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Archive for the 'Dunedin' Category

Caladesi Island in Dunedin is US’s best beach

Caladesi Island beach

What’s the best beach in all of the US? According to Dr. Beach, who rates America’s beaches every year, it is none other than Caladesi Island, right here in lovely Dunedin, Florida.

What makes the beach at Caladesi Island the best bit of Dunedin real estate there is? For one thing, it is the limited accessibility and the total lack of auto traffic.  Caladesi Island is a mile off the Dunedin coast and is reachable only by private boat or by a ferry, the Caladesi Connection,  which runs from Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin.

Only a limited number of people are allowed on the island, and pets are not allowed on the ferry.

But once you are there, there’s plenty to see and do. A mangrove-covered kayak trail winds from the marina three miles to St. Joseph Sound, and kayaks are available for rent. Wildlife that range from gopher tortoises to ospreys can be spotted. Dr. Beach also loves the powdery white sand and the crystal clear Gulf of Mexico water.

The ferry will set you back $10 per person, $6 for kids between the ages of 4 and 12. If you miss the ferry, don’t worry — it will be back in an hour. Once you are on the island, you have four hours to swim, sunbathe, hike  or do a little beachcombing before you must return to the ferry for the return trip.

Picnic tables and shelters are available, and you can rent picnic pavilions. If you bring your own boat, a marina offers electric and water hookups. If you forgot your picnic basket, don’t worry – a snack bar/gift shop, Cafe Caladesi, is nearby.

By the way, Dr. Beach is really Dr. Stephen Leatherman, director of Florida International University’s Laboratory for Coastal Research. He has selected the annual Top 10 Beaches in the country since 1991.

Tags: beaches, caladesi, Dunedin, dunedin real estate

The Pinellas Trail

The Pinellas Trail

I’ve written about the Pinellas Trail before. It’s a great recreational asset in Pinellas County that runs all the way from the northern tip of Pinellas County in Tarpon Springs to the southern tip in St. Pete. 

The trail was originally a railroad line that fell into disuse. Rather than just let the right-of-way decay from disuse, the county developed it into a well-kept walking and biking trail that is heavily used and enjoyed.

I have a friend who had let his weight get up close to 400 pounds before he did something about it. He lives in Dunedin, and his weight loss program involved exercising on the trail. Now he weights about 275, and he bikes from Dunedin all the way up to Tarpon Springs and back — every day.

The trail goes right through downtown Dunedin and is one of the assets that makes Dunedin’s downtown area such a pleasure. Also, there are little micro-businesses there and elsewhere along the trail — bicycle rental shops, ice cream shops and so forth.

This sign is on the trail in Dunedin, right where the trail crosses Main Street. There’s another one just like it near downtown Palm Harbor, and probably others along the trail as well.

Tags: Dunedin, pinellas trail

Lamp posts in Dunedin

Lamp post in Dunedin

 Ever since we put up this blog, with the newsboy standing under the lamp post, I’ve become a little more aware of lamp posts in North Pinellas County. Old-style lamp posts aren’t all that common, but I did notice that downtown Dunedin has some really dandy examples — I guess when they did over the downtown area, they were careful to add some nice old-style touches, and antique-looking lamp posts were among them.

I noticed this one on Main Street the other night. I’m not sure if you can read it, but the sign says “Dunedin — Best Walking Town in America.” I wonder if that was an actual award the city received. I’ll try to find out — if I do, I’ll post the answer here. If you already know the answer, post a comment and share it.

Tags: Dunedin, lamp post downtown

Dunedin wall art

Wall art in downtown Dunedin

I’ve always liked wall art — the pictures and paintings and advertisements you see painted on the sides of buildings.  I especially like the real old ones that are sometimes so faded you can barely make them out. Sometimes when you drive through an old town you will see what’s left of an ad for some brand of flour or tobacco, or perhaps some local saddlery that’s long gone.

There are some efforts at more modern wall art, and I like those, too. I’ve been noticing an example down in Dunedin, and I finally remembered to take a picture of it last night.

I’ll be looking for other local examples of wall art to post on the blog. Do you know of any? If so, leave a post and tell me where it is — I’ll go take a picture of it.

