Amelia Island

I did a hike outside the park one morning to see a bit more of the north end of Amelia Island. The morning mist and sunrise was gorgeous over the wetlands.

Everyone seemed to have a boat so the marina was full. There was even a house shaped like a boat.

Plaza San Carlos (now Fernanadina Plaza Historic State Park) is a site with not much to see but lots of history. It was a campsite for Native Americans as early as 1000 BCE, a Spanish mission 1602, watch house in 1696, Fort San Carlos in 1816, overtaken by Scottish and French pirates, occupied by Conferate troops in 1861, and a state park in 1949.

The goal of my hike was to see Bosque Bello (Beautiful Woods). It is believed to have started in 1785 and still in use today. The new section has plots for families that are similar to the old section.

I liked the plots in the old section with different varieties of cast iron fencing.

A section with soldiers of the Spanish-American War (1898).

And sunrise.

Fort Clinch State Park

This is our ‘home’ park since it is less than an hour away. It is quite popular with the snowbirds so we had to make reservations 11 months in advance to get 4 days at the same campsite. There is no way to know what the weather will be that far in advance but we were pretty lucky. The days were warm (70s) and the nights cool (50s). We did have some fog which was creepy during the day if you’ve seen The Mist.

One storm come through with about an inch of rain. That was exciting and required some cleanup as the campsite flooded leaving leaves and sand on our rugs.

The sunsets are pretty spectacular here. Come evening, the beach near the campground fills with people coming to enjoy and photograph the sunset. Pretty nice tradition.

Sometimes I pretend I’m not competitive or jealous of others good fortune. I found this wasn’t true while walking the beaches at the park. The area is known for finding fossilized sharks teeth. You have to have an eye and experience to find them since they are similar in color and size to many of the broken black shells you see. I don’t have that eye and I am jealous of those that do. One morning I walked for over an hour on the beach looking for teeth or the bone fossils you can also find. I was quite happy that I finally found a shark’s tooth now in my 3^rd day of searching. I also had some interesting fossils I discovered. Then I met a man who said he’s been searching for just a little while. He pulled out a bag of maybe 20 sharks teeth then showed me the large megalodon tooth he just found which he said were all over the beaches!

The next lady I met again said she had just started and had “only” 5 teeth. However, at least she said she’s been looking for a megalodon tooth for years and never found one. I was depressed about the lack of “success” of my morning walk until I heard snorting. I turned to see a dolphin playing in the water just off the beach. That seemed very successful! I didn’t get a picture of the dolphin but here’s a picture of pelicans.

This osprey was enjoying a fish for lunch.

An this picture of the fort was just cool.