Travel: White sands, tasty crabs

The map said I was in Florida, but the waitress sounded pure Georgia as she put the plate of seafood in front of me. "The way I see it, food ain't food if it ain't fried," she drawled.

I was in Julia Mae's on US 98, south of Tallahassee. Hereabouts is where the Florida Panhandle starts, and I had come in search of the strange natural phenomena known as the barrier islands. Stretched out along the coastline of the Panhandle in the Gulf of Mexico, these are composed entirely of dazzling white sand. They are fairly remote and quite unspoilt. They got their name because they form a natural barrier against the storms that can swing in off the Mexican Gulf with great ferocity.

As I drove along the coast of Apalachicola Bay, with Julia Mae's behind me, I had the choice of three islands. I went for the biggest, St George, because I could drive out to it over a four-mile-long causeway at Eastpoint.

Driving past beaches and dunes as white as salt, I felt I was in a TV commercial - everything was dollied up just a little beyond reality.

I had plenty of time to get over the sensation, though, for St George has 27 miles of unspoilt beaches. After a while I ditched the car and went for a walk along a beach. I might have been Alexander Selkirk, cast ashore by Dampier; there was nothing but white sand, pounding waves, and the tufts of sea oats and scrub grasses.

At the eastern end of the island I came to the St George Island State Park, which has a nature trail and two campsites. Then I drove back to the small community of cafes and bars that, along with the characterful St George Inn, constitute social life on the island.

Here, over a beer, I chatted with a local fisherman who explained that the water between the islands and the mainland (and they are properly called lagoons, not rivers or canals) is teeming with life. Blue crab, five-lined skink and brown pelican can be found here, as well as the oysters. And what oysters. It is given as a fact that nine out of 10 oysters eaten in Florida are harvested right here.

Two smaller islands attend on St George and reaching them is more problematical, in that a boat is required. Dog Island, to the east, boasts the highest dunes in all of Florida, and has a small, permanent population. St Vincent, nine miles offshore, has rare sambar deer (originally from India) and the captive-bred red wolf. Naturalists are drawn to the array of habitats - fresh-water lakes, oak ridges, pine forests and cabbage palm hammocks.

Back on the mainland, I travelled west to what is sometimes called the Redneck Riviera, with its predictable Coney-Island-style attractions. Off Palm Beach, though, lies a unique barrier island. By some quirk of coastal currents and topography, Shell Island sees vast quantities of seashells washed up on its seven miles of beaches. Three-hour collecting trips are a regular feature, operating out of a couple of marinas - Captain Anderson's and Hathaway.

Some of the Panhandle's barrier islands belong to the Gulf Islands National Seashore (in other words, they are a protected natural treasure) and that is where I was headed next. To get there I made for Pensacola, more than 200 miles from Tallahassee and within spitting distance of the Alabama state line. From there I took the three-mile-long bridge to Santa Rosa Island. This was where the captured Apache leader Geronimo was once incarcerated.

At first glance Santa Rosa looked like just another pleasant resort with bars, cafes and boutiques. The stretch you hit first is Pensacola Beach, where I stopped for a beer and genned up on a few facts: Santa Rosa Island is 40 miles long; the sand is 99 per cent pure quartz; there have been more than 290 species of bird spotted here. And Geronimo was brought here in 1886.

Twenty minutes later I was heading west towards Fort Pickens, where he was held. I felt like a lone cowboy riding into a ghost town, as I approached this forbidding-looking place. There was not a soul in sight.

I locked the car and started towards a sign announcing "Visitors' Center". Inside, an elderly lady behind the desk seemed glad to see me. And to talk about Geronimo. Oh, he was a bad Indian, and no mistake; the Apaches were the cruellest. Why, they made the little boys pull the legs off - did she say chickens? "Take the passage opposite till you come to a gate marked number four," she said eventually. "That's where he lived."

Geronimo's quarters consisted of a couple of rooms linked by a dark passageway. I stood in the larger of the two, in the dim light from the low, barred window. Even at midday it was dark enough to give me camera shake. I was glad to get out of the place and breathe again. On an open expanse of ground, beside a battery, a cannon stood as though ready for action. Geronimo had strolled these very grounds, becoming something of a tourist attraction. By all accounts, he was a canny old operator and capitalised financially on his new-found fame.

Geronimo, ospreys, oysters: the Panhandle barrier islands may not be everyone's cup of tea. Don't go there if you want the unrelenting glitz and glamour of the Gold Coast or the ersatz attractions of Disneyworld. But for a sense of adventure, nature in the raw and room to roam without trampling over other holiday-makers, you can't do much better in the US.

Flights to Miami are being sold cheaply during May, with discount agents offering BA non-stops from Gatwick or Heathrow for under pounds 300. Car rental is around pounds 30 per day, fully inclusive.