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There are lots of treasure hunters along the Florida East Coast. There are always at least a couple of these guys every time we go to the beach.
We were so surprised to see a fisherman catch a baby hammerhead shark (by accident, he said it happens quite frequently around these parts..). The kids were fascinated!
Given the girls' interest in everything pirates and treasures, we were delighted to find out there was a great museum bearing exactly that name in St. Augustine with raving reviews. There even was a treasure hunt in the museum!
You can see more of the museum here. The treasure collection contains some of the most amazing pirate artifacts in the world!
The interactive books and walls were such a great addition. There were interactive touch screen
panels in beautiful frames in many places, filled with visuals and historic facts about real life pirates.
Similarly, the interactive wall had a large map of all the original
pirate settlements ready for you to select any one of them. When you
touched a settlement, for example, Havana, Cuba, a life-sized video of
the museum's owner, Pat Croce, popped up and explained in fascinating
detail the significance of each settlement at its time.
Firing the canon!
When we left the museum, the girls went for ice cream with Val and JF, and JF and I went for iced decaf coffees and off to explore St. Augustine quickly. We liked what we saw, even if some of it felt a bit fake to us... A bit of a mix of Quebec City and Skagway, Alaska. We'd love to see more!
The Castillo de San Marcos is unique in North American architecture.
As the only extant 17th century military construction in the country and
the oldest masonry fortress in the United States it is a prime example
of the "bastion system" of fortification, the culmination of hundreds of
years of military defense engineering. Originating in Italy in the 15th century the particular star shaped
design of the Castillo is a result of architecture adapting to
technology.
A monument not only of stone and mortar but of human determination and
endurance, the Castillo de San Marcos symbolizes the clash between
cultures which ultimately resulted in our uniquely unified nation.
Still resonant with the struggles of an earlier time, these original
walls provide tangible evidence of America’s grim but remarkable
history (all excerpts taken here).
It is also unique for the material used in its construction. The
Castillo is one of only two fortifications in the world built out of a
semi-rare form of limestone called coquina made of crushed seashells.
Given its light and porous nature, coquina would seem to be a
poor choice of building material for a fort. However the Spanish had
few other options; it was the only stone available on the northeast
coast of La Florida. However, coquina's porosity turned out to have an unexpected benefit. Because of its conglomerate mixture coquina contains millions of microscopic air pockets making it compressible.
A cannon ball fired at more solid material, such as granite or brick
would shatter the wall into flying shards, but cannon balls fired at the
walls of the Castillo burrowed their way into the rock and stuck there,
much like a bb would if fired into Styrofoam. So the thick coquina walls absorbed or deflected projectiles rather than yielding to them, providing a surprisingly long-lived fortress.
Spanish St. Augustine was the first of only three walled cities ever
constructed in North America; the other two are (English) Charleston,
South Carolina and (French) Quebec City, Canada. Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, Florida.
