The Port

Fernandina's port is the westernmost deep water port on the East Coast. In other words, this is as far west as the big tankers can get by water before unloading their cargo. It's much cheaper for companies to ship by water than over land, so this is an advantageous location. Once the cargo is unloaded here, it can move over land either by truck or by rail, as the train tracks run right up to these loaders that you see here. Every time that I see these loaders, I'm reminded of the Imperial Walkers in "The Empire Strikes Back". I'm sure that George Lucas was inspired by these to create those masterpieces. But, I digress.

The fact that Amelia Island is so far west comes into play during the hurricane season - in a good way - but we'll get more into that later. If you get out your map, you'll see that we're as far west as Cleveland, Ohio. We're as far west on the East Coast as you can go.