St. Lucie Inlet, Florida

The St. Lucie Inlet, Florida is located between Hutchinson Island and Jupiter Island in Martin County, Florida, at coordinates 27°09′58″N 80°09′24″W / 27.16611°N 80.15667°W / 27.16611; -80.15667. The St. Lucie Inlet is one of six inlets into the Indian River Lagoon.

South of the inlet is the St. Lucie Inlet State Park with hard and soft coral reefs. Just to the north of the inlet is Bathtub Beach Reef, a Sabellariid worm reef. The beaches that you see along Hutchinson Island are the third highest nesting beaches in the western hemisphere for the Loggerhead Sea Turtle.

History

The "Santa Lucia" Inlet appeared on maps in 1500 and 1683, although the reliability of such early maps is generally discounted by scholars. The first accurate surveys of the Indian River Lagoon by Gerard de Brahm and Bernard Romans in the 1760s and 1770s do not record any open inlet in that area. Nor was any open inlet recorded there by Charles Vignoles during his survey of this area in the early 1820s. Soon thereafter, there was a natural inlet called Gilbert's Bar in that general area, used by the pirate Don Pedro Gilbert as an escape route from deep-draft pursuit vessels. The "Santa Lucia" Inlet crossed by Jonathan Dickinson in 1696 was located at the Old Indian River Inlet just north of the modern, artificial Fort Pierce Inlet. As is true for most inlets between barrier islands, the inlet closed and opened repeatedly in the past through natural process. The inlet has been kept open for the past century-and-a-half by frequent dredging.