St. Andrews Bay (Florida)

Aerial view of St. Andrews Bay and the harbor entrance from the Gulf of Mexico. View is to the east-northeast.

St. "Andrews" Bay, officially named St. Andrew Bay,^[1] is a bay located in Bay County in the panhandle of Florida. It is a 69,000 acre estuary located in northwest Florida. It is relatively deep, and of relatively high salinity due to the low freshwater inflow provided by only a few spring-fed creeks (the most significant being Econfina Creek, fed by Blue Spring). The county seat of Bay County, Panama City, is located on the bay, named for Saint Andrew. The Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Railway, which ran from Panama City to Dothan, Alabama (and still exists as a smaller short line), was also named for the bay.

History

St. Andrews Bay was the location of a large number of saltworks critical for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Edward Crissey, in command of the steamboat USS Bloomer, which he had been instrumental in stealing from her berth near Geneva, Alabama, helped destroy numerous salt works, doing great damage to the Confederate War effort. The shallow draft of the steamboat allowed her to go up inlets where other, deeper draft vessels had been unable to travel.^[2]^[3]

Wildlife

Wild dolphin are commonly seen in the waters of St. Andrews Bay; they are easily spotted when the waters are smooth in the mornings. In shallower waters, St. Andrews Bay is known for vast schools of mullet, red fish and speckled trout. Occasionally a manatee is spotted in the bay as well.

Notes

↑ http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/Regional/StAndrew/standrew.html
↑ Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I- Volume 17: Gulf Blockading Squadron (December 16, 1861-February 21, 1862); East Gulf Blockading Squadron (December 22, 1862–July 17, 1865) pages 593-601
↑ http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DANU4547-0017&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fofre%2Fofre0017%2F&tif=00632.TIF&pagenum=593

Coordinates: 30°09′08″N 85°41′28″W / 30.15222°N 85.69111°W / 30.15222; -85.69111

Coastal waters of Florida

Bays	Apalachicola Biscayne Blackwater Choctawhatchee East Escambia Estero Florida Palm Pensacola Perdido Ponce de Leon Sarasota St. Andrews Tampa Whitewater

Inlets	Baker's Haulover Blind Pass Captiva Pass Caxambas Pass Gasparilla Pass Hillsboro Lake Worth Matanzas Ponce de Leon Redfish Pass Sebastian South Lake Worth St. Lucie

Lagoons	Banana River Guana River Halifax River Indian River Lake Worth Marquesas Keys Matanzas River Mosquito Lagoon

See also	Florida Everglades Intracoastal Waterway List of Florida rivers

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