There may be more waterspouts than supercellular tornadoes over the plains. They are very common actually. The trick is getting a decent view of them from the land. Spotting a distant funnel isn't too hard, but getting "Campo spout" to land at the beach at your feet is like winning the lottery.
I spot spouts on Lake Michigan, which is not the Florida coast, but the physics are the same for how and why the spouts form. You're basically looking for a large difference in temperature between water surface and the lower levels of the atmosphere. Having a lot of low level instability (3km CAPE plots are great) and a vorticity enhancing land breeze helps a lot too.
You don't really chase waterspouts, you spot them. The logistics of spout spotting dictate that you find a few good beaches, and just move between them depending on which have views of updraft bases. It's not really feasible to try and keep up with the tiny storms or towering cumulus in your car, and you won't be able to maintain a view while doing so. So find a beach where there are cells within view, and watch them from that location until you can't see their bases anymore. Then move to another beach. You pretty much have to find a beach of marina. There are just too many obstructions trying to drive up and down the coast and spot at any given location like you would when supercell chasing the plains. So in that sense, it's the exact opposite of plains supercell chasing. You don't stay out in the country, while constantly moving. You often head to the center of town where the beach/marina is and then park it and wait.
Spout spotting is not difficult when you have the right conditions. It's far more relaxed than supercell chasing and much safer. Spout spotting is a relaxing trip to the beach, with pretty skies, and the weather is rarely hazardous. On a good day, you can see several from one location. Just show up at a beach with a telephoto lens and start spotting spouts (try doing that with supercellular tornadoes). While spouts can be very beautiful with Campo-esque condensation funnels, your views will also be quite different than supercell chasing. You won't have any of the parent storm structure, massive precipitation or hail cores, wall clouds, and the spouts will generally be much smaller than supercellular tornadoes. Like chasing, however, busts are often likely, and you may spend several days at the beach and see nothing but pretty clouds.
I enjoy spout spotting a lot. It's a lot more relaxed than chasing, and a fun outing with a few friends. It's completely different than chasing though. Here's the chase log from my first spout chase, and I think it describes a typical spout chase fairly well:
http://skip.cc/chase/110924/
Would be interesting to hear if anyone has done something like that.
