Gulf Island National Seashore and Fort Massachussets

Twelve miles off the shore of Mississippi's coast in the Gulf of Mexico sits a small piece of land named Ship Island that is part of the Gulf Island National Seashore.
Ship Island Excursions provides a ferry service to the island twice daily from the Gulfport Yacht Harbor. The Gulf Islander delivered me right to the dock in a little less than an hour. The trip was enjoyable and a pod of dolphins came to play in the wake of the ferry. Most of the travelers on the Gulf Islander were prepared for sunbathing and picnics, some had come to visit Fort Massachusetts. There were a few serious fishermen and one women with long lens camera equipment who was planning to photograph birds in the afternoon light.

Fort Massachusetts from the dock.

The ferry docked on the North side of West Ship Island. A stingray was surfing the shallow waters of a sandbar as we were getting off the boat.   A boardwalk joins the dock and leads across the island to the south side where the best beaches are located. It is a pleasant walk and goes right past the fort.

Ship Island was originally settled by French explorers in 1699. They valued its deep port and the protection that the island provided from Gulf storms. Ship island served as a base of operations for those explorers settling French Louisiana, land which now makes up the center of our country.
Ship Island has seen action over its years as a port.
During the War of 1812 British ships gathered here before their unsuccessful bid  to capture New Orleans.
That war showed the country's borders to be vulnerable to attack and as a result the US War Department made plans to expand coastal defenses with brick forts known as Third System Forts. One of those forts Fort Massachusetts was to be built on ship island.
During the American Civil War Admiral David Farragut used Ship Island as a supply base as they captured the port cities of New Orleans and Mobile. The brick walls of Fort Massachusetts were only waist high at that point and didn't provide much protection. Ship island was held by Union forces and Confederate forces at different points in the Civil War.

Interior of Fort Massachusetts

Fort Massachusetts was completed in 1866 but never fully fortified. Events at Fort Pulaski during the Civil War proved that the forts defenses were no match for rifled guns whose higher velocity ordnance easily penetrated those thick brick walls.  Fort Massachusetts and other Third order forts that dotted the coast of the United States were made obsolete before their construction was completed.
It is small in comparison to other 3rd order forts that we have visited. There are no parade grounds at the center as we saw in Fort Pulaski and Fort Jefferson, no quarters or storage areas like at Fort Pickens and Fort Hancock.
A park ranger was on site to tell the story of the fort and to answer questions about its construction. It is amazing to me that such imposing structures with such precise details were completed with hand tools, levels and plumb bobs.

Gulf Islander waiting to bring us home

The beaches of West Ship Island are wild and beautiful. No manicuring is done here so you will find driftwood the size of logs, bits of shell and fishing equipment and the occasional plastic bottle dropped from someones boat. 

The beaches on West Ship Island had a combination of light and dark sands.

I expected the sand to be white as seen on other Gulf coast beaches. It was dark like the sand at Caspersen Beach near Venice Florida, and made interesting patterns as the water washed over it. I enjoyed a long leisurely walk along the south side of West Ship Island and was happy to spend some time breathing in the sea air. We are heading inland now and won't breath the ocean air until we arrive in Astoria Oregon in late Summer.

Resting with the fishermen on the way back to the marina.

Cape Lookout National Seashore

Cape Lookout Lighhouse

Virginia was still damp and drying out as we headed south to North Carolina's lower Outer Banks. We had visited Kitty Hawk, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Corolla and the Bodie Island Lighthouse on a prior visit but had never been to the lower North Carolina barrier islands.
Threats of bad weather persuaded us to make camp inland rather than on the islands themselves. Havelock, a small city situated about half way between historic New Bern and the ferries that would take us to the Outer Banks was the perfect spot.
We parked the Behemoth at a Marine Corp Air Station called Cherry Point where a nicely remodeled MWR park provided a home base.

North Carolina has an amazing network of passenger ferries as part of its public transportation system. They connect the lower barrier islands to the mainland and are a delightful way to travel. Some were as small as 10 passenger water taxis and others big enough for the Behemoth.

Our first experience with the ferry system was a trip to Cape Lookout National Seashore.
Cape Lookout and the Shackleford Banks can be reached by private boat or by ferry from the National Park Visitor Center at Harker's Island.

Wild Banker horses at the Shackleford Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore

The National  seashore is made up of 3 barrier islands. Island Express Ferry Service carried us the 3 miles out to Cape Lookout with a short stop at the Shackleford Banks to drop off 4 passengers who were interested in shelling. We were told that the long narrow beach of Shackleford is one of the best in North Carolina for shell hunting.  Shakleford is also home to a protected herd of wild horses whose ancestry is linked to Spanish Conquistadors by local legend and proven by DNA testing. We were able to see a few of them grazing on the sea oats as we got close to the drop off point.

