Pic(k) of the Week: Cross & statue

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A patinated bronze statue of a Catholic missionary beseeches heaven. Beyond, a nearly 200-foot-tall stainless-steel 'Great Cross' gleams golden in late-afternoon sun.

Mission Nombre de Dios: St. Augustine, Florida, USA.
3 September 2025.

About the mission:

Mission Nombre de Dios (Name of God) is a Catholic mission founded in 1587 in St. Augustine, Florida, on the west side of Matanzas Bay. It is likely the oldest extant mission in the continental United States. The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, the oldest shrine in the southeast U.S., is located on the mission grounds.

The mission traces its origins to September 8, 1565, when Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed with a band of settlers, including a Catholic chaplain, Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales. The mission would serve the colonists and nearby villages of the Mocama, a Native American tribe.

The 'Great Cross' was dedicated in October 1966 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the mission's founding. It is made of stainless steel and towers 208 feet above the Matanzas marshes. An eleven-foot-tall bronze statue of Father López stands in front, created in 1958 by Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962), a Croatian sculptor (then dean of Art at Notre Dame University, in South Bend, Indiana, USA).

— National Park Service (pdf)
— Wikipedia.

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Donald Byrd: Cristo Redentor

Album: A New Perspective (Label: Blue Note)
Released 1964; recorded 1963.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Wind-swept beach (for Thelonius Monk)

Beach dunes after a late afternoon storm.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 1 September 2024 (18:39 EDT).

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• Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American composer and pianist, born on 10 October 1917; he died on 17 February 1982.
  
  Monk's performance, here, of Pannonica — a tune he composed and named for Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter, an English-born patron of late 1940s and 1950s American bebop jazz ('Nica' to her friends) — displays a compositional ethos and keyboard virtuosity distilled to its essence. Utilizing null time, rhythmic surprise, dissonant harmonies, 'wrong notes,' and tones seemingly coaxed from 'between' the piano's keys, he transforms a deceptively simple melody into a miniature gem of severe beauty.


• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays.
• Photo 41 of 52, for year 2024. See a larger, hi-res version on Flickr: here.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


• Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.
• Lens: Olympus M.40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R
• Settings: 45 mm; 1/640 sec; ISO 200; ƒ/5.6


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Pic(k) of the Week: Wary weather watcher

A storm approaches;

Warily, the dog watches.

Beach life.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 9 September 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Castillo de San Marcos

Looking north at daybreak, along the Matanzas River, at the Castillo de San Marcos.

In downtown (!) St. Augustine, Florida, USA. 7 September 2022.

The Castillo de San Marcos (Spanish for "St. Mark's Castle") is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida, built by the Spanish to protect the city. The Castillo is a masonry star fort made of a stone called coquina (Spanish for "small shells"), which consists of ancient shells that have bonded together to form a sedimentary rock similar to limestone. Construction began in 1672 and was completed in 1695, though the structure would undergo many alterations and renovations over the centuries. Native Americans from Spain's nearby missions did most of the labor, with additional skilled workers brought in from Havana, Cuba.

— Wikipedia.

In 1924, the Castillo (then named Fort Marion) was declared a U.S. National Monument. In 1933, the National Park Service assumed responsibility. In 1942, the original name, Castillo de San Marcos, was restored.

— National Park Service pamphlet.

St. Augustine is a city on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: St. Augustine Lighthouse, at morning

The waning gibbous moon set as the sun rose, over the St. Augustine Lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida, USA, on 5 July 2023 (7:06 am EDT).

Missed it by thaat much. Only two days earlier, the 'Buck' moon had been a full 'supermoon.' That's the price of a vacation itinerary!

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About the Lighthouse

The St. Augustine Light Station is a privately maintained aid to navigation and an active, working lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida. It stands at the north end of Anastasia Island and was built between 1871 and 1874. The current lighthouse tower, original first-order Fresnel lens and the Light Station grounds are owned by the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, Inc., a not-for-profit maritime museum.

The St. Augustine Light Station consists of the 165-foot (50 m) 1874 tower, the 1876 Keepers' House, two summer kitchens added in 1886, a 1941 U.S. Coast Guard barracks, and a 1936 garage that was home to a jeep repair facility during World War II. The site is also a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather station. The lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

The tower, however is the second lighthouse tower in St. Augustine, the first being lit officially by the American territorial government in May 1824 as Florida's first lighthouse. However, both the Spanish and the British governments operated a major aid to navigation here including a series of wooden watch towers and beacons dating from 1565.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Paddleboard morningtide

A woman paddleboards in the golden light of an early summer morning.

As seen on Salt Run, off Anastasia Island, in St. Augustine, Florida, USA. 5 July 2023.

In 1940, the St. Augustine Inlet was created by dredging a new inlet of Matanzas Bay. Then, during the 1940s, the severed land mass that was south of the new inlet channel merged with the intertidal shoals of the original natural inlet. This created what is now called Conch Island, which includes the ocean shoreline of the Anastasia State Park. The old inlet closed at its southern terminus leaving the lagoon, now called Salt Run.

— Florida Department of Environmental Protection

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Pic(k) of the Week: Turtle, surfacing

A native red-eared slider turtle blows bubbles as she surfaces.

Seen at a wildlife sanctuary pond in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 3 July 2023.

The red-eared slider or red-eared terrapin (Trachemys scripta elegans) is a subspecies of the pond slider (Trachemys scripta), a semiaquatic turtle belonging to the family Emydidae. The red-eared slider is native from the Midwestern United States to northern Mexico, but has become established in other places because of pet releases, and has become invasive in many areas where it out-competes native species. The turtle gets its name from the small, red stripe around its ears, or where its ears would be, and from its ability to slide quickly off rocks and logs into the water.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Morning mist on the beach

On the beach,

It's a morning sun,

Through cloud and ocean spray,

A beacon in gloom.
At peace.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA.
30 October 2022 (9:19 am EDT).

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Pic(k) of the Week: Calm at crepuscule

Two contemplating sunset, looking east over the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 4 August 2018 (9:08 pm)

And, yes, they knew that the sun sets in the west. But high clouds catch and reflect its light back to the east.

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