"Wild horses couldn't drag me away." November 25, 2012

After our three days of eating and partying at St. Marys, we went a few miles north and anchored at Cumberland Island. This island has a lot of history and tremendous beauty. We stayed three days and thoroughly enjoyed our experience here.




As soon as you leave the ranger station and head down the trail, you enter a remarkable forest of palmetto plants and live oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from the branches.




After the forest, you come to a boardwalk through the dunes,







And then onto a pristine beach that stretches as far as you can see in either direction.


After a walk on the beach, we headed inland to the salt marsh and saw these men casting nets to catch baitfish.




Soon we were back in the forest and we encountered some of the wild horses that roam Cumberland. They were released from Lucy Carnegie's stable upon her death and have had free reign of the island ever since.




The horses are wild, but seem comfortable with the tourists they encounter.




We walked to the south end of the island and viewed the ruins of the Dungeness Mansion. The mansion was rebuilt by Thomas and Lucy Carnegie in 1884 on the site of the original mansion which was built in 1783 by Nathanael Greene. The Carnegies occupied Dungeness and acquired much of the island as their "winter estate." The mansion burned in 1959. The Carnegie family sold most of the island to the federal government and in 1972 Congress created Cumberland Island National Seashore.

After our "self guided walking tour," we arranged to take a van ride with a ranger and toured the north end of the island.




We toured the Plum Orchard mansion which was built for one of the Carnegie children.



We continued to the north end and saw the First African Baptist Church which is where JFK Junior was married to Carolyn Bessette in1996. The chapel is amazingly small and has no electricity. It was fun to imagine such an elegant event in this building.

The church is located in the area called the Settlement, which became home to freed slaves. The last resident moved away in the late 1950's.

After a long day in the van bouncing over the unimproved dirt roads, it was back to the boat for another sunset.


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Location:Cumberland Island, Georgia

There is this town...... November 22, 2012

Living aboard has many challenges. One of them is being separated from family and friends on the holidays. We visited a town in Georgia that has found a way to help with this challenge. Twelve years ago, St. Marys, Georgia established a Cruisers' Thanksgiving gathering. The townspeople have welcomed as many as 300 cruisers to join them in celebrating the holiday by getting together to enjoy turkey and all the trimmings. The cruisers who attend bring a dish to pass and the townspeople provide the rest. The event is held in the Riverview Hotel in the center of the town.

The event has grown to a week long celebration with gatherings each night leading up to Thanksgiving dinner. On Tuesday evening we went to the chili party and had the opportunity to meet a lot of fellow boaters making the same trip that we are. Wednesday night we went to an oyster roast. Thursday morning a couple of local boaters pulled up along our boat to offer us Bloody Marys. The Thanksgiving Day feast was truly that! More food than you can imagine and lots of good cheer.




This is the "Bloody Mary Boat."



This is the St. Marys anchorage after the party.




Sunset at St. Marys.



The crew of Glory Days, wishing everyone who reads this, a very Happy Thanksgiving.

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Location:St. Marys, Georgia

We left Saint Simons Island yesterday and moved on down to Jekyll Island to the south. It was another cloudy, cool and blustery day. After getting tied up and settled, we walked up the dock into the Jekyll Island Club district. This is an area steeped in history and old money. In 1886, John Eugene Du Bignon divided this area of the island in to shares and sold the lots to wealthy businessmen. It became the winter vacation home to some of the richest and most powerful men of their time.









These are pictures of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, which is still in operation. It was in this hotel that the power brokers of their time got together and drafted the legislation to create the Federal Reserve Bank.

The Island is now owned by the State of Georgia and it is preserved as a national landmark.




The state has done a wonderful job of maintaining this jewel of the south. We walked the narrow streets and viewed the many "cottages."














Dan sat on the porch of the hotel, in the same chair that may have been occupied by Goodyear, J.P. Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt or Crane.

Before we left Jekyll Island, we used the marina bikes and rode to the other side of the island and walked the beach. We have been along the Atlantic coast for weeks, but this was our first opportunity to see the beach and feel the sand under our feet.








Look who we ran into on our walk!

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Location:Jekyll Island, Georgia

Georgia on my mind. November 18, 2012

We ended up staying at Beaufort for two nights. The weather was cold and rainy, so staying tied to the dock was appealing. It also gave us another chance to walk around this lovely city, which is one of our favorites so far.

Because we needed to leave at slack tide, we did not get our usual early start and left the dock at about 11:00 am.




Soon after leaving Beaufort we passed the Marine Training Base at Paris Island. According to the water tower, this is where they make marines.




We passed Hilton Head and the famous red and white lighthouse and then stopped for the night at an anchorage in Bull Creek.




After a cold day on the water, it was nice to get the anchor down, close the boat up, and enjoy a hot dinner of spaghetti with clam sauce and rolls. On cold nights and mornings we look for things we can bake in the oven as it does a good job of warming the cabin. We have been eating a lot of rolls and muffins lately.

