The shelling is good - not quite as good as on Sanibel Island in Fort Myers, but decent. The water is aqua or turquoise or green, depending on how bright the sun is, with smallish waves and a gradual incline on the sandy bottom. At the north end is a huge half-moon of sand, a generous fluffy-sand spot to park a beach chair and doze next to the gentle gulf.
There's also something enticing about a beach that lets you stay only four hours. That's a rule on Caladesi, because officials can't have everyone waiting until the last 60-person ferry of the day.
So you come, you stay four hours, you go home.
Caladesi was connected to Honeymoon Island north of it until 1921, when a hurricane separated the two parts. In 1985, another storm filled in the area that separated Caladesi from Clearwater Beach to the south. Theoretically, you can walk onto Caladesi if you are willing to trek 3 miles from the nearest Clearwater road. Few do.
"Cala" in Spanish means cove, and the island's name, Caladesi - which park officials translate as "beautiful bayou" (although no Spanish dictionary would agree) - came from a Spanish ship's captain in 1628. Caladesi became a state park in 1967.
The island has hiking trails, but no cars, roads, houses or hotels. It also has rattlesnakes, rats, bees, poison ivy, cacti, armadillos, raccoons, turtles, tortoises, stingrays, mosquitoes and sand fleas.
The ranger station displays the skin of a giant rattler about 5 feet long and 4 inches wide.
Although remote, Caladesi does have a 110-boat marina. Visitors can rent kayaks to use on the island's interior mangrove waterways and rent beach chairs and umbrellas. Unlike Clearwater Beach eight miles south, there are no volleyball nets, trampolines, bands or doughnuts.
"Most of our visitors go straight out the boardwalk to the beach right out front," Calhoun says. So if you walk a mile, you really can see the empty beach you came to see - and have better shelling, too.
Since Caladesi got popular, changes have been occurring.
The only ferry service to the island always has been from Honeymoon Island. About 400-500 people a day go over on the ferries that run every 30 minutes. This spring, an extra boat will reduce waiting time to 20 minutes, says Phil Henderson, the owner of the Caladesi Island Connection ferry service for 22 years.
For $50 round trip, the new ferry service from the busy Clearwater Beach marina to Caladesi Island will include a dolphin encounter and a stop at the island.
"The hotels have been clamoring for this," Henderson says.
Can Caladesi handle it? Yes, say Calhoun and Henderson. The beach, remember, is 3 miles long. A lot of people can fit onto it.
Plus, the uniqueness of Caladesi requires visitors to do some planning .
"People call and say, 'Where can I put my RV, my 50-footer?' and I say, 'Well, we're an island,' " Calhoun says. "There is no overnight camping. No tent camping. No RV camping. No overnighting, except if you are on a boat, and you have to stay on the boat."
The power of the No. 1 ranking has impressed not just tourists to Florida, but locals too, Henderson says.
"This past year, quite a few came to take the ferry over, walk to the beach, take a picture and then turn around and go back.
"They didn't want to stay. They just wanted to see the No. 1 beach," Henderson says.
