl, limestone, fuller's earth, and phosphate nodules. This limestone platform is overlain by a layer of Pleistocene and Holocene sand and mud, a few feet thick.[3] Radiocarbon-calibrated sea-level curves place the age of the current island between 4,800 and 7,000 years. Following its formation, shoreline accretion expanded the barrier island during a period when the rise in sea level slowed; an acceleration about 4,000 years ago caused the shoreline to retreat, while a subsequent slowdown about 3,000 years ago initiated a second phase of growth that continues today.[3]

Formation of Hurricane Pass

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Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands formed a single landmass known as Hog Island until a major hurricane struck west-central Florida on October 25, 1921. The storm caused tides to rise approximately 3 metres (9.8 ft) above normal levels and cut a new breach through the island, permanently separating what came to be known as Honeymoon Island to the north from Caladesi Island to the south.[2] This waterway is now known as Hurricane Pass. Regional geologist Richard A. Davis Jr. has described the storm as "probably the most devastating in recorded history for the Pinellas County coast"; the same event opened Redfish Pass on Captiva Island and altered the configuration of existing passes stretching from Anclote Key in the north to Sanibel in the south.[2]

Barrier-island dynamics

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Since 1921 the island has undergone rapid morphological change under the low-energy, mixed-wave-and-tide regime of the west-central Florida coast, where mean wave height at the shore is less than 30 centimetres (12 in).[2] The southern half of the island was drastically changed in 1969, when about 1.5 million cubic yards of fill were dredged from 2,000 feet (610 m) offshore and placed on the southwestern beach in preparation for a residential development that was never built. The fill included limestone pebbles and rocks as well as quartz sand.[27] Longshore drift subsequently removed much of the sand, exposing a hardened shoreline of limestone rubble that has continued to complicate beach recreation and shorebird nesting.[27][28]

Nearby shoals along the northern half of the island merged with the shore as an exposed sand spit in the late 1970s. That spit now forms a curving, 2-mile (3.2 km) finger of beach, dune, coastal strand, and mangrove at the island's northern tip and has continued to lengthen at more than 50 m (160 ft) per year.[3]

Climate

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Honeymoon Island has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), moderated annually by its position on the Gulf of Mexico. Summers are hot and humid, with mean daily highs in the warmest months reaching about 32 °C (90 °F) and frequent afternoon convective storms; winters are mild and drier, with January mean highs near 20 °C (68 °F) and only occasional freezes.[29] Rainfall averages about 1,220 millimetres (48 in) per year at Dunedin, with roughly two-thirds falling between June and September during the Atlantic hurricane season; that season also brings the island's principal geological hazard, tropical cyclones making landfall or passing near the Pinellas coast.[29]

Ecology

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The park is classified as a state recreation area by the Florida Park Service and all its surface waters are designated Outstanding Florida Waters.[30] The park lies within the Pinellas County Aquatic Preserve established under the Florida Aquatic Preserve Act of 1975.[30]

Flora

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Ten Florida Natural Areas Inventory natural communities are recorded in the park, with marine unconsolidated substrate (about 1,417 acres (573 ha)) and marine seagrass beds (about 889 acres (360 ha)) accounting for more than eighty percent of the total acreage. Mangrove swamp (157 acres (64 ha)) dominates the eastern, bayside shore, and small but significant terrestrial communities include mesic flatwoods (97 acres (39 ha)), coastal strand (76 acres (31 ha)), coastal grassland (72 acres (29 ha)), beach dune (35 acres (14 ha)), marine mollusk reef (9 acres (3.6 ha)), maritime hammock (5 acres (2.0 ha)), and coastal interdunal swale (2 acres (0.81 ha)); developed and impounded areas comprise the remainder.[31]

Fauna

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Honeymoon Island's fauna reflects its place in a chain of protected barrier islands in the northern Gulf. Forty-two imperiled animal species have been catalogued by the Division of Recreation and Parks, including three sea turtles, fifteen shorebirds and seabirds, and one large mammal.[32]

Birds

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Approximately three hundred bird species have been documented in the park.[33] The Osprey Trail contains about twenty active osprey nests each spring and has been described as one of the best places in the world to observe nesting ospreys.[34][33] Bald eagles have nested in pine trees at the park since 2009, and great horned owls use the same canopy each winter.[35] Beach-nesting shorebirds documented in the park include Wilson's plover, snowy plover, American oystercatcher, least tern, and black skimmer.[36]Colonial species have largely stopped nesting on the main beach since the mid-2010s.[36]