We decided that because we spent two nights in Beaufort and had a short day to Bull Creek, we had better pick up the pace. We hauled anchor at 6:30 the next morning and knocked off about 65 miles before anchoring in in the Wahoo River just before dark.

Much of the last week or so the ICW has taken us through huge salt marshes. The path we follow is never in a straight lines and it seems to take us through all of the points of the compass, even north!




The scenery is interesting and varied. We came around a corner and saw this encampment. We don't even want to think about what was going on here.








Within just a few miles we passed these two houses.

As we were dropping the anchor at the Wahoo Rive, the sun popped out for the first time in several days and lit up the surroundings.












Soon the sun was down and were toasting our arrival in Georgia with Buffalo Bob T's Manhattans.

Today it was up and going at 6:30 am again, but instead of pushing on to Jekyll Island, we detoured away from the ICW and went down the Frederica River and stopped in front of Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island.




On our way down the river we saw this lone palm tree in the marsh.

The fort was established by the British in 1736 as a defense against the Spanish.



We walked around the ruins of the Fort Frederica and enjoyed an afternoon off the boat in the sunshine.

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Location:Frederica River, Georgia

On to Beaufort! November 14, 2012

After an all too short stay in Charleston, we left the Ashley River Marina and headed to the Stono River toward Beaufort. The guidebook states, "....tidal current in the Elliott Cut, between the Stono River and the Ashley River can reach four knots." We were just a bit off on our timing and although we didn't see four knots of current, we saw enough to realize we should have stayed in Charleston another hour or so. It is all a timing game and sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

After clearing this cut we motored for hours through marshland past Johns Island. We stopped for the night and anchored just as the sun was setting in Toogoodoo Creek. It was another beautiful and peaceful spot, but we did not see it for long because the no see ums were out in force and drove us below as soon as the anchor was set.




On the way we got a short rain shower and saw a nice rainbow. This is Heritage sailing through the arch.




The next morning we left the Stono River for the Dawho then the Edisto River to the Ashtepoo River and then into the Brickyard Creek which connects to the Beaufort River. You get the idea; lots of rivers.

We pulled into a small anchorage off the Brickyard Creek and anchored near the home of Alan and Kathy. They are friends of friends of our friends, George and Jackie. This connection got us an invitation to their lovely home for cocktails. Alan and Nancy have done the trip to the Bahamas many times and were a wealth of knowledge, as well as gracious hosts.





This anchorage is now known as "the incredible shrinking anchorage." We came in on a falling tide and within a few hours, most of the water had flowed away. This picture shows a crab pot that was underwater when we anchored and is now nearly high and dry. it was also the first time that we anchored next to a herd of cattle.



We left in the morning and motored the six remaining miles into Beaufort and just barely made the 9:00 am bridge opening. After getting settled at the city docks, we used the marina's courtesy car for a run to West Marine and Piggly Wiggly.

Later in the afternoon, we did an informal walking tour of the city.


The architecture and the landscaping is all very "deep south."









We met a woman who lives in a renovated home that once was the "dependencies house," (slave quarters) for a mansion. She knew a lot of history of the area and showed us the "four seater restroom" next to what was the stable.




Beaufort is a beautiful city that has held on to its history and culture. It has also been used as a set for many movies including The Big Chill, Forrest Gump, The Great Santini, Prince of Tides and GI Jane. We saw the home that was used in the Big Chill and the park where the touch football game was filmed.




Tomorrow we head toward Savannah, but we will probably not go all the way because the forecast is calling for a cool rainy day.



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Location:Beaufort, SC

We're in the Low Country now, November, 12, 2012

We left Myrtle Beach with the folks from Heritage and Chances and had a great ride to Minim Creek, which was a lovely peaceful anchorage. The weather has been steadily warming up and it is feeling more like we are down south. The scenery has been changing and we were seeing Spanish moss hanging from the trees on our way down.












We also have been seeing more dolphins, although it is difficult to capture them on camera.







We made it to Charleston late in the day on Saturday and tied up in the Harborage on the Ashley River.



We celebrated George's birthday with a delicious dinner at Fleet Landing restaurant. We walked back to the marina checking out the shops on King Street. We enjoyed carrot cake on Heritage when we got back.




The next day, we connected with Dan's cousin Abbi and her husband, David. They took us to the Middleton Place, an old plantation, which is a National Historic Landmark. The grounds were lovely, with huge trees and flowering bushes. There were demonstrations of ways people lived self-sufficiently, such as pottery, blacksmithing, and cooking. We have been hearing that we are in gator country now and we saw our first alligators here on the shore of the river. We had some good southern cooking at the restaurant, where we learned that macaroni and cheese is considered a vegetable here. Abbi and David were also kind enough to take us to the local Sam's Club, which cruisers know is almost considered a luxury.






The Middleton Plantation was burned by Sherman's army during his "March to the Sea." This stature, "Wood Nymph," survived.







Abbi and David.

Today we had a nice ride in warm weather to an anchorage at Toogoodoo Creek, another quiet anchorage in a marsh. Tomorrow we head for Beaufort.


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Location:Charleston, SC