Florida: Check out photos of the coast in the Great Beach Walk

Florida’s beaches suffered this summer -- not so much from tarballs from the Deepwater Horizon oil leak that ravaged the Gulf of Mexico last spring as from tourists who stayed away even from beaches unaffected by the spill.

On Saturday, the “Great Beach Walk and Photo Fest” will offer a close-up look at the state’s beaches, mile by mile, in an attempt to show to show that the coast is clear. More than 2,600 volunteers registered to walk the sands between sunrise and 11 a.m. EDT and upload photos of their jaunt.

“We’re trying to point out to the world that Florida has 825 miles of beaches, and that they’re all in great shape,” said Kathy Torian of VisitFlorida, the state’s tourism office.

Online users who go to www.visitflorida.com/beachwalk will see a map (it won’t go live until Saturday) with 825 pink icons representing each beach mile. Click on any one to see a photo gallery of that segment of the beach. (Here are the Twitter feed and Facebook sites for those who want to follow the action in real time.)

The event was born, Torian said, two months ago as a grass-roots, social-media effort after surveys conducted by the tourism office as late as August showed half of travelers still thought there was oil on northwest Florida beaches (there isn’t) and 12% thought there was oil in the Florida Keys (oil from the Gulf never came close to the Keys, officials say). With virtually no budget for an ad campaign, the tourism office turned to volunteers to carry the message.

“We knew we needed to do it as quickly as we could because the winter months, January and February, are big months for the entire state of Florida,” she said.

So what will folks see in the beach photos? Skies are forecast to be sunny, but a cold snap has put temperatures in the low 60s, Torian said, noting you’ll probably see beachgoers bundled up.