Florida’s beaches will soon available for the entire world to see via Google Earth. The state’s tourism marketing arm, Visit Florida, has teamed with the internet giant using its trekking technology to upload continuous images of what it calls “the most beautiful beaches in the world”.
A two-man trekker team has been at work capturing images of Southwest Florida’s beaches in recent days.
The team consists of Sean McGeever and David DeLong. They live in Tampa and started their West Coast trek in Cedar Key, walking south.
They cover about ten miles a day, trekking about four miles, or until the beach next access, then hand off the equipment to their partner.
DeLong said they begin their day going through a check-list.
“We make sure the lenses are clean, there’s15 lenses,” Delong said. “We make sure we have new batteries in it, we make sure we have a new SSD card if it needs it, we make sure we have plenty water and sunscreen and we mark where we started, the GPS coordinates.”
They’ve learned the hard way – once they ran out of battery power on a barrier island accessible only by boat.
The equipment weighs about 45 pounds and fits into a back-pack.
Extending from the backpack is a pole with a green globe on top – about the size of a soccer ball. That’s where the fifteen lenses are housed. In case of a sudden downpour, the pair also carries garbage bags.
Together DeLong and McGeever have photographed about 500 miles of Florida beaches – step-by-step. McGeever said, so far, his favorite beach was on Florida’s Space Coast.
“Definitely Canaveral,” he said. “Canaveral was hard to walk but it was state park and beautiful water and beautiful sand. It was just great.”
And the worst?
“Also Canaveral because had nudists at the end of their beach there and I’d never been exposed to nudists before,” McGeever said.
Extremities, McGeever explains, are blurred out.
The camera’s record a new image every two and half seconds. They’re downloaded in California where Google technicians align the imagery and stitch the images together creating a 360 degree panorama.
Much of the project’s cost is funded by a grant Visit Florida received from BP. Visit Florida’s President and CEO, Will Seccombe, said once it’s complete it will be a powerful global marketing tool.
“Travelers are going to be able to virtually experience Florida’s beaches,” he said. “It’s going to be a huge opportunity for beachfront hotels and resorts and restaurants to pre-promote as part of their sales to let people see what a beautiful experience they have just outside their back door.”
The trekkers begin their walk when the sun is “two hands over the horizon”. That’s pretty early in the morning. When they began their trek at Clam Pass Beach in Naples the only witnesses were a couple of surfcasters – and visitor Janet Vasquez. She was strolling north and had just crossed paths with trekker Sean McGeever. She said she thinks having a map available of beaches is great for someone planning a vacation.
“My first to go is Google maps so if it’s a map of Florida’s beaches it could be more helpful,” she said.
When they’re finished two teams of trekkers will have mapped 850 miles of Florida’s shoreline. The other team did the Panhandle beaches. After McGeever and DeLong finish the West Coast, they’re off to Key West where they’ll island hop north and finish the project with a party in Miami’s South Beach.