View from the dock

Island Express dropped us off a short distance away at the dock near the Cape Lookout lifesaving station. The island is only a few miles long and about 3/4 mile wide. We started our exploration on the bay side where the Cape Lookout Lighthouse and museum are located.
The National Park Visitor Center was manned by a couple from Charleston who were volunteering at the lighthouse for 3 weeks. Charlotte explained to us that they spend 5 days on island with 2 days off each week.  Their duties include manning the Visitor Center, watching over the museum, and keeping the public areas neat. It sounded like a great way to spend 3 weeks and we put it on our list of possibilities for a future visit.

Trails on island are a combination of sand and boardwalk to protect the fragile dunes. One of the boardwalks lead us to the lighthouse and the Lighthouse Keepers quarters which now serves as a museum. The lighthouse is usually open through the 3rd weekend in September but closed early this year due to threat of storms.

Cape Lookout Light is painted white and black in a distinctive diamond pattern. It is 163 feet tall and can be seen almost 20 miles out to sea.
The museum tour is self guided and told us a lot about the southern Outer Banks.  Area history is rich with stories of storms and shipwrecks as well as its roll in the Civil War and in WWII when German U boats sank more than 80 vessels in North Carolina waters.

The back porch of the museum had a row of rocking chairs that invite you to rest a while and enjoy looking out over the bay. Bayside is where those with private boats drop anchor. There were several boats the day we visited and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves floating in the water and visiting back and forth.

Oceanside beach

Fred enjoyed the waves

Cape Lookout's ocean beach was voted #1 in USA Today's 10 most beautiful National Park Beaches contest for 2016.  It was easy to see why.  We walked the boardwalk path across the dunes to find waves rolling onto a pristine sand beach dotted with seaweed and seashells. There were surfers and body surfers and surf fishermen with plenty of room for them all to play.  Fred couldn't stay out of the water and I must have walked a mile down the beach.  It was lovely. We stayed until we started to feel crispy from the sun and then headed back to the dock.
Island Express sent a smaller boat to bring us back so the ride wasn't as smooth but we did see plenty of pelican's and a couple of dolphins in the channel.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Oak Hammock Hike
 

Yesterday was a bright and sunny 80 degrees so we packed a picnic lunch grabbed the dog and headed out to one of our favorite places in this park of the country.
Merritt Island national Wildlife refuge and the Canaveral National Seashore are two of our countries treasures. We enjoy hiking and birding and swimming here whenever we get to the area.
We made a quick stop at the visitors center to pick up a trail map and then headed for the Oak Hammock Trail.

Oak Hammock is a short trail, about a mile, through Spanish Moss draped live oaks whose long limbs create a canopy of shade. 
We saw many butterflies and swarms of red and green dragonflies. Rascal even startled a tree frog.



Green Tree Frog

 

Done with Oak Hammock we tackled Palm Hammock a slightly longer, two mile trail, through cabbage palms and ferns. It always makes me smile to see the things we grow in planters up North growing so profusely here. Boston ferns line the trunks of palms and asparagus fern grows out of dead tree trunks. Bromeliads are everywhere.
I especially like all of the air plants that hang onto any surface they can find and get all the nutrients they need from the atmosphere itself.
Rascal got a little ambitious and found a 9 Banded Armadillo rooting in the mud so he and Fred sat on a bench while I completed the walk.  I had hoped to see some feral pigs but none were out hunting at the noon hour.  There were a flock of white Ibis, many fish and more dragonflies to enjoy.

After a short rest and having enjoyed our picnic we continued to the Canaveral National Seashore. We had been there before but mostly on the Atlantic side and the Manatee Viewing area. Yesterday we decided to explore the lagoons.

We were rewarded with the sight of Roseate Spoonbills!  The only other place we have seen them in large numbers was the Everglades.


Roseate Spoonbill

 There were so many, feeding in groups and sharing the mud flats with White Pelicans and Snowy Egrets.. 

Roseate Spoonbill in Flight

It is always startling to see such large birds in flight.  They are so ungainly when the take off and land but to see their beautiful colors against a blue sky is a treat.

We were also privileged to see a Tricolored Heron, a Great Blue Heron, many Egrets, White Pelicans and a squadron of ducks.



Tricolored Heron

Great Blue Heron

Our trip would not have been complete without spotting a couple of these guys sunning themselves.
  We are so lucky to have National Park areas to enjoy. These 140,000 acres snugged up close to the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are among our favorites.
We will be in the area for another week so plan to return at least once more.

American Alligator