April 24-May 3, 2018
Now out of Florida after spending the winter there, our first stop in Georgia is Cumberland Island. We find an awesome anchorage just off the island, where we can easily dingy to shore to check out all that the island has to offer. It’s a very warm day, and the sun is fierce. We put on sunscreen and bug spray, and our bug repellant shirts and head out. I made Rilee a special bandana sprayed with bug spray to help her too. The mosquitos and flies were fierce. We hiked through the island to get to the Dungeness ruins. On the way, we spot our first armadillo crossing the road, and evidence of the wild ponies that roam the island. The Dungeness mansion and 90% of the island was once owned by Thomas Carnegie, brother of Andrew Carnegie. The mansion was abandoned in the 20’s, and was destroyed by fire in the 50’s. While exploring the ruins, we see our first wild horses, grazing on the field. We continue our hike towards the ocean, and along the way we encounter a wild turkey. While exploring the surf on the beach, we see jellyfish, horseshoe crabs, and plenty of sea shells. We look up from the sand to see a group of horses in the distance. As we get closer, we see one is a baby, reportedly days old. We head back to the dock to take the dingy back to the boat. It’s pretty cool to spend the afternoon on an island only accessible by boat. We stayed on the island until dusk, after the ferries leave the island. The only ones left are those who had come by private boat, or who had planned to camp on the island for the night. Back on the boat, enjoying the last bit of daylight, we once again see the horses, walking along the shoreline. This was an amazing stop, and we wished we could stay longer. We needed to move on, we had visitors headed our way!
We leave Cumberland Island and head to Jekyll Island. Here, we are meeting Chad’s mom and boyfriend, Mike. It’s been nearly four months since we have seen them, so it is a happy reunion! We are fortunate to be able to spend several days with them, exploring the island. Jekyll Island was such a neat spot, full of history as well. We visit the Jekyll Island Club, now a member of the Historic Hotels of America, but once a private club with members from the world’s wealthiest families such as the Morgans, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. We were able to tour some of the private cottages and church, complete with Tiffany stained glass. Chad and I head out early in the morning to move on to St. Simons Island, where Jean and Mike will meet us. We spend the day touring a light house and checking out the fun tourist town. We drive to Brunswick and find a fun evening art fair. Mike found out about an amazing little restaurant, and we ate until we were so stuffed…and the no-see-ums attacked! The next day we had an interesting tour at Fort Frederica, and attempted to get onto the apparently guarded Sea Island. Jean and Mike depart that night, headed back to Michigan.
The next morning, we get moving again. We stop for the night on Kilkenny Creek, in Richmond Hill. The isolation of the town reminds me of many of our river stops. However, this time it is much warmer, and also very buggy! As dark sets in, we depart down below, but first I hear the noise of the dolphins surfacing around the boat. Unable to see them, we hear them coming up for a breath while they hunt for dinner. So very cool!
We depart at first light the next morning, to be able to traverse some very shallow spots on a rising tide, as near to high tide as we dare. We are now in nearly nine foot tides, so the water height will change by nine feet every six hours. This is very significant for our boat, especially with a 4.5 foot draft (the distance from the water line to the bottom of our keel), and with some sections of the Georgia Intracoastal as shallow as only two feet deep at low tide. We must transit these areas near high tide. One such section is aptly named “Hell Gate” (one of several sections on the Atlantic named this) because of strong currents and notorious shoaling. We pass through Hell Gate without issue, and soon enough are on the Savannah River, headed for downtown Savannah.
We are staying at the Westin, right on the river. We are sad to learn the city docks and most other hotel docks, which were destroyed by Hurricane Matthew (2016), have not been rebuilt. It seems like so much potential for such a cool city. Regardless, we are happy to be staying at the Westin docks, and even happier we get to use the great Westin facilities! With just a short free ferry ride across the river, we are in downtown Savannah, checking out all that the amazing city has to offer!
We depart Savannah, now headed on to South Carolina. It seems like we are flying through states again!