Between Two Rivers

Sunday afternoon we decided to take a little trip down to the town of St. Marks. Our destination was the little fort/museum park there that we had read was slated to be closed, due to lack of state funding. We often write about visiting the St. Marks Refuge and lighthouse, but these are not the same places, though they are fairly close by boat. Ruins remain from the first Spanish fort built there in the 1600's. The site was used by later groups, all the way up to the Civil War. It sits on a little peninsula where the St. Marks and the Wakulla rivers meet before heading into the Gulf of Mexico. We talked to the ranger there and were reassured when he told us the governor had not accepted the proposal that would close the parks. For the time being, they will remain open, operating with a shoestring budget and this one ranger will continue working about eight different parks.

On this lovely Sunday afternoon, this was also a busy little public boat ramp and other boats went by and a ways up the St. Marks to the marina.

About a half dozen brown pelicans kept crashing into the waters around us. They sound so much bigger than they are.

Notice the view. See any houses? Condo towers? Nope. That is because development has not arrived here yet. We have to make sure that we remember to appreciate the wild beauty that we have.

This pelican was looking for a hand-out near a dock.

A man was fishing with a cast net, while standing atop a rail on a dock/picnic pavilion.

 

I was impressed with his skill-- and especially his balance. I would have been casting myself right into the river!

I find cast nets fascinating. Cast nets have been in use for thousands of years. They were originally made of linen, then cotton and now nylon. But the basic form and function have remained unchanged. The Bible has references to cast nets, which some translations changed to seines. It is low-tech fishing in a very basic form.