Georgia's Heavenly Isles

We've spent the past week enjoying 3 of Georgia's coastal islands - Cumberland, Jekyll, and St Simons.

 

Cumberland Island is indeed heavenly. We anchored at the Cumberland Sound anchorage for 4 nights (last Mon - Thurs). The national park has a dock and pavilion there, and its where the ferry from St Mary's lands with day trippers and campers. Less than a mile to the beach and lots of trails and great scenery.

We had a wonderful surprise on Tuesday when sailboat Shine dropped anchor near us with Castine/New Bern friends Scott and Lynn aboard, whom we had last seen in Oriental NC. We spent much of the rest of the week walking beaches with them and sharing drinks/snacks on each others boats. Great to see familiar faces and swap cruising stories. They are headed further south for a springtime cruise.

 

Saw many wild horses (actually quite tame) on Cumberland, a few deer, and many birds:

 

On Friday we pulled anchor and made a short 16 mile run up to Jekyll Harbor Marina, where we had stopped on our southbound trip. Jekyll island is developed but not too crowded, and has the best system of bike trails:

Many of the trails don't run along a road but instead cut through the woods, with wooden bridges across marshy areas. Really nice. The dogs enjoyed walks on the 2 mile loop between the marina and the historic district. We stayed 2 nights to give ourselves time for some biking.

 

On Sunday we left mid-day for a short 8 mile hop up to Golden Isles Marina here on St Simons Island. This island is more developed, which is the point as we needed to borrow the marina's courtesy car and run to the grocery store to replenish Spray's pantry. They limit car use to 1 hour which equates to $200 at the fancy Harris Teeter store. We are now well supplied.

 

Other than the grocery store we haven't seen much of St Simons, although we are enjoying this deluxe marina. We happened to arrive during a cruisers potluck party, with beer supplied by the marina. I'm also a sucker for the newspaper and muffins delivered to the boat every morning.

 

We had planned on staying only 1 night here but nasty weather prompted us to stay a 2nd night. Strong thunderstorms were predicted for last night, and there was a tornado watch, but what we ended up getting was just a lot of rain without much other drama. It's still raining this morning but should stop soon. We'll shove off at noon for a 27 mile run to another heavenly isle : Sapelo.

 

Posted with Blogsy