A statewide winter shorebird survey conducted in the mid-1990s ranked Honeymoon Island second among twenty-seven other places on the southwest coast for wintering shorebird importance and third overall in Florida.[37] Federally threatened piping plover and red knot both use the island's inlet-adjacent flats during migration and winter; the federal recovery plan for the piping plover identifies unaltered sandy beaches near inlets, such as those flanking Hurricane Pass, as critical wintering habitat.[38][39] Rare species recorded at the park include bar-tailed godwit, long-billed murrelet, Northern wheatear, and green-tailed towhee.[33]

Sea turtles

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Loggerhead sea turtles nest in low numbers on the Gulf shore between May and September each year, and stranded juvenile green, Kemp's ridley, and hawksbill sea turtles have been recovered during winter cold-stun events.[40]

Management

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Honeymoon Island is managed under a ten-year unit management plan approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Acquisition and Restoration Council on February 11, 2022, replacing an earlier 2007 plan.[41]

Prescribed fire

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About 131 acres (53 ha) of the park, comprising all mesic flatwoods and coastal strand, are managed with prescribed fire on a five-year rotation. The acreage is divided into thirteen management zones grouped into five clusters of roughly 25 acres (10 ha) that are burned as units each year in coordination with the Florida Forest Service.[42] Fire opens the understory for gopher tortoises and reduces dangerous fuel loads, but activity is limited between February to May for bald eagle and osprey nesting seasons; a 330-foot (100 m) buffer is maintained around active eagle nests.[43]

Recreation

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Visitor amenities include a bathhouse and concession at each of the North and South Beach areas, picnic pavilions, a pet beach along Hurricane Pass, and the Rotary Centennial Nature Center, which houses exhibits on the natural and cultural history of Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands and includes an elevated observation deck.[20] A commercial ferry service runs between the southern tip of the park and Caladesi Island State Park across Hurricane Pass; the neighboring island has no vehicular access.[44]

The 3.5-mile (5.6 km) Osprey Trail loop and Pelican Cove Trail cross the northern half of the island through pine flatwoods and along the mangrove bay shore.[44] A 1.5-mile (2.4 km) paved bike path connects the park entrance with the Dunedin Causeway and the wider Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail network.[44] Popular activities at the park consist of swimming, sunbathing, fishing, birdwatching, and shelling. About 10 miles (16 km) offshore lies the Circle of Heroes, the first underwater memorial in the United States dedicated to military veterans.[45] The memorial was dedicated on August 5, 2019, and features thirteen concrete statues around a central monument at a depth of about 40 feet (12 m).[45]

Visitation and economic impact

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Honeymoon Island has averaged about 1.27 million visitors per year over the decade to 2021 and is consistently one of the two most visited traditional state parks in Florida.[16] The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recorded 1,528,178 visitors in fiscal year 2022–23, associated with an estimated $185 million in direct economic impact and the equivalent of 2,591 jobs in the local economy; the comparable figures for fiscal year 2021–22 were 1,389,439 visitors, $167 million, and 2,336 jobs.[46][47] Peak visitation occurs between March and July.[16]

Visitor information

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Florida state parks are open between 8 a.m. and sundown every day of the year (including holidays). While signage at the entrance to the park indicates a per-vehicle daily entrance fee of $8, single visitors are only charged $4, as of February 2015. There is also an annual pass for Florida residents. The charge to ride the ferry to Caladesi Island is $14 per adult in addition to the park entrance fee. Honeymoon Island has two different concession areas: Café Honeymoon and the South Beach Pavilion.

