Two Lighthouses and Other Things to Do on the Forgotten Coast [March 18-21, 2022]

 

Cape St George Lighthouse and Keepers House

Cape St. George Lighthouse

The stories of Florida lighthouses often include tales about when they were rebuilt after being knocked down in a hurricane, and this one located on St. George Island is no exception. Originally built in 1833, this lighthouse collapsed and was moved inland and rebuilt 3 times before beach erosion caused the last one to fall down in October 2005.  Volunteers chipped mortar off of 22,000 original 19^th century bricks which were used to rebuild the current lighthouse using the original plans.  This lighthouse opened to the public in 2008.

St, George Island is one of the 3 barrier islands that are part of the Forgotten Coast.  The rebuilt lighthouse now stands with a replica Lighthouse Keeper House at the center of the island at the end of the bridge used to access the island.  The house can be visited for free, and you can climb the lighthouse for $5.

At the base the walls are 4 feet thick

Somewhere along the line, the cast-iron stairs that wound their way up through the center of the lighthouse got destroyed.  Now, lovely wooden stairs wind their way along a central wooden post up the lighthouse.  This is a unique experience for veteran lighthouse climbers.  With open cast-iron stairs you can look up at where you are going and also look down at the floor of the lighthouse.  On the wooden stairs, we did not experience any of the feeling you can get of floating in space with the open cast-iron stairs. 

The bridge to the mainland as seen from the lighthouse.

Looking down St. George Island

The last part of the climb is a 9 rung ladder and a narrow opening that you squeeze your way through to get to the top.  The view is magnificent, and well worth the climb.

 

From the historical display.  This tilt was "fixed" but eventually the beach eroded and the lighthouse collapsed.

Crooked River Lighthouse

The Crooked River Lighthouse

On the mainland, the Crooked River Lighthouse and replica Lighthouse Keepers House are located in Carrabelle Beach, just a short bike ride from our campground.  This lighthouse was originally built on another barrier island, Dog Island, which can only be reached by boat.

Keepers House

In the 1800s, Apalachicola had prosperous shipping industries in cotton and oysters, which necessitated the need for navigational aids through the barrier islands and construction of lighthouses on St. George and Dog Islands.  The lighthouse on Dog Island was destroyed three times by storms before the decision was made in 1895 to move it to the mainland and to build it from steel instead of brick.

Looking up

The climb

The 103-foot iron and steel structure is open to the public and you can climb it for $5.  We did not climb the lighthouse, but did peer in to look up inside it. 

2-sided Fresnel Lens from the front

And from the back

The lighthouse had an interesting 2-sided Fresnel lens displayed in the lighthouse keepers house, that was repatriated in 2021 from where it had been displayed in a Coast Guard museum elsewhere.  Most lighthouse lenses are round, because they display signals in a circle.  This one, just signaled from the mainland out to sea, so only required 1/2 of the lens.  Very ingenious.

 

Camp Gordon Johnston WWII Museum

The Forgotten Coast was home to the WWII Camp Gordon Johnston US Army 4^th Infantry Amphibious Training Center.  Amphibious troops trained for D-Day and for landings on Pacific islands here.  The beaches along the coastline and St George and Dog Islands were used for the training exercises.  Life in the base was hot, buggy and generally unpleasant. 

This local history museum lovingly collects and displays memorabilia from Camp Gordon Johnston, WWII in general, and other conflicts.  Many people who served at the camp have donated uniforms, canteens, medical materials, and other artifacts to the museum.  There are some very interesting information panels explaining the history of the camp, and a few videos.  One is a fascinating newsreel from the 1940s about the camp showing the training exercises.

 

Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (ANERR) 

Nature Center and Hikes

The Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve studies and preserves the Apalachicola estuary system.  It has a lovely Nature Center and informational hikes. 

The National Estuarine Research Reserve System is a network of 30 coastal sites in the US managed in partnership between NOAA and the coastal states.  They study the unique plant and animal communities that live in the bodies of water where the rivers meet the sea. 

The Apalachicola River is a watershed of 19,600 square miles including the Apalachicola River in Florida, and the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers that flow into it from Georgia and Alabama.

The Nature Center focuses on teaching visitors about estuaries with bright, attractive displays and large aquarium tanks with fish and other creatures.  There is a child focused hands-on specimen study area.  We found the displays about the history of the area and a small display about the turpentine industry that harvested sap from local pine trees very interesting.

The boardwalk tour that we took described the dams, power plants and other man made obstructions that drops of water would encounter as they traveled along the rivers within the estuary system.  The walk ends, of course, as you come through a forested area to a beach overlooking the Apalachicola Bay.  Very effective and informational.

Sadly, we were so engrossed in what we were learning, we didn’t take any photos.  Sorry folks!

 

St Joe After the Hurricane - St. Joseph Peninsula State Park [March 16, 2022]

 

In October 2018, the eye of Hurricane Michael roared ashore just a few miles from St. Joseph Peninsula State Park in Florida.  The Category 5 storm had 160 mph sustained winds and was the most powerful storm to hit the Florida panhandle, ever.  It was the fourth strongest hurricane to impact the US mainland.  It literally blew parts of this wonderful state park away.  Campgrounds, hiking trails, roads, park buildings - all gone.  The storm dug out a canal across the peninsula, turning the northern part of the park into an island. Over the years, the watery breach has filled in with sand, and just last week (3 ½ years later) they started rebuilding the damaged areas.

