Georgia Isles; Cumberland

11/11/2012 =>Georgia Isles, Cumberland Island

0900:  With not too far to go today, and having enjoyed the early morning bike ride yesterday, Mike and I set off for the local coffee store on our bikes…with a bit of a stop at the beach with salty!  Both of us are really starting to enjoy this island hopping!  Super excited to reach Cumberland today!!  I read up more on the island since seeing Night Music:  the island was once wholly owned by the Carnegie family.  They used the island as their summer retreat, eventually expanding their mansion numerous times, adding additional bldgs, stables, all the updated/modern at the time amenities.   In the golden era, this was “the” location to be.  They hosted many different embassaries, etc at their estate!  Unfortunately, the whole location caught on fire sometime in the 60’s.  The family chose to will the estate to the State of Georgia as a natural wilderness area:  no further building and the stables to be let loose to roam the island, hence the now wild horses.  The only way onto the island is by personal boat or a ferry.  We arrived at the anchorage by 1520.  The sun was just starting to set, but we were too excited to wait until tomorrow to start to explore!  We rowed ashore to the Cumberland Island Camping station.  You can really “rough” it at these sites:  a tent in the middle of huge Cyprus trees covered in moss, surrounded by tons of wild animals, no electricity, no running water sites.  The “path” directly to the beach is a dirt covered road of sorts with the trees drapping all around…and lots of horse piles everywhere, ha!  Salty didn’t know where to sniff first!

path to the beach

The sunlight filtering through the trees was simply amazing. The sound of the ocean roaring could be heard crystal clear all the way back at the anchorage, the place was already a favorite stop of mine in the first 15 minutes.  When the trees finally gave way to the beach, we had to walk along rolling dunes covered in wild grass and flowers.  Seriously, this place is amazing!  The beach itself is wide, flat with pure white sand.  Due to the lack of people traffic and constant surf, many shells wash ashore at every tide:  these are in perfect condition!  Conch, conk, huge scallop shells everywhere!  Both of us were looking forward to exploring the “ruins” of Carnegie in the morning…and seeing some wild horses!

11/12/2012   Georgia Isles, Cumberland Island

I am not sure when we got to shore this morning, just that the day was amazing!  The weather was warm, but a little overcast.  We set out to see the “ruins” at the south end of the island first, before rounding the southern end back to the beach. We saw some horses at the ruins, but not as close as I wanted.  Salty was going insane with them:  I am pretty sure she thinks they are just large dogs to play with.  As we walked, we saw an armadillo and a couple of wild turkeys too!  Poor Salty kept getting those spiky prickles stuck deep in her paws thoughL. 

Salty mets the locals

When we got to the beach, I must have collected about 20 shells before feeling bad about taking so many!  I ended up keeping only the ‘best’ of the bunch, cause really what the heck would I do with 25 conch shells?  Ha.  As we first approached the beach, we had our first close encounter with 3 horses:  they were just chilling at the entrance.  We watched them for a bit as they played with each other before continuing on.  Even more horses were just “relaxing” by the water; we got within 15’ of them before we felt invasive!  A little while down the beach, a little boy starts running full speed towards us:  its Ethan from Night Music!  He recognized Salty from down the beach and ran over to say hello!  We met up with Nick and Stacy for a bit as well.  They told us about a lady they met that morning who was celebrating her 70^th birthday by camping on the island..amazing!  Mike and I were ready to head back to the boat around 1400.  As we began to leave the beach, Salty ran ahead of us to make friends with a couple backpacking onto the beach:  it was the lady celebrating her 70^th!  We talked with her (she has led an amazing life) and she complimented my eyes and cheekbones, so heart her very much..:).

 

The Ruins

After refueling at the boat, Mike wanted to go back on the island to go to this shark teeth area:  Nick and Stacy had mentioned a location at the south end of the island perfect for sifting through the dredged sand for shark’s teeth and fossils. They told us we would have to cross tidal flats to get there…so okay, we went back to the island to find this location (I think mike is still upset about not finding anything in Solomens’)  We walked across the flats, but didn’t see what they talked about and headed back towards the water’s edge.  Mike was walking ahead of me when he started and turned around, hollering for me to hurry up and get closer to him.  That would have been easier without the dog pulling me through muddy areas, so alas I got to him “too late” to see what he saw:  a 10’ alligator sunning himself on the flats!  The gator ran into the water (thank lawd) as Mike approached, but I was still able to catch a picture of him swimming away!

Gator!!

As we walked along these flats, we noticed tons of clams poking up through the sand…as lovers of clamming in NJ, we thought this was too easy!  I looked up clamming on Cumberland, and yes, this was a good/allowable area to clam, if you have a license…shhh!!!!  Lets just say we went a bit overboard, but had a wonderful dinner that night!  Not happy with his search for these dredges, Mike attempted to walk along the water to the area he was certain Nick talked about.  He made it maybe 10’ before he quickly sank into the mud to mid thigh!  Of course, I laughed till I cried (horrible wife).  He finally got back onto hard land, minus one sandal and covered in stinky tidal mud.  After that he was done:  poor man had to walk one foot bare the mile and a half through the woods (don’t forget all the horse poo!) to the dinghy. 

hahahahahahaha!!!

That night we seriously debated about staying another day at Cumberland, for we had yet to explore the northern end of the island:  a tidal swampland…seriously!  But something told us we should move onto Florida…