12/15/13 Cumberland Island, Ga

We decided to sail up the St Mary's River and check out the sleepy town of St Mary's which has been described as the town time forgot. Indeed it is a sleepy quiet town with no grocery store.  There is one marina that was indicated in Active Captain reviews to have quite an old timer character as a dockmaster, with facilities that were rather minimalist and in need of some TLC. Indeed, Nat was a warm inviting host who offered to help out in any way, but we never saw him other than when he had us process our own credit cards while he sat back behind his desk. As you can see from the picture below the place is in real need of deferred maintenance; from left to right a half torn out cleat, a fire extinguisher with the bottom rusted out long ago, and a power pedestal also torn out teetering on it's side. Thank goodness we had found a few secure cleats to tie up to since the current rips through the marina like some many of the marinas in this region where they are built on the banks of narrow rivers.

One of the local gift shop merchants invited us to join their annual Christmas house tour which included some 20 stops, however it turned out many of the stops where the local merchants, ugh! Instead we chose to eat alligator burgers, oysters and crab cakes at Sharkys, a place recommended by a local. 

We had some online business to take care so the morning was spent at a coffee shop making good use of their wifi.  We left Langs Marina at 1500 and sailed much of the way to Cumberland Island with a 10-15 kt west wind. Along the way we saw Scott on Strider, motoring in from offshore. We had shared a dinner with Scott and his wife Jenny, in Beaufort NC on their 50+ft Bristol. Unfortunately, the winds and current precluded us from rafting or getting together for dinner that night and Scott had a schedule to keep so he departed early in the morning.

December 16th. What fun, this morning we finally got the chance to meet Anne aboard Crazy Lady, who Graham & Janaki met at the Hinkley marina in Thunderbolt. She arrive at Cumberland Island the day before us and has been cruising solo since leaving Oswego, NY In July on her 28 ft. Aloha sloop built in Canada.  We all hiked around this magnificent National Park.  Cumberland Island is a magical barrier island off the coast bordering Georgia and Florida, with ruins from an era gone by. It was originally owned by Revolutionary war hero, Nathaniel Greene who sold it to the Carnegie Family in 1884. We heard from one of the park Rangers that they had "excessive" celebrations before the Great Depression, after which time the island mansions fell into disrepair.  Today many of the building remains are still present and one of the mansions is maintained by the Park Service. Most incredible was the lush forests filled with massive live oak, Spanish moss and seductively swaying tall grasses. The island is also overrun by wild horses, pigs and deer, the latter two populations which are controlled by annual hunts including a mother/daughter hunt which was going on in the northern "wilderness" portion of the island. A Ranger told us the horses are causing tremendous environmental damage to the island ecosystem but unfortunately at some point Federal legislation was passed which prohibits touching the horses and managing the population. 

We saw huge buzzards, many busy terns, an eagle and we collected the most delicate shells that had natural holes bored by some hungry creature. Janaki and I had our first skinny dip of the adventure in 60 degree waters, totally refreshing and reminiscent of my four season dips at the Vineyard. The sun at mid day warmed and dried us off quickly after the envigorating plunge.

We all loved island so that we stayed 2 nights. The second day we were the only ones, along with the wild horses, on the miles long beach, truly magical! We hope to return possibly on the way north in the Spring it was so idealic.  

On Tuesday December 17th we continued our travels south toward Jacksonville FL on the ICW while Tim dismantled the Nissan outboard carburator to diagnose why it had died the night before. A bit of cleaning, a new o-ring and gasket, and the engine was back in shape running smoothly. We encountered many shoal areas and at one point as we were following Leela, she abruptly came to a halt having run aground. We saw this happening and quickly turned to starboard only to run up on a shoal ourselves. Fortunately, the muddy bottom is soft, does no damage, and if you don't plow your boat too deeply into it, you can usually back off without to much effort. Later in the afternoon we came to another dicey spot where we saw two sailboats ahead that were aground, so  we decided to drop anchor at a nearby deep spot and wait until the morning high tide to continue. It was also Janaki and Graham's wedding anniversary, so we brought some bubbly over to Leela and had a lovely celebration.   To our surprise, when we exited Leela's cozy cabin after dinner to dinghy back to Kuivato, wondering where the grounded boats were, one of was anchored right next to us, free of the mud.

Janaki, Diane and Tim doing yoga on Cumberland Island.