We have been terribly lax lately concerning the blog…but we are going to attempt to catch up! Our last entry was from Rodriques Key in Florida, just west of Key Largo. Since we are in Georgia now, we are posting two blogs – one for northern Florida (below) and one for Georgia. So, read the Florida blog first and then this Georgia blog will finally ‘catch us up’. We enjoy all the nice comments from family and friends on the blog. We are glad that you are having as much fun with it as we are.
What has become one of our favorite anchorages is off of Cumberland Island, GA, where we anchored for a few days. This is an island that was once owned by the Carnegie family. It is where the late John Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette secretly married and honeymooned. It is now partly owned by the National Park Service and there is only one Inn and a handful of “grandfathered” private homes still on the island. It is full of wild horses, armadillos, wild turkeys, deer and bird life.
We took the dingy about a mile to the island to go exploring the next day…but as we got about 50 yards from the dock, the dingy engine died! We took the paddles out and got to the dock. We couldn’t get the engine started again so we just walked around and saw the sights. When we got back to the dingy, with high hopes that it would start, we found that it still wouldn’t. Luckily, another couple returned to their dingy to head back to their boat, and they towed us back to Rickshaw. Of course TowBoat U.S. was just a radio call away, so we didn’t fret too much. Just another thing to get fixed!!
Our next stop was in St. Simons, GA. We stayed at our favorite marina, Golden Isles Marina. They have nice wide fairways so getting the boat into the slip is easy. BUT the most important thing is that they deliver muffins each morning to the boat before sunrise! Nice breakfast. We got to see Rick's first grade friend, Gayle and his wife Dee, again and we had a great dinner at the Coastal Kitchen restaurant right at the marina. Gayle was getting ready for a Presidential visit to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where he runs the show. Gayle is, more importantly, planning to retire, finally, after 42 years, on July 3rd. We welcome him into the wonderful world of retirement. It is a great place to be.
From St. Simons, GA we went to a marina on the southern side of Savannah called Isle of Hope. They have a courtesy car (…a green Lexus ES300, with a trailer hitch…really…) and we took it today to run some errands and see the historic town. It is a beautiful little place full of historic homes. Rick was finally persuaded to get a haircut after 3 months of growth … almost ponytail time. Tonight we will borrow the car again and go to one of the local seafood restaurants. Tomorrow we leave for Hilton Head and a visit with the friends we made in Melbourne, FL. They were able to get us an extra free night in the marina so we’ll have time for more boat chores!!
At this point we are just shy of 2000 miles on this trip, which puts us about 400 ICW miles from home in Morehead City, NC.
This is the head of a manatee at the dingy dock at Cumberland Island. Hard to get a good picture of them.
Wild horses grazing on the shore. There were hundreds of them on the island.
Walking to the ruins of Dungenous estate which was built by the Carneiges in the late 1800's. It was destroyed by fire in the 1930's.
A beautiful rainbow. We had been having bad rains off and on for several days. Luckily, this last one passed us by.
Being towed by Mary and Mike back to Rickshaw with their 3 hp motor!!
A horse in the arbor in the Dungenous mansion gardens.