 

We have visited St Joe State Park several times.  The campground of this immensely popular park was always fully booked, so it was a treat to be able to stay for 2 or 3 nights.  We loved the long white beaches, gorgeous rugged sand dunes and campsites nestled in pine and palmetto forest.  We had heard about the Forgotten Coast for the first time while staying at St. Joe.  It is a little more than a one hour drive away from where we are staying in Carrabelle, so we decided to see what is left of the park.

 

To get to the park, you drive through an area known as Cape San Blas.  Most of the houses along the road and beach looked new.  It looked like they had either been rebuilt or at least had new siding put on them. There were a bunch of structures still under construction.  At the park entrance, you see huge stands of dead pine trees, all broken off at the same height.  We saw similar tree damage on the Mississippi coast after Hurricane Katrina.

 

The first mile of the park is open up to the boat dock and store, with two beach access points and a bath house.  After that, there is a barrier across the road.  The beach is still gorgeous, white, and wide.  They have worked to reconstruct the dunes to protect the interior of the peninsula.  With the breach filled in, you again have 9 miles of continuous beach to enjoy, with discrete signs telling you to keep off the dunes.

 

We took a long walk up the beach, trying to peer over the dunes and figure out where the campgrounds might have been.  We stopped and enjoyed the gorgeous water and sand, sitting away from the beach access points and the people congregated there.  After a while we were joined by a cormorant drying its wings in the breeze.  We’d never seen a cormorant doing this task on the beach, we have always seen them perched on a piling or branch.

 

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park is still one of the most beautiful state parks we’ve visited.  We can’t wait to return to the newly built sections of the park.

If you'd like to see St Joe as it once was, here are links to our blog posts from our previous visits.

2014

http://shorexplorers.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-perfect-beach-day-on-perfect-beach-st.html

http://shorexplorers.blogspot.com/2014/04/sunset-st-joseph-peninsula-state-park.html

2017

http://shorexplorers.blogspot.com/2017/10/return-to-st-joe-florida-october-1-6.html

Discovering Florida’s Forgotten Coast – Carrabelle Beach, Florida [March 9-29, 2022]

Carrabelle Beach, Florida

Between the towns of Apalachicola and Alligator Point, Florida is the relatively undeveloped section of the Panhandle self-named the Forgotten Coast.  You won’t find high rise hotels, chain restaurants, tourist attractions or traffic here.  You will find gorgeous white sand beaches, 3 barrier islands, stretches of undeveloped National and State Forests, 2 lighthouses, local businesses, and kind, warm-hearted people.  They say that the Forgotten Coast encompasses 250 miles of beaches.  

 

We are camping in Carrabelle Beach, centrally located along the Forgotten Coast.  There is a gorgeous beach along Apalachicola Bay across Highway 98 from our campground.  Next to the beach is a public beach access area with concrete shelters and picnic tables painted faded turquoise and pink.  On the sunny weekend days, the shelters were busy but there was still plenty of room on the beach.

 

One day, high winds blew the water away from the shore, exposing the sea floor and many, many stranded starfish.  In one puddle that was left behind, we found tiny, live coquinas.  Coquina shells are ubiquitous on the Gulf Coast beaches, but we had never seen the creatures that inhabit the shells, themselves. 

 

Russ' lunch at the Up the Creek restaurant in Apalachicola

Oysters are big business here. Can you see the birds scavenging the meat left on the shells>

Some of Apalachicola's Shrimp Fleet

Apalachicola is an historic town with prosperous fisheries industries.  It has wide, tree-lined streets and huge historic homes with deep, shadowed verandahs.  Some of the homes are now open as museums, and some of them have been converted to inns.  The downtown area has cute shops and seafood restaurants.  We went to Apalachicola for the Saturday Farmers Market.  It was canceled because torrential rains on Friday had flooded the market area.  So, instead we strolled along the working wharf and admired the shrimping fleet.  Later we had lunch at Up the Creek overlooking the Apalachicola River.  Grilled Oysters and Steamed Shrimp for Russ, Grilled Shrimp Po Boy for Dana.

 

Bald Point State Park has a steep beach!

Do you think this might be why they call it Bald Point?

There are 5 State Parks about one hours drive from Carrabelle.  The point of land at the intersection of Ochlockonee Bay and Apalachee Bay near Alligator Point has been preserved as Bald Point State Park.  The interior of the park is wetland with low-growing vegetation, which may be why the point looks “bald”.  Unlike most of this area, the beaches here are very steep.  We shared our beach walk with a swallow and 2 other people.  Horseshoe crabs breed in this area, and they have a program identifying some of them by number, tracking their migration patterns.

 

A benefit of Daylight Saving Time is that it is easier to see the sunrise.

This is a different way to travel for us.  We will stay in Carrabelle for a total of 3 weeks.  Instead of pulling up stakes and traveling to a new location every few days, we are settled in and taking the time to get to know the area well. 

 

Tiki as we like to remember her - wet, happy, and with a ball in her mouth.

Another difference from other trips is that there are just two of us traveling on this jaunt.  We said good-bye to our beloved companion and fellow-explorer Tiki just days before our departure.  She was 14 ½ and very ill.  It feels a bit lonely not to have her running along the beach with us, barking at us to throw something in the water for her to retrieve.

Early morning on the beach.