Lighthouse Point Park

Lighthouse Point Park is a place of uncommon beauty. It is a most happy place to combine swimming and sunbathing and birding, to spend a summer day. There may be Black Skimmers at rest a few feet from your beach towel and peeps here, there and everywhere. There are lots of birds on the beach, on the jetty and in the dunes, but they are the same birds you will see all along this stretch of coast. There are Eastern Towhees in the coastal forest area and an occasional rara avis may turn up in this area between ocean and estuary.

Lighthouse Point Park is also a place where the story still is being written. Located on the north side of Ponce de Leon Inlet, the point has been for almost two hundred years a scene of man's struggle to overcome the forces of nature. The sea has sometimes relocated the inlet itself. A strong gale washed out the foundations of a lighthouse begun in 1835 on the inlet's southern side. The present lighthouse, constructed 1885-1888, is a second attempt.

Then came the jetty. The intention of government engineers was to stabilize the channel. Instead, the jetty changed the natural water flow causing rapid erosion of the dunes. One could trace on the cutaway flanks of those vanished dunes at water's edge, the colored striations of age-by-age deposits of ancient materials. Costly dredging and refurbishment of the beach with spoil material had only limited success. Still, each storm deposits more of Lighthouse Point Beach, grain by grain of sand, on the beach across the inlet. Lighthouse Point Park is a favorite wailing-wall of TV reporters after a bad storm. And if you on the point when NASA launches a shuttle, you will see it, feel it and hear it!

Hours: sunrise to sunset Admission: $3.50. There is free parking west of the gate if you are willing to walk in. For information, call (386) 756-7488.

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