RV travels with Rich and Judy: Our Florida Tour Part 8: Fort Clinch State Park, Fernandina Beach, FL; Wednesday, Dec. 5 to Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012

Our first day at the park, we got up early and drove to St. Simons to breakfast at Palmer’s Village Café – our favorite breakfast destination ever – then wandered over to the King and Prince to say hello to some of the folks who helped make my last several years of Sanibel meetings so much easier, and walked along the beach. Then we made our way over to Sal’s Neighborhood Pizzeria where we had a wonderful pizza for lunch topped off with salted caramel gelato for dessert – yum! Sal Cenicola, who had boxed in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and other locations in the late 70’s and 80’s, was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in November and has his first fight in 25 years scheduled in February. We wish him well in his fight.

By the time we returned to the park, the temperature was 65 degrees and windy. We walked along the river’s edge and watched the birds and clouds speeding along. The temperature was still dropping so we headed back to the RV to change into warmer clothes.

This 1,427 acre park is named for the partially completed fort begun in 1847. It was built at the mouth of the St. Mary’s River to protect the natural, deep-water port of Fernandina – the eastern link of Florida’s only cross-state railroad. In spite of having never been fully completed, the fort served as a military post during the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War II.

St. Mary's River at the campground

Fort Clinch became one of the state’s first parks in 1935 and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began restoring the buildings at the fort in 1936. Today visitors can tour the fort and see how it may have looked in 1864 as it was being built by Army Engineers. The first weekend of every month, soldiers perform reenactments depicting relevant historic era’s everyday activities.

Fort Clinch from the beach

The park is located on the northern tip of Amelia Island and surrounded on three sides by water, with the fort on the northern-most point of the island. The town of Fernandina Beach is built right up to the park entrance. The park is long and narrow and the entrance drive is about two miles long before branching off to the fishing pier, then the beach sites. Another mile or so along the drive is the river campground and fort.

There are bicycle paths and hiking trails as well as birding trails. Willow Pond Trail winds around several freshwater ponds which offer prime habitat to alligators and turtles. Egan’s Creek Marsh provides a saltwater estuary for an abundance of marine life and the salt marsh is home to many species of wading birds while the beaches abound with shorebirds and sea turtles. The beach also offers excellent shark tooth hunting and shelling. The park is home to gopher tortoises, deer, raccoons, bobcats as well as numerous species of birds and reptiles.

Black Skimmers and a couple of gulls

An old lighthouse, right next to...

a paper mill

An exceptionally pretty church in Fernandina

We took one beautiful day and hiked to the fort and spent a couple of hours wandering around and talking to Frank, one of the historic rangers. Frank is a jewel – he visited the fort at 16, talked with one of the historic rangers and decided then and there he would like to be one as well. Frank went to college, majored in history, and upon graduation, got a job at Fort Clinch as a historic ranger, where he has been ever since (he’s now 44).

The very uncomfortable looking bunks for enlisted personnel

Rich standing under the barrel of a cannon

Inside the fort from atop the perimeter walls

The tunnel that goes to the outside wall and the gun ports

Staircase to the top of the wall

More of the fort

While the fort has been garrisoned for a total of 98 years, it was fully manned only during the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, and World War II. It has a very interesting history – during the Civil War, the Confederacy held the fort during 1861, making it a safe haven for their blockade runners. In early 1862, the Union gained control and had responsibility for the citizens of Amelia Island but had no authority for trying or punishing them, since Florida was in the Confederacy. The Union soldiers could incarcerate lawbreakers but had to wait to hold a trial until lawyers and a judge with authority to practice In Florida arrived – sometimes taking a year or more.

While hiking along St. Mary’s River to the fort, we saw a couple of tug boats, a barge, and a submarine on the way to the Atlantic. We were told later that the submarine was probably a foreign one that had come in for repairs. U.S. subs are escorted to sea until it is deep enough to submerge by 5 gunships and 4 helicopters, so this one had to be foreign.

The sub that was being escorted out to sea

The next day was rainy so we spent it inside reading and playing cards. The following morning we went fishing on the (very long) pier on the Atlantic side. We each caught a sea trout and a whiting. Since that was plenty for the two of us, we called it a day and went back to camp to fillet the fish, and had a wonderful dinner of fried fish, corn, and homemade cornbread. Fish doesn’t come much fresher than that (but at least they didn’t twitch while I was cleaning them).