Fort Matanzas

Mile~792.4 ~ Fort Matanzas off the Matanzas River south of St. Augustine and just a short walk to the ocean .Another short day – just 2 ½ hours south of St. Augustine. We are anchored in a beautiful spot we visited last year as well. I won’t be taking any nature walks on Rattlesnake Island to our starboard. On the island is the remains of Fort Mantanzas, on a Spanish outpost and now a National monument. If you continue through our anchorage past the fort, to the ocean you can see where an active inlet used to be. The water still goes out to sea, the current is quite strong in the anchorage but a road prevents boats form going in and out.

Across from the Fort on Anastasia Island is a small National park and ferry. We dingy over and take the ferry to the Fort for a tour. The fort was built to protect the back door into St. Augustine. Cannons were fired only twice – with 2 shots fired they defeated a fleet of 6 British ships who were then too nervous to come through the inlet.

We did take a nice walk from the park out their road to the main road and just across it to the ocean beach. We then walked up the beach to the inlet and back to our dingy by the inlet shore as it was low tide. It’s a beautiful spot. We topped off the day by having our friends aboard for dinner.
It’s been fun to have some short days. We still get underway by 7AM to run with high tide but at least we are motoring for 8 or more hours. It’s fun to critique the architecture as we go by so many waterfront homes. Some gorgeous some not so.

It was just 47 when we got up this morning but once the sun is fully up it is warm especially if we are out of the wind. The Floridians are pretty shook up by the cold. How nice that we could be here for their record cold spell. We’ll head to Daytona tomorrow…..ahhh another short day -….
.