Cumberland Island

We are now taking it slow as we don’t plan to be at St Mary’s until the 21^st and want to spend some time at Cumberland Island. We are anchored by Carnegie mansion with a few other boats near the north end. Our trip down the winding Brickhill River was easy as long as we kept to the outside of the bends. I got to far into an inside bend while munching on ginger snaps and tea and discovered a new island rising out of the falling tide and had to make a hard left to avoid it. I think I’ll call it Ginger Snap Island. Yesterday we went for a short walk but couldn’t go far due to a black powder boar hunt that was going on. There must be a lot of wild pigs on the island as one guy has permission to kill as many as he wants and he shot over 800 last year and there are still plenty left for annual hunts. We did go looking for the alligators that are in a pond nearby, we didn’t see them but I wonder if they saw us??? I did notice that is not very far from our boats. We see did several armadillos and a couple of the wild horses.

An impromptu potluck was arranged and we gathered for that about 16:00 but the small flies came out at that time so it was moved to the boat with a full enclosure.

The next day the hunt was over so we went for a 2 mile walk to the Atlantic side through the thick forest. There are a lot of tall thick pines here that would make great masts for old sailing ships.

The next morning we left for the southern anchorage. We passed close to the nuclear sub base and then through a submarine degaussing point, hopefully it wiped out all our credit card debt and not the cards.

There are a few old mansions, actually cottages from the Carnegie days on the island. They gave the island to the government when they didn’t want it anymore. The $50,000 endowment they left didn’t come close to the maintenance costs; I guess they pulled a fast one on the government…

On Sunday we will head for St Mary’s as the thanksgiving party is already starting

It’s now Sunday November 21^st and we are still anchored at Cumberland Island. We may leave for St Mary’s this afternoon. Cumberland is a nice spot and hard to leave. A lot trails to walk and explore. The south end is tamer than the north with campgrounds and flush toilets and showers though not with hot water. We are not in any hurry at the moment.