30° 8' North Latitude - Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
N 30° 06.990 W 081° 20.752
17R E 466680 N 3331745
This Florida historical marker denotes the location of Ponce de Leon's potential landing site in Florida. It's located at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve's North Beach Access Parking Area in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Waymark Code: WMPVAX
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 10/23/2015
Views: 3
The marker reads:
30° 8' North Latitude
This site is believed by some historians to correspond with the offshore location where Juan Ponce de Leon calculated his fleet's position when he first sighted Florida. Ponce's fleet of three vessels set sail from Puerto Rico in early March 1513. On Sunday, March 27, the day of the Festival of the Resurrection, they sighted what they thought was an island. After sailing northwest along the coast, the fleet moved close to shore, and at noon on April 2 a sighting of the sun was taken, probably with either a quadrant or mariner's astrolabe. In his work, Historia General de los Hechos de Los Castellanos en las Islas Y Tierra Firme del Mar Ocean, published in 1601, Spanish historian Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas recorded that the location was 30° 8' [north latitude]. Herrera's appointment by Phillip II of Spain as the major chronicler of the Indies gave him access to authentic sources, including documents made during Ponce's voyage that would not have been available to other writers. This site had been preserved in its natural condition by the State of Florida and is likely what Ponce de Leon would have seen as he approached Florida for the first time in 1513.