Jetty Park, Cape Canaveral

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Today is going to a hot one in northern Florida.  So, we got an early start packing up the camper and pulling out of Little Talbot State Park and headed south for Cape Canaveral, Florida.  We have reservation for only two night at Jetty Park, then we head for home and avoid the Memorial Day traffic.  The campground was really filling up for the holiday rush.

Jetty Park is a county owned park located on the cape adjacent to Port Canaveral.  The park also has a nice beach and a large fishing pier.  From the beach, you can watch the ships go in and out of the Port.  There is always a variety of things to see from this beach, but there are very few shells here.  So, we spent most of our beach time watching the waves, the swimmers, the folks fishing from shore, the birds, and the ships. Not a bad way to spend the day!

This is the beach looking south towards Cocoa Beach and it's low tide time.

This is the fishing pier at Jetty Park 

This is another shot of the fishing pier at Jetty Park.  This shot looks very much like the fishing pier at Fort Clinch State Park.  See my blog dated May 21, 2014.

This is the gambling ship making its second run for today.

After spending most of Friday on the beach, we decided to look for a nice restaurant for supper. We chose Fishlips because we liked the name, it was close by, and it has a second story balcony that has this view of Port Canaveral.  This view is looking east towards the ocean.

This view is looking west where you can make out a docked cruise ship. 

As we were eating. the captain of the cruse ship blew his horn and departed.

"Enchantment of the Sea" is heading out to sea with eager passengers ready to party hardy! 

We had a very nice meal at Fishlips, then decided to sight see and drove south on A1A into Cocoa Beach.  Kitty and I stayed here many moons ago in a Holiday Inn right on the Ocean.  Little did we know then, it would be more than thirty years before we'd return!

We could not believe how much Cocoa Beach has changed in thirty years.  When we were here before it was a nice quaint small quiet town with only a few hotels and A1A was just a two lane road through town.  Now the town extends for miles, A1A is a divided highway, and the old Holiday Inn has moved to a different location. I guess we call that progress?  We still like Cocoa Beach, but we like the old version better!

We, it's time to get ready to depart in the morning and head back to Okeechobee.

Amelia Island and a National Treasure

Wednesday, May 21, 2014


We had several things on our agenda to see today, so we tried to get started a little earlier than normal.  Leaving our camper at Little Talbot Island State Park, we headed north on A1A to Amelia Island.  There's plenty of things to see and do on Amelia Island besides the beaches at Fernandina Beach.

Kitty took this picture out of the window as we crossed over a bridge at the southern tip of Amelia Island.

Our first stop is at a National Treasure, Fort Clinch located in Fernandina Beach.  Here's a few brief snippets of information about this fort I think you'll find very interesting.

Construction on this fort began in 1847 and by 1860, only two bastions and one-third of the brick wall was completed.  The work could only be done in the winter months because of the heat and mosquitos in the summer and the dreaded spread of fever by mosquitos.  The fort was used during the civil war.  It was used again in 1898 in the Spanish American War, and also in WWII.  However, the fort was never fully completed!  Despite being occupied by both Confederate troops and Union troops during the Civil War, no battles ever took place at this fort.  Each side left the fort before it could be captured.  Fort Clinch was sold to private interests in 1926, and then purchased by the State of Florida in 1935.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began restoring the fort in 1936, and helped make the property into one of Florida's first state parks.  It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been restored to the way it looked in 1864.

This is the tree canopied road leading to Fort Clinch

After leaving the visitors center, we followed the path leading to this entrance to Fort Clinch.

This is a shot of the fort looking towards the Atlantic Ocean.

As we entered the fort, we were greeted by the American flag.

One of the first few buildings to be complete was the fort jail.  They were serious about their jails back then!  Kitty is trying to peek into the solitary confinement cell, and...

she saw these ball and chains and various types of shackles!

Kitty and I are standing in front of some of the artillery aimed towards the Ocean.

This is the fort laundry area.

Every fort must have one of these!

This is a view from Fort Clinch looking at the mouth of the St. Mary's River as it protected the natural deep water port of Fernandina. 

Our next stop is just a short hop from Fort Clinch.  We love light houses, and the Amelia Island light house is still in operation.  Thus, tours are only available by reservation.  So, we did not tour the light house, but we did get some pictures of it through the trees.

This light house was originally built in 1820 on Georgia's Cumberland Island to mark the mouth of the St. Mary's River which forms the natural border between Florida and Georgia.  In 1839 the 50 foot tower was dismantled and moved to the south bank of the river and an additional 14 feet in height was added.  It's light can be seen for 23 miles off shore.

