An Inlet Perspective of the Lighthouse

I’ve been looking at and have been drawing and painting them.  But I don’t think that getting up close and looking up does them justice.  So here I have picked a bayou across the Matanzas Bay (part of the Intercostal Waterway)  to get a perspective on the lifesaving quality of the active 1874 Lighthouse and the Maritime Museum which looks out from Anastasia Island to the Atlantic Ocean. During World War II, Coast Guard men and women trained in St. Augustine, and used the lighthouse as a lookout post for enemy ships and submarines which frequented the coastline.  Now the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) is the research arm of the Lighthouse. 

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Columbus's Nina Replica is Moored by the Old Bridge

The Niña is a replica of the ship on which Columbus sailed across the Atlantic on his three voyages of discovery to the new world beginning in 1492.  Columbus sailed the tiny ship over 25,000 miles. That ship was last heard of in 1501, but the new Niña has a different mission. It is a floating museum, and visits ports all over the Western Hemisphere. The miracle of seamanship that got these ships over such distances cannot be underestimated. I served in the Navy and the diesel engines could keep a ship in heavy seas going into the waves so that it didn’t capsize, but in Columbus’ time, without being able to keep all sails up in a storm, it took great seamanship using only the rudder to avoid the same fate.

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Arriving in the Old Town Square

A walk over the bridge revels the town square, the oldest bank and what used to be the Flagler Hotel. Although it is now a private college, Flagler built it as a stop on his railroad for the original tourists. It is an inviting town filled with history going back to 1565.

Sketched and photographed from St. Francis Street