BACK TO THE BEACH: Tourists pack the beach as holiday weekend begins (PHOTOS)

OKALOOSA ISLAND —Sunscreen, a little seaweed, a perfect ocean breeze and very few open parking spaces marked the kickoff to Memorial Day weekend Saturday afternoon.

• View a slideshow from the beach.

“We drove a long way to get here,” said 11-year-old Casey Campbell of Ardmore, Okla., as he struggled to open a large, rainbow-colored umbrella to get some relief from the sun near The Boardwalk on Okaloosa Island.

It was Casey’s first trip to a beach and he wasted no time getting familiar with it. Covered in sand from head to toe, he said he loved being in the water.

“It’s great, besides the seaweed,” he said as he chunked a fistful of the green stuff from the pocket of his swim shorts.

Casey’s mother, Ami, said the family had wanted to return since the first time they came four years ago, but couldn’t afford to make the trip again until this year.

“We love it here,” she said. “It’s just awesome.”

Four-year-old Jacy Franklin wasn’t born the last time her family from Lawrenceburg, Tenn., came to the beach.

“I was in my momma’s belly,” she said.

For her first time, Jacy was decked out for the occasion in a pink sunhat, oversized sunglasses and a black-and-white polka dot bathing suit.

“I like to build sand castles and wear these kind of glasses and this kind of hat and this kind of bathing suit,” she said as she stood behind her mother’s beach chair on the edge of the water at Beasley Park.

Jacy’s brother was sculpting a whale in the sand with some towers on top of it.

“He’s making me a castle,” Jacy said. “A fish castle.”

The family wanted to vacation in Fort Walton Beach last year, but didn’t want to take the risk after the oil spill, Jacy’s mother Cindy Franklin said.

This year they heard from a friend that the beaches were clean and made the drive. Her husband Chad Franklin said he had also seen advertisements on television with oil executives and officials saying the Gulf Coast was better than ever.

Crab Island was packed and the pass was busy with boats heading in and out of Choctawhatchee Bay.

In Destin, cars were parked all along U.S. Highway 98 near the beach on the west side of East Pass.

One young girl, from Little Rock, Ark., had collected hundreds of hermit crabs in a cooler.

“I told her she couldn’t take them all back to Arkasas,” the girl’s mother, Linda, said as she patted another handful of sand on top of her husband, Tony. Only his head was uncovered as the family gathered around to bury him.

Meanwhile, 6-year-old Austin Masters of Fort Walton Beach was buried past his waist in sand at Beasley Park. He and his sister Nikki, 10, were out with their grandfather Saturday.

Austin was ready to get out, but he wouldn’t budge even as his sister, laughing a little, tried to yank him free.

Nikki said she was having a great time.

“I hate the seaweed, but I love burying him — a lot.”