We drove into town and found a nice restaurant right on the ocean.  We had a very nice lunch and a wonderful view from the second story balcony of Sliders Restaurant.

Ok!   Enough of all this stuff, it's time to hit the beach!!  We drove back into fort Clinch State Park and spent the rest of the day enjoying this beautiful beach.  Here's a taste of what we saw.

Looking South along the shore line.

The fishing pier at fort Clinch State Park.

A flock of gulls with the fishing pier in the background.

This is a herring Gull.

These are Royal Terns.

This laughing gull is resting on one leg and keeping an eye on those waves.

We walked over a mile up the beach to get a shot of Fort Clinch as it sits on the mouth of the St. Mary's River.

This shot taken from the base of the fishing pier of a ship leaving Port Fernandina.

Whew!  All that beach walking and shell collecting wore us out.  So, we headed back to Little Talbot Island and got ready to eat at the Sand Dollar restaurant in Jacksonville.  We topped off this wonderful day with a nice meal and then got ready to depart for Cape Canaveral in the morning.  Stay tuned!

Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida

Tuesday, May 20, 2014


When we lived in Jacksonville, about 24 years ago, we would leave our office after working all day, pick Kobie up at Kindercare and head to the beach to unwind.  Often, we ended up at one of our favorite beaches in Hanna Park.  Hanna Park has 1.5 miles of sandy beaches and a fresh water lake for kayaking, and fishing.  It also offers more than 20 miles of scenic trails and campsites with electricity and water hook ups.  Unfortunately, the campground was booked up during our visit so we remained camping at Little Talbot Island and just went to Hanna Park for the day.

To get to Hanna Park from Little Talbot Island required a short ferry ride across the St. Johns River.

As you can see in this photo, the ferry wasn't crowded today.

This ship is coming into the Jacksonville port, and our ferry waited at the dock for this ship to cross in front of us.  Thankfully, our ferry captain let him pass and avoided a collision.

Here's the Hanna Park Beach loaded with shells and...

 a few sun bathers braving that cool wind from the ocean!

This ship is leaving Port Jacksonville on this bright, sunny, but cool windy day.

We spent most of the day walking the beach or sitting under the shade of our beach umbrella watching the waves roll into shore.  We regretted having to leave this little spot of paradise, but it was time to catch the ferry back to Little Talbot Island.  Tomorrow, we will drive a few miles north to Amelia Island for a little history and a lot more beach fun.

Little Talbot Island, Jacksonville, Florida

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Leaving our friends in The Villages, we headed North East towards Jacksonville, Florida.  We will be staying at Little Talbot Island State Park near Jacksonville.  This will be our base location where we will venture out each day in a different directions.

This is our campsite for the next four days.  All of the trees and vegetation provides a high degree of privacy, but this campground is a little too woolly for our liking and the mosquitoes prevented us from sitting around the campsite without some repellent.

After getting set up, Kitty, Kallie (our dog) and I drove around the park.  We stopped at the south end of the beach.  Since dogs are not allowed on this beach, Kitty waited in the truck with Kallie while I took this boardwalk to the beach to check it out.

At the end of the boardwalk, I followed this path to the beach.

I arrived at the beach at low tide.  When the tide is out like this, it creates these tide pools like the one this couple is wading through.  You can find some interesting creatures in these tide pools.  But, it was getting late and Kitty and Kallie were waiting back in the parking lot, so I headed back excited that we had such a beautiful beach to enjoy.

Monday, May 19, 2014

We were really anxious to hit the beach today.  So, we decided to spend the day on the north end of Little Talbot Island beach.  We grabbed the beach chairs, umbrella, water bottles, beach towels, plenty of sun screen, and headed out thrilled to finally be at a beach again.  These beaches are some of Florida's best all natural and undisturbed beaches.

We like to walk the beaches because you never know what you'll find.  This beach had an abundance of shells which kept Kitty busy for quite some time while I walked up the beach amazed at the plethora of drift wood.  All types and sizes of drift wood can be found here, but it is protected and can not be removed.  Here is a small sample of what I saw.

Of course, there's always gulls along the beach.  These laughing gulls provided some entertainment and kept asking for handouts!

The wind created some interesting carvings in the sand.  In this picture, it made vertical waves in this sand dune.

Here it made horizontal waves in this sand dune.

Here's some of the treasures Kitty collected.  No doubt, these will be heading home with us!

This is a great beach to explore and we had a relaxing and fun filled adventure here today.  Tomorrow, we will visit one of our favorite beaches.  If you love beaches like we do, you'll love the next couple of blogs.