Sentry turret
With a round dome.
The Fort of Santa Cruz do Paraguaçu is the ruin of a coastal fort on the right bank of the mouth of the Paraguaçu River in Maragogipe, Bahia. It once commanded the way into the fertile Recôncavo around the Bay of All Saints, with its sugar mills and the towns of Maragogipe and Cachoeira. Three forts stood in the area in 1659, this being the most important, and its present shape probably dates from the early eighteenth century, over an older structure of the early seventeenth. During the Dutch invasion it exchanged fire with a fort on the opposite bank to keep the invaders from pushing inland. Built of stone as an irregular hexagon, it was surrounded by water on three of its six sides. It is remembered for helping the people of Cachoeira keep a ship they had captured from the Portuguese during the War of Independence. Restored in 1762, it was abandoned after 1816 and fell into ruin, and its remains were listed as national heritage in 1938. The stone walls of the courtyard, a round domed sentry turret and a cannon still stand, in a lovely spot where the river meets the bay.
With a round dome.
On the bay.
The ship story.
Right bank of the Paraguaçu River mouth, near São Roque do Paraguaçu, Maragogipe, Bahia
By car through the Recôncavo or by boat across the bay; ask locally about the dirt track.