Page 34 - Guest Advantage Spring/Summer 2016

Shaping of a City By the Sea
FORGED UPON THE WAVES
PHOTOS BY ADDISON FITZGERALD & JUSTIN ITNYRE
Never had something so big appeared
on the horizon. From the beach, native
eyes first saw a series of specks, then growing masses of canvas and wood—San Pelayo and her fleet slowly crept towards shore. Both groups, on land and sea, were quiet, watching. A large splash from the
San Pelayo’s anchor appeared at her bow, indicating that the fleet should do the same and make preparations to land. As ships swung to their anchors, stopping for the first
time in weeks, small boats appeared from their sides and rowed into the narrow inlet. Like mangrove pods washed ashore, boats scudded onto the sand and the seed of an empire was planted. Standing on the shore in soaking wet boots, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés formed St. Augustine as a safeguard of Spanish trade routes; a foothold on North America.
Our history is a profoundly maritime one. St. Augustine was as regulated by the tide
BY BRENDAN BURKE
as by the clock, the Cross, or the sword. Fishermen provided a good portion of the town’s sustenance. When the church once ran out of holy water, a small fishing boat sailed to Cuba for more. Ships regularly came and went from Havana, St. Augustine’s colonial master. Inland waterways too, provided silent highways into the interior. Cypress dugout canoes brought cattle, oranges, and deer hides from the plains, groves and forests of La Florida.
34 GUESTADVANTAGE •2016