This park is about 4 hours south of Huntington Beach SP. We originally only booked 4 nights here but ended up staying the whole month of February.
This poor park has taken a beating! We had never been here before so didn’t really know what to expect but the front section of it looked like a bomb went off. It still looked tropical but you could tell there was a lot of damage done by hurricanes. First it got slammed by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 and was closed for months. They finally managed to clean it up enough to open again for 3 months only to get hit again September 2017 by Hurricane Irma. It only reopened Feb 1, 2018 and we got there on Feb 2.
Apparently the Front section of the campground had 88 sites which were pretty much right on the beach, they’re all gone as is the dune that was protecting them and hundreds of trees. All that’s left is exposed wiring, broken down bathhouses and roads buried in sand.
Where the front campsites used to be
You can tell by the rest of the park that the front section must have been gorgeous. It’s still very tropical but a bit sad when you hear what it used to be like. People who had camped here when it was still all intact were all shocked when they saw it in this state. There are no plans to rebuild them either.
The section of the park in the back still received damage in the form of downed trees but the sites still looked nice. This was our first site.
Site 195
On the plus side, there was lots of free firewood, in fact I think the park staff left alot of lying around so that people could help with the cleanup. There was one guy that had a fire going all the time we were there. His site was immaculate! Dave did his part too!
We had hoped the fishing here would be better since we were further south but nope, notta, zilch, total strikeout!!! So frustrating but the more we talked to people we found that the fishing that used to be good in the lagoon, isn’t so good anymore because it’s so much shallower due to all the sand dumped in from hurricanes. And the surf fishing is similarly bad because it’s soooo shallow. The fishing in the creek that flows out in the ocean should have been prime fishing but again nothing. The water was finally warming up but I guess not warm enough yet.
On the plus side there was miles of beach to walk on and when the tide went out you could go even further. I made it a habit to get up and walk about 4-6 miles every morning, after watching the sunrises some of which were spectacular like this one.
We also shared alot of stories and laughs with Vic and Cindy, a couple that Jane introduced us to at Huntington Beach State park. In fact there quite a few of us former HBSP RVers that had migrated south to here, so there were a number of familiar faces.
Want to see more pics from around the park and the island? I’ve lumped them into these 4 categories: