Sailing between Destin FL and Panama City

All

I love sailing my getaway in the Gulf of Mexico… usually I go into not so known/populated/visited places in Florida in order to be able to leave the getway on the beach… the rest of my family wants to go to the nicest /closest to us beach in Florida which is between Destin FL and Panama City… in that stretch on beach is there anywhere I can leave my getaway on the beach at night?

I bet if you contacted someone that participates in those long distance races that take place along the Gulf Coast, they'd be able to provide some incite into the matter. For instance, a buddy of mine has been participating in one and they(about a dozen) beached overnight at North Beach Social Club and he said they were extremely hospitable. That's dead center between your two points, but it's on the bay side of Santa Rosa Island.

Those races I was referring to were the Panhandle 180 and the Florida 120.

I meant on the gulf side… anyone?

My buddy Eric and I sailed from St. Andrew State Park which is east of Panama City Beach, all the way to Destin and back.....really with no planning at all.....we men often called this "drink and think"..... I remembered an old hotel that I stayed at back in the '80's on the bay side next to the Fort Walton's Elk Lodge , which we targeted as an overnight place to spend the night but found it bulldozed. So we crashed in out wetsuits right on his Hobie 21SC on that abandoned property for a fews hours and left way before daylight then motored/sailed in the darkness, east all the way across Choctawhatchee Bay and into that channel that leads to West Bay. We hoped to find fuel as we ran out acrossing the bay.....but we found no place to purchase fuel.....and continued anyways under sail into the unknown.....lucky for us we found a construction crew on a barge that gave us enough fuel to motor power to West Bay where we finished our loop "around the island" as Eric called it.......his GPS logged 197 miles in 23 hours for this trip.....We should have sailed back on the Gulf and avoided that windless channel but that won't have let us do this 'round the island trip that was on Eric's bucket list.....We like long distance trips....regardless of a real plan.