Cumberland Island

What a spectacular day we had today.

Situated on the outer banks of Georgia is Cumberland Island. Being a national park and wild life refuge Cumberland Island offers so many wonderful points of interest.

To begin with, the vegetation is varied depending on where you are on the island. We walked through a dense forest of live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss…the forest floor lush with palmetto shrubs. Then we walked out of that into sand dunes, which led us to an amazing undeveloped beach laden with shells, crabs, and starfish. From there we walked back inland through some marsh land, across a meadow, and onto the grounds of the abandoned Carnegie Dungeness.


Among the wildlife on the island are deer, racoons, and armadillos, but the most amazing wildlife of all are the wild horses that roam freely everywhere. How wonderful it was to see these magnificent animals living their lives totally free the way nature intended it.

Thanksgiving

Lucky us! We scored big time coming here!

If I can be serious though....the hospitality the town folk of St Marys has shown the 90 boats that came here for Thanksgiving is totally overwhelming. It began on Tuesday, when we arrived, with a welcome "Pain Killer"* party. Wednesday they organized a tag team of vans to take everyone who wanted to go to the mall to shop, or do laundry, or do just whatever they needed. Then, that evening there was a huge party at the local pub with an oyster bake.

The best, however, was saved for yesterday....Thanksgiving day. Everyone brought a pot luck dish and the locals volunteered their time and donated turkeys and we all gathered at the local pub to sit down to a fabulous dinner. Then, just when we felt that there couldn't possibly be more, they had a band playing in the beautiful waterfront park that evening. We even limbered up our stiff cruiser joints with dancing.

Today we are leaving and heading over to Cumberland Island, another recommended spot.

Pictures:
1.Waterfront Park - St. Marys, Georgia
2.The private yacht moored in front of us. Check out the mooring ball!

* Painkiller: Two parts orange juice, one part pineapple juice, one part rum, and a teaspoon of coconut cream. Blend, serve over ice, sprinkle with nutmeg.

In Florida...almost.

After spending nine days in the Isle of Palms we are now on our way again. Even though our stop there was unexpected and due to a mechanical breakdown, we left with mixed feelings. Certainly we were happy that our transmission was fixed, and glad to be on our way again, but it felt a little sad like the end of a vacation. Our wallets were emptied but the days were filled with fun, laughter, and adventure…just like a vacation. I will always have fond memories of the Isle of Palms.

There has been no internet on Blue Blazes for a few of days, which is why there hasn’t been any postings lately. The first two days were spent strictly travelling down the I.C.W. Since we were trying to make up for lost time, we only stopped at dusk to eat and sleep and left again at dawn.

Finally, we anchored in Bull Creek near Hilton Head, South Carolina where we met up once again with Lion’s Paw and stayed put for a couple of nights. When we arrived, Marg and Steve surprised us by preparing a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. Given that the four of us missed our Canadian Thanksgiving, and the American Thanksgiving is just around the corner, they thought it would be a good idea. They had turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, corn, and gravy. Our boating friends will appreciate that preparing a meal like this in our small galleys is no easy feat. Everything was delicious and we all ate till we were stuffed. Marg and Steve, if you are reading this, thank you so much!

We stayed in that area for a couple of days as we were waiting for good weather to head off shore. Well, we found our window of opportunity and last night we sailed down to St. Marys, Georgia, which is on the Georgia/Florida border. It was a long trip, with very little wind, but we at least made some good headway. And, I have to admit, it sure beats too much wind.

St. Marys is another town that loves boaters and they even put on a wonderful thanksgiving dinner just for them so, needless to say, we will be staying until then. After that…..well…..Bahamas isn’t too far away now. We will probably go to the Florida Keys first but it won’t be long after that.

Pictured above:
Boats lined up on the Savanah River getting ready to head off shore.

We're Book'n Out.

It's been a long tiring day but we are happy to report that the transmission is fixed and we should be on our way tomorrow morning. Keep your fingers crossed that our test run doesn't uncover any problems.

Still

While our transmission sits on a bench in some shop somewhere, we are trying to keep ourselves entertained here in the Isle of Palms. Regretfully, yesterday, in my quest to stay entertained, I cut my hair. I now look like a mutant Farah Fawcett. Not exactly the look I was going for.

Today, we got together with two other couples and had the marina staff drive us into the main touristy area of town. We walked the beach, had lunch at a cool surfer bar, and then rented golf carts to tour the rest of this island. We even checked out Solomons Island. It was tons of fun!

Pictured above are some more treasures we found on the beach. (The money was play money......too bad)

The mechanic tells us that he should be back to install our repaired transmission this Thursday but we know that probably means Friday at the earliest. We'll see.

Isle of Palms, South Carolina

They don't call it Isle of Palms for nothing.

This truly is a beautiful spot and if we have to be stuck somewhere it's nice that it's here. Palm trees are everywhere making it feel very tropical and the beach is very special as well. There are no resort hotels...only private beach homes.

Shown above are some of the treasures we found.

Tonight there is an oyster bake here at the marina complete with live music. The band is playing funk/jazz and I must say they are GREAT.

Trying to keep entertained while we wait.

I was bored today so I thought I would try and figure out how to download a picture from Lion's Paw's blog. This is what I came up with.......lol...... This is obviously Halloween. Steve and I don't always look like this.

It looks like we are going to be here in the Isle of Palms, South Carolina for a bit longer while we wait for our transmission to be repaired. In the meantime we are trying to keep ourselves entertained. The weather is bright and sunny (and warmer) so today we think we will take a trip to the beach. It's just a short walk away. All going well, we should be on our way again in a couple of days.

Marg and Steve have left for points south so I guess that means we will be going it alone from here. I miss them already but I'm trying not to let it get me down. I'm sure we will meet up again sooner or later.