Short answer: almost always, yes.
Instead of pretty stock photos or vague local claims, we track the official numbers directly from Florida’s state testing. We update this page weekly with the two metrics that actually affect your beach day: red tide conditions and bacteria levels.
Red tide right now
No red tide on our stretch of 30A.
Florida FWC status report, October 2, 2026. Their wording: “K. brevis was observed at background to very low concentrations in Gulf County.” Walton County is not named in that report, and Gulf County is well east of us.
Beach water quality
| Beach | Sampled | Result | State advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dune Allen Beach | Sep 28 | Good | None |
| Blue Mountain Beach | Sep 28 | Good | None |
| Grayton Beach | Sep 28 | Good | None |
| Holley Street Beach | Sep 28 | Good | None |
| Eastern Lake Dune Walkover | Sep 28 | Good | None |
| Inlet Beach Access | Sep 28 | Good | None |
Florida Department of Health, Healthy Beaches Program, Walton County. All six were sampled in the state’s September 28 run. We check a few times a week.
How to read those numbers
The state tests for enterococci, a gut bacteria. On its own it will not hurt you. It is a stand-in: where it turns up, the things you would actually rather not swallow tend to turn up too.
| Reading | Count | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Good | 0 to 35.4 | Normal. This is what our beaches read almost every time. |
| Moderate | 35.5 to 70.4 | Elevated. Worth knowing, not worth changing plans over. |
| Poor | 70.5 or higher | High enough that the state goes back out and tests again. |
Enterococci bacteria, counted per 100 millilitres of seawater. These are the state’s own thresholds, not ours.
A Poor result is not a warning
This is the one almost everybody gets wrong, so let me be plain about it.
A Poor reading triggers a resample. The state goes back out, usually within a couple of days, and tests the same spot again. It does not close the beach. It is not a health advisory.
Advisories are a separate thing the state issues on its own, and when one exists it shows up in its own column in the table above. If that column says None, then no advisory has been issued, whatever the reading beside it says.
The rain rule
If you would rather have one rule of thumb than a table, here it is.
Give it 24 to 48 hours after a heavy rain before you get in. Rain washes everything off the roads and the dunes and into the Gulf, and the bacteria numbers follow it down.
And stay out of the water where a coastal dune lake has outfalled to the Gulf. Those outfalls are the most reliable place on 30A to find a high reading. They are also exactly where kids want to play, which is the whole problem.
What about the flags?
The flags are not about bacteria. They are about surf.
Green, yellow, red and double red are telling you about waves and current, and they can change inside an hour. A green flag morning can still be a Poor sample morning, and the other way round. The two systems do not talk to each other.
Purple is the only flag about what is in the water, and it means marine pests: jellyfish, man o’ war, sea lice. It is not a red tide flag, and it is not a bacteria flag.
Common questions
Is it safe to swim on 30A?
Nearly all the time. The overwhelming majority of samples from these six beaches come back Good, and in the stretches where they have not, the state has gone back out and the next sample has cleared. Check the table above for the day you are asking about, and read the rain rule if it has poured recently.
How often does the state test?
Weekly in season, on a Monday. But not every beach every week. Walton County rotates through its sampling sites, so a given beach is sampled some weeks and skipped others. That is why the dates in our table are not all the same. It is how the program works, not a hole in the data.
What should I do if a beach shows Poor?
Nothing dramatic. A Poor is one sample, one morning, one spot. Swim at one of the other five that morning if it bothers you, and watch for the resample, which usually lands within a few days. We track those resamples here, because that is the number that actually tells you whether anything was going on.
Does red tide affect all of 30A at once?
No. Red tide moves with wind and current, and it patches. It can be thick at one access and unnoticeable a few miles down the road, and it can turn over in a day. That is why we quote the state’s wording and name the county they named, rather than painting the whole coast one color.
Why not just use one of the other beach water sites?
We tried them. The third-party sites rebuild on their own schedule and lag the state, and at least one of them has shown a beach as Poor for days after the resample had already cleared it. We read floridahealth.gov directly instead, which is slower for us and more accurate for you.
How often do you update this page?
A few times a week. Red tide comes from the FWC status report, which publishes on Fridays. The bacteria numbers come from the state as each sampling run is posted. Every figure on this page carries the date it was taken, so you never have to guess whether you are looking at something stale.
About these numbers
We are not a health agency and this page is not medical or safety advice. Every figure here is read off the Florida Department of Health’s Healthy Beaches program and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s red tide status report, and we link to both so you can check our work.
Water conditions change between samples. A reading taken on a Monday morning does not tell you what the water is doing on Thursday afternoon, and no beach sample anywhere can promise you a safe swim. Use your own judgment, watch the flags for surf, and if you have a health concern that makes this decision matter more for you than for most people, talk to someone qualified rather than to a website.