Tags: Dunedin

Dunedin hosts annual Highland Games

The city of Dunedin doesn’t just have a Scottish name; it also has a very rich Scottish heritage that local people hold dear.

During the first weekend in April, the city hosts the annual Highland Games and Spring Clan Gathering, a celebration that includes all kinds of Scottish athletic events, sheep herding demonstrations and vendors selling all things Scottish, from scarves to kilts to books.

This year’s celebration was held this weekend at Highlander Park, and we spent most of Saturday afternoon watching the pipers, the dancers and the people dressed in the tartans of their various clans.

Here’s a little of the history; Dunedin was settled in 1899 by two Scots, J.O. Douglas and James Sumerville. They wanted to name the town after their home town in Scotland, Edinburgh. Dunedin was the original name of Edinburgh.

There has been a piper’s band at the local high school since the 1950s, and they have been invited to play all over the world. Dunedin is a sister city to Stirling, Scotland, as well as to Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

The Highland Games have been held in Dunedin for the past 44 years. They were established to support Dunedin’s three Scottish bands, the City of Dunedin Pipe Band, the Dunedin High School Scottish Highlanders Band, and the Dunedin Highland Middle School Band.

Tags: clan, Dunedin, Highland Games, scottish

Federal government offers mortgage help

Okay, so you’ve been living in your home in Pinellas County and faithfully making your mortgage payments, but your home’s value has been steadily slipping and now you owe more than the place is worth. You keep reading about new government programs that are supposed to help, but you need to find out more.

Fear not – there’s a place you can go to find the help you need.

That place is www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov. It’s a website designed to describe the benefits of a federal program called, well, Making Home Affordable. It offers homeowners a number of opportunities to either refinance their mortgages, or modify the mortgages they already have.

The Making Home Affordable program is financed with $75 billion for loan servicers and borrowers. Its designers say that it should be able to offer mortgage help to four million homeowners who need to modify their loans to make them more affordable, or who need to negotiate short sales of their properties with their mortgage providers.

Officials say that the money will allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance up to five million loans they own (or guarantee). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have set up web sites and toll-free hotlines for borrowers who need to determine if their mortgages fall under Fannie or Freddie. Fannie Mae’s is www.fanniemae.com/homeaffordable (phone number (800) 732-6643); Freddie Mac’s is www.freddiemac.com/avoidforeclosure (phone number (800) 373-3343).

Some borrowers might prefer to get information first from their own mortgage servicer. To do that, go to www.HopeNow.com and fill out an application. That web site is operated by an alliance of mortgage servicers and nonprofit counselors. You can talk to them on the phone at (888) 995-4673.

No matter where you live in North Pinellas County – Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater, Safety Harbor, or anywhere else, for that matter – the information offered applies to you.

Tags: Add new tag, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Mortgage, North Pinellas County

Mortgage rates down, but bank profits up

Here’s a fact you may not have realized – interest rates on home mortgages have been coming down, but the profit margins for lenders on those mortgages have been going up.

What that means is that mortgages could come down even further, and lenders could still make a nice profit on them.

In January, the average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages fell below five percent. It was the first time that rates had dipped so low since Freddie Mac started keeping track of rates in 1971, 38 years ago.

In spite of that, bank profits on 30-year fixed mortgages have been going up. The gap between mortgage rates and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields (2.5 percent) hasn’t been so great in the past 27 years.

Enlightened home buyers aren’t very happy about that. Some officials in the federal government aren’t pleased, either. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters serves on the House Banking Committee. She believes lenders should drop their rates to benefit homebuyers.

“If the government is making sure that cost is dropping for the banks, it should be dropping just as much for consumers,” she said. “But they’re not. Banks could make loans at 4.5 percent, or even lower, and it would still be profitable.”

Some experts believe banks are reluctant to drop rates for consumers any further because of the losses they have experienced through foreclosures and a more than sluggish real estate market.

It will be interesting to see what the Obama Administration will do about home lending rates as a condition of the bailout.