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References

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Bibliography

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  • Davis, Richard A. Jr.; Andronaco, Margaret (1987). Impact of Hurricanes on Pinellas County, Florida, 1985 (PDF) (Report). Florida Sea Grant College Technical Paper No. 51. Tampa: Florida Sea Grant College Program, Department of Geology, University of South Florida.
  • Florida Department of Environmental Protection (2022). Honeymoon Island State Park Approved Management Plan (PDF) (Report). Tallahassee: Division of Recreation and Parks.
  • Florida Department of Environmental Protection (2023). Economic Impact Assessment: Florida State Park System, Fiscal Year 2022–2023 (PDF) (Report). Division of Recreation and Parks.
  • Florida Department of Environmental Protection (2022). Economic Impact Assessment: Florida State Park System, Fiscal Year 2021–2022 (PDF) (Report). Division of Recreation and Parks.
  • Florida Natural Areas Inventory (2017). Gopher tortoise survey of Honeymoon Island State Park (PDF) (Report). Tallahassee: Florida Natural Areas Inventory.
  • Inglin, D.C.; Davis, Richard A. Jr. (1993). Honeymoon Island study phase four: three year monitoring report (Report). Tampa: Coastal Research Laboratory, Department of Geology, University of South Florida.
  • Moore, Clarence B. (1903). "Certain aboriginal mounds of the Florida central west-coast". Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 12 (3): 361–439.
  • Milanich, Jerald T. (1994). Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1273-5.
  • Smith, G.C.; Sullivan, P.; Reed, M.B. (2008). Countywide Cultural Resources Survey: Pinellas County, Florida (Report). St. Augustine, Florida: New South Associates.
  • Sprandel, G.L.; Gore, J.A.; Cobb, D.T. (1997). Winter Shorebird Survey Final Performance Report, November 1, 1993 – March 1, 1994 (Report). Tallahassee: Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.
  • United States Fish and Wildlife Service (2015). Recovery Plan for the Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) (Report). USFWS.
  • Yarbro, Laura A.; Carlson, Paul R. Jr. (2011). Seagrass Integrated Mapping and Monitoring for the State of Florida: Mapping and Monitoring Report No. 1 (Report). St. Petersburg: Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.

Citations

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  1. 1 2 FDEP 2022, pp. 1, A1-1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Davis & Andronaco 1987.
  3. 1 2 3 4 FDEP 2022, p. 10.
  4. 1 2 FDEP 2022, pp. 27–28.
  5. ↑ FNAI 2017, pp. 1, 4.
  6. ↑ FDEP EIA 2023, p. ?.
  7. ↑ Milanich 1994, pp. ?.
  8. 1 2 FDEP 2022, pp. 40–42.
  9. ↑ Moore 1903, pp. 433–434.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 FDEP 2022, p. 41.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Davis & Andronaco 1987, p. ?.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Historic Homes Tampa Bay 2022.
  13. 1 2 Baird 2019.
  14. 1 2 3 Tampa Historical 2019.
  15. 1 2 The Gabber 2019.
  16. 1 2 3 FDEP 2022, p. 48.
  17. 1 2 FDEP 2022, p. 47.
  18. 1 2 FDEP 2022, p. A1-1.
  19. ↑ Tampa Bay Times 2007.
  20. 1 2 FDEP 2022, pp. 50, 55.
  21. ↑ Clayton 2013.
  22. 1 2 FDEP 2022, p. 9.
  23. ↑ Tampa Bay Times 2023.
  24. ↑ McGivern, Kylie (November 29, 2024). "Honeymoon Island partially reopens on Thanksgiving following storm damage". Tampa Bay 28 (WFTS). Retrieved June 23, 2026.
  25. 1 2 WFLA 2024.
  26. 1 2 Tampa Bay 28 2024.
  27. 1 2 FDEP 2022, pp. 9–10.
  28. ↑ Inglin & Davis 1993.
  29. 1 2 Weather Spark 2024.
  30. 1 2 FDEP 2022, p. 8.
  31. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 14.
  32. ↑ FDEP 2022, pp. 30–32.
  33. 1 2 3 Florida Birding Trail 2024.
  34. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 20.
  35. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 27.
  36. 1 2 FDEP 2022, p. 35.
  37. ↑ Sprandel, Gore & Cobb 1997.
  38. ↑ USFWS 2015.
  39. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 28.
  40. ↑ FDEP 2022, pp. 28–29.
  41. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 1.
  42. ↑ FDEP 2022, pp. 25–26.
  43. ↑ FDEP 2022, p. 26.
  44. 1 2 3 FDEP 2022, p. 50.
  45. 1 2 Circle of Heroes 2019.
  46. ↑ FDEP EIA 2023.
  47. ↑ FDEP EIA 2022.
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