Lolligag Adventures: Four Days in Carrabelle

The wind and the waves were such that we waited four days in Carrabelle for them to subside enough so that we would be able to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Carrabelle, Florida to Dunedin, Florida. During this time we set out to explore the village of Carrabelle. We found several fun things. First we located the world’s smallest police station.

The story behind this police station is a cute one. In the early 1960’s, Carrabelle’s police phone was located in a call box that was bolted to a building. When the telephone company planned to replace a phone booth in town with a new one, the Carrabelle police decided to put the police phone in the “old” phone booth. However, problems soon arose when people started making unauthorized long distance calls on the police phone. Eventually, the dial was removed from the phone which solved the unauthorized phone usage issue, but by then the notoriety of the phone booth police station was such a big story that people began attempting to steal the entire phone booth itself. One tourist actually asked a townsperson to help him load the phone booth into his truck so that he could take it home to Tennessee. However, the theft was averted and the original phone booth is on display today.

Next we found the most enchanting retro luncheonette and ice cream parlor. We are always in search of ice cream but this little restaurant was just darling. Walking into it felt like we had stepped back to our childhood in the late 50’s and early 60’s as it was furnished and equipped with original and authentic booths, chairs, juke box, malt mixer and all types of soda and beverage signs. If modern equipment is used by the cook and proprietor, we did not see any.

Grouper fishing is a big industry here and we were able to see some the catch each day. We were able to watch as the fishing captains would filet the fish for the clients who caught them. It was really interesting to watch how quickly and efficiently they cut up the fish. Of course, the pelicans and seagulls are right there to catch the fish remains that were tossed back into the water. Now a funny aside to this situation was when Mark was cooking bacon outside the boat on the pier (I don’t want bacon grease all over the inside of the boat so he has to cook it outside) and pelicans flocked to literally hover over and around Mark as he cooked.