Incredible Cumberland Island

This time north, we decided to poke around in new places, in particular, the Georgia coast. We motor sailed into Fernandina Beach, the last stop in Florida and stayed for a nice Memorial Day ceremony and watched pretty sunsets out on our mooring ball. The second day, we motored across the St. Mary's River to anchor at Cumberland Island. What a treasure. We spent two days exploring this beautiful, gently inhabited island, part of the National Seashore. We anchored just beyond the park service dock. You can only reach the island by boat, your own or a passenger ferry out of St. Marys.

The tides rose and fell by 10 feet there and we witnessed a sailboat running aground under full sail at high tide. She lay on her side several hours later in the sand, but they must have pulled her off at midnight during the next high tide, because she was gone by morning.

Cumberland Island is covered by lush with maritime forests with dramatic live oaks dripping with Spanish moss and twisted cedars, and an underbrush of fan leafed palmettos. Wild shifting sand dunes tumbled into broad golden beaches of soft sand where the tide ran out 100 yards and more. In other areas, brilliant green marshes rise out of black mud, teeming with life. At the southern end of the island lies the ruined mansion of the Carnegies. Abandonned in 1929, burned in 1957, the ruins retain a crumbling beauty and give a home for the wild horses, remnants of the Carnegie stable, turkeys and other island life.  When they left the island, they also left behind their fleet of cars, which have now rusted into the ground.

St. Augustine 2013

We left Vero Beach and returned to the Fort Pierce Inlet to sail on north around Canaveral. The winds were expected light and on the quarter all day so we put up our code zero to push us north. Five hours into the trip, the winds were in the teens gusting to the mid-20s. Once again, as is so easy to do, we left the sail up a little too long. At the same time...of course at the same time.... a cruise liner out of Canaveral, bound for the Bahamas charges toward us. Rick struggled to bring the sail down, sitting on the deck and straining to haul in the silky fabric, which feels like iron when it is full of wind. He got it down, but it wasn't pretty. After that, it was motoring, motoring, motoring, through rocky 4 foot seas. Into St. Augustine and moored in the city marina at 1:30 the following day.

Lots of fun in St. Augustine. There always is. Mike and Rene on Blue Grotto, fellow Boca Chicans showed up and shared a lunch with us. We also had dinner with Paul and Manila Clough, who live in St. Augustine. Manila is an artist, who is currenly doing large scale stained glass mosaics for public buildings.



Manila's mosaic at Flagler Hospital




Dinner overlooking the beach.

 The following day, two more Boca Chica friends arrived, Ed and Claudia Moore, on Door to Summer, and Lou and Nancy Lippi on Black Pearl. Lou and Nancy had been struck by lightening off Cape Canaveral and were planning an extended stay in the St. Augustine area for electronic repairs. We managed a couple nights of cocktails on boats and dinner at A1A Ale House. Great fun running into friends in new places.



Claudia, Ed, Rick, Lou, Nancy, and Cookie



ST. Augustine required another visit to the Fort and new activities. We attended a Sea Turtle Festival and toured a visiting replica of a Spanish galleon, a magificent, authentic ship, with Spanish crew.





Spanish Fort at St. Augustine





Spanish Ship El Galeon



Whale baleen at the Sea Turtle Festival

Other pleasant surprises were in store for us as we were treated to a magnificent sunset and a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral abourt 60 miles away.

Rocket  launch at sunset with the rocket in the upper left corner.