Cape San Blas
A sandy elbow of the Gulf between St. Joseph Bay and open water.
- County
- Gulf
- Lighthouses
- Four built since 1847
- Today's lighthouse
- Moved to Port St. Joe in 2014
- Tides
- One high, one low a day
Then
- 1847–1858
The first lighthouse collapses in an 1851 gale. A second is destroyed by a hurricane in 1856, and a third, finished in 1858, slowly loses ground to erosion.
- 1862
Sailors from the USS Kingfisher destroy a Confederate saltworks that boiled 150 bushels of salt a day from seawater.
- 1885
A 98-foot iron lighthouse is first lit on June 30.
- 2014
With the shore eroding, the lighthouse and its two keepers' houses are moved to George Core Park in Port St. Joe.
- 2018
Hurricane Michael cuts a new inlet through the road inside St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.
Now
Cape San Blas separates St. Joseph Bay from the Gulf, about 10 miles from Port St. Joe. The St. Joseph Peninsula reaches north from its west end.
Erosion is the story here: the cape's south point, where the lighthouses once stood, has lost the most ground to storms.
On the water
From NOAA's predictions for Cape San Blas, Western Cape, FL over the next 349 days. Heights are in feet above mean lower low water (MLLW).
- Pattern
- Usually one high and one low a day
- Typical daily range
- 1.5 ft
- Biggest swing
- 2.9 ft on Dec 23
- Smallest swing
- 0.2 ft on Aug 22
- Highest high
- 2.4 ft, Oct 28 at 10:31 PM
- Lowest low
- −1.0 ft, Jan 20 at 5:59 AM