Hutchinson Island - House of Refuge Wed May 7 2014

After enjoying the beach breezes, we doubled back and stopped at the House of Refuge.  It is the last of approximately 10 sites on Florida's coast  that were built to aid ship wrecked sailors.  During World War II it was used as a look out for enemy submarines.  In 1904, the inn keeper tended to 7 survivors of the Georges Valentine.  That ship had left Pensacola bound for Buenos Aires.  It had made it almost to Cuba when a storm in the Florida Straits blew it up the coast for 3 days to Hutchinson Island where it wrecked in the shallows.  The Georges Valentine is now the 11th historical site in Florida's Underwater Archaeological Preserve.   This area is also renowned for the "Anastasia Formation", rocks formed from sand and coquina limestone that were deposited in the late Pleistocene epoch.  These formations can be found along Florida's coast from St John's County down to Palm Beach.