Fort Caroline

If you read my last post from a few weeks ago, I rode out to Fort Caroline to get some photos but it was closed. This weekend, I wanted to go during open hours and see it. Unfortunately, there wasn't much there.

It was raining when we wanted to go but we waited a few and went after it stopped about 30 minutes before closing. We walked the trail to the fort and came across this hole in the tree. I had a photo of Jake, the dog, peeking in there but I formatted my card and lost it.

Arriving at the fort itself, which isn't a fort, there is a cool entrance. If you don't know the story, the fort is believed to be in the area but remains have never been found. They've built this kind of replica in it's place. It really isn't great.

Jake was off the leash and ran around. He was quite excited and was jumping over the short walls. In this image I called him to run towards me to get some action shots.

As we were leaving the small fort replica area, Jake slowed down near the archway and Holly had him stay there to model. He's a photogenic dog.

Jake stepped into the fake, small moat they had and the mud was a little deeper than he expected. He almost needed assistance getting out.

Even though it was forbidden to go beyond the rocks, Jake needed to get clean so we went over to the water.

When we were on the shore we found a sea of crabs. It looked like Indiana Jones with all the crabs scattering beneath your feet. These guys with the one large claw were dancing. They would raise their claws apparently to attract a mate or show dominance but it looked like they were all in a Zumba class.

This is a different crab. Not quite as cool as the big claw guys and much more mobile. I guess they're cool the way they move sideways. This and the previous were taken with the Sigma 50-200 at 200mm f5.6.

Holly wanted to try her hand at some photos so she asked me to change back to the Sigma 17-50 f2.8. It focuses a lot closer than the other. She got up close and personal and waited patiently for some shots. This guy was so bright red.

This image had a lot of detail so I decided to crop it heavily. It's good enough for web at least. I wouldn't print this one too large because of the heavy crop.

Holly took this because she likes to look in photos and find stuff. How many crabs can you spot?

Holly picked up this tiny crab. It was difficult to shoot because it was moving so quickly. This was also heavily cropped.

I shot this before leaving the shore line.


I shot a few more which you can see at the Flickr site: Fort Caroline Set