We motored down the ICW and waited for the Beaufort, SC bridge to swing open. While we waited, another sailboat came around and it turned out to be our neighbor in Charleston, Acadia from NYNY. We were amused to see each other, since we had said our goodbyes on Monday evening and hadn’t expected to cross paths again. He thought we’d be all the way to Florida by now, and we thought he’d made it to Beaufort the night before…I guess the weather was rotten for all of us, inside on the ICW or outside on the ocean. He said he always regretted when he sailed outside and we told him we were on our way to do it again which made him laugh. So I’m writing this now, from the Atlantic Ocean as we slowly motor sail our way downwind in 5 knot NNE winds. Well, in these light conditions we’d rather be motoring on the open ocean than in the ICW. We are enjoying it today, but hoping it does pick up to the 15 knot NE winds forecasted. Now I’ll leave the computer to run up and watch the sunset with Reinhart!
Over night the winds picked up beautifully to 15-20 and we cut off the engine and enjoyed a rock-a-bye ride under the stars. As the sun rose we were looking at the beaches of Florida, but we turned in above them and came inland on the St. Mary’s inlet, which marks the border between Georgia and Florida. This brought us right by the Cumberland Island National Seashore Park; we anchored upstream of the Greyfield Inn (N30 45.895 W81 28.388, with no wireless, darn) to dinghy to the park docks and explore the island a bit. We started a hike through the majestic marine forest of Spanish moss covered oaks and after 15 minutes a wild horse galloped towards us on the trail and veered off back into the forest right in front of us. After another 10 minutes we investigated a rustling in the underbrush and found an armadillo! We came to a tiny museum and learned a lot about the history of the island; it has been privately owned since revolutionary times and some very interesting families have owned land and made their winter homes here. We visited the ruins of the last “cottage” to sit on a doomed piece of land names Dungeness (every home ever built there has burned down). The cottage was an estate built by the Carnegie family at the turn of the century, and the ruins would make a wonderful movie set! We walked to the beach which has never been developed and walked back over the vast dunes into a forest of yaupon trees and palms until we came upon one of the campgrounds there. I was a little jealous of the campers, until I remembered that we were going to spend the night on a boat anchored by the island. We definitely could not see everything we wanted to see in a day, so we decided to spend another day here. As we sat on the boat in the warm evening and watched the sunset by this wild island surrounded by dolphins and pelicans, Reinhart wished he could bottle the ambiance and send it to everyone we love.
We woke up on Friday morning and decided to take our bikes to shore so we could see the whole island. We explored the grounds of the estate in depth and then we rode north on the island to see the other sites and to visit the first Baptist church in the US founded by freed slaves. Even though the island is a National Park, there are still folks with residences here, so there are a few places off limits that are marked “private”, but for the most part, visitors have free reign. We saw many more wild horses, many more armadillos, a juvenile deer, and a woodpecker. We ended up riding at least 35 miles by the end of the day, 15 of those on the beach. Needless to say, we were completely beat and decided to stay one more night. In the morning we went over to pick up the bikes and then headed for St. Mary’s, GA…a few days behind schedule, but richer for our stay at Cumberland. I cannot convey how lovely and interesting the island is; it’s definitely worth a visit. There are oodles of miles of trails, several campgrounds, and one inn on its 17 miles.
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