Tags: interest rates

The light rail saga continued

Since I got all fired up recently about the new light rail system in Phoenix, and how nice such a system would be in Tampa Bay, I thought I’d share our recent experience with light rail transportation in Baltimore.

Light rail in Baltimore

This past week, we spent a few days with family in Connecticut, and then went on to Baltimore for two more days. If you’ve ever flow into Baltimore, you know that the Baltimore-Washington Airport is not very close to the downtown area – it’s located at a central point between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

When I was making arrangements for the trip, I found a shuttle service that could take us from the airport to downtown Baltimore. I don’t remember the cost exactly, but it was around $15 per person each way, or around $60 for the two of us round-trip.

A little later, we discovered that Baltimore has a light rail system that runs from Hunt Valley, north of the city, then right through downtown Baltimore and then on to Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County. One leg of the rail line down near the Glen Burnie end shoots off and goes directly to the airport.

So that’s what we did.

There was a little bit of a walk through the airport terminal to get to the train boarding area, but once through the terminal doors the train was sitting right there waiting for us. The fare was a measly $1.60 per person (and it could have been just $.55 if I had read down a little further and found the special 55-plus fare). Once on board, the train made about 10 stops before delivering us to the Baltimore Convention Center right downtown.

We had decided to stay in the colorful Fells Point area, and that was still a fair distance away, so we flagged down a cab for the last leg of the trip.

Here are the best parts of the light rail train ride; it was really cheap as well as hugely convenient, and it only took 30 minutes to get from the airport to the heart of downtown Baltimore. It also made us feel like we were doing the right thing, environmentally speaking.

Here was the worst part: On the return trip from downtown to the airport, we just missed the Airport train and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was cold. No, actually, it was worse than just cold. It was REALLY cold, around 24 degrees, and we had to stand outside for a half-hour. For thin-blooded Floridians, it was torture.

Still, we loved it. One of the light rail stops is Camden Yards, and we’re thinking about flying up there next summer for a Tampa Bay Rays – Baltimore Orioles game. I’m still dreaming about a Pinellas County light rail system, something that could serve Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater and other North Pinellas communities as well as St. Petersburg and Tampa.

If you want to learn more about Baltimore’s light rail system, go to www.mtamaryland.com/

Tags: baltimore, light rail, pinellas

Don’t pack your bags just yet

Looking at those shiny new light rail cars in the previous post, you may be thinking that a move to that part of the world wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But before you start packing, consider this little tidbit.
Standard & Poor’s puts out a monthly report on home values through its Case/Shiller Home Price Indices, a fancy term for something that S&P calls “the leading measure of U.S. home prices.” It looks at home values in 20 different markets around the nation.
So guess which market has lost the most value during the past year? That’s right, Phoenix. Home prices in that area have slipped more than 32 per cent, more than anywhere else in the country.
Where is Tampa Bay in all of that? Homes in this area have dropped a little under 20 per cent — a good-sized drop, but well below the crash-and-burn experience in Phoenix. Or, for that matter, in Las Vegas, which was second on the S&P list at 31.7 per cent; or Miami, which lost 29 per cent of its real estate value (and led the Florida lost-value sweepstakes).
There’s more, if you’d like to look it over. Just visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

Tags: home values

One more story from the Palm Harbor arts show…

 John Mascoll is a native of Barbados and a trained engineer, but what he really loves is turning wood. And his wood working is so beautiful that it takes your breath away. It’s so good, in fact, that he won Best in Show at the recent Palm Harbor arts show.

We don’t really know John, but we have a connection to him — my husband Bill works with John’s wife, Jannice, at St. Petersburg College. Bill spotted John as we walked through the arts show last weekend, and he managed to get a couple of pictures, which I’ve posted here.

John, who lives in Safety Harbor, does very precise wood turnings, producing vases and vessels of all kinds as well as smaller works. He likes to use exotic woods that offer gorgeous grains and shades.

Jannice says that John’s father worked in wood back in Barbados. Once he moved to the U.S. and settled in Georgia, he started going to meetings of woodworkers and learned the craft.

John Mascoll exhibits his work at a lot of arts shows around the area. If you see him, stop by for a minute and take a look.

Tags: art show, Palm Harbor