Great
Loop II Date: 05/20/2015
Day #292 (Wednesday) 68.3 miles (4102.1 total miles)
Locks: 0 (30 total locks)
Bridges: 0 (5 total bridges)
Port #70: Cumberland Island, GA
Anchorage: Cumberland Sound – north of Sea Camp Dock
Since sunrise was still well after
6AM and daybreak just a little before 6AM, keeping the alarm at 5:50AM gave me
ample time to get my few duties done before cast off. It also let the Captain catch a few extra
winks. He was up and about by
5:15AM. We were underway before
6:30AM. Running earlier in the mornings
brought us to our port by early afternoon and gave us more time to relax in the
evening hours.
 |
| Sunrise over St. Augustine mooring field. |
 |
| The Bridge of Lions at St. Augustine. We were able to pass under it without waiting for it to open. |
 |
| The El Galeon Tall Ship. |
 |
| The St. Augustine Lighthouse. |
 |
| Sunrise over the Augustine Inlet. |
 |
| Charlie doesn't like getting underway so early. |
This part of the AICW gave us vast
vistas of open water and salt grass. We
passed sailboats and trawlers tucked in nice anchorages. There were a few eagles in tall trees along
the way but too far away for my camera to catch.
 |
| These were tents over two boats instead of regular boat canvas...interesting. |
 |
| Nice decks over the boat lifts. |
We passed under bridges leading to
Jacksonville that let us know civilization was nearby. Once past the bridges, we were back into the
quiet backwaters.
 |
| Wednesday is a work day. Cars commuting into Jacksonville from Jacksonville Beach. |
 |
| Mayport Naval Base at the Jacksonville Inlet. |
 |
| Shipyard...it looked empty until we turned the corner. |
 |
| Two luxury yachts and a freighter in for repairs. You'll have to click on the picture to see the smaller yacht behind the bigger yacht. |
 |
| The bigger yacht was Freedom. |
 |
| The smaller yacht was CYAN...and it really did look small behind Freedom. |
 |
| Freedom pretty well covers CYAN in the picture...and even as we passed by until... |
 |
| ...I noticed the man standing on the back deck of CYAN! Just some of the things we see along the AICW. |
 |
| The Sister Creek drawbridge in Jacksonville is being replaced with an ICW height bridge (65' minimum). The drawbridge is scheduled for demolition June 2016. |
 |
| A tour boat from Mayport. We see a lot of tour boats in different parts of the trip. |
 |
| Fernandina Municipal Marina where we stayed in 2011. Nice little town close to the marina. |
 |
| We elected not to stay there this time because of the noxious odors we had from two paper plants...one on each side of the marina. |
 |
| Nice wall cloud right at the Florida/Georgia State line and the inlet. |
We reached our anchorage
mid-afternoon in a falling tide and brisk winds. OB’s anchor set quickly. With her bridle in place, we were ready for a
quiet evening.
 |
| Our anchorage in Cumberland Sound. |
 |
| Kings Bay Degaussing Station across the river from our anchorage. |
 |
| Sunsets are pretty in Georgia, too. |
 |
| These feral horses came to feed each morning near our boat. |
The tides were getting deeper and
deeper at this point. Tides next to
Cumberland Island were 7 feet. It was a
little worrisome at first with the wind and the strong current. However, OB moved in a perfect circle around
her anchor throughout the 36 hours we were anchored.
We have an anchor set mode on our
electronic charting program. It shows us
our pattern around the anchor. It’s easy
to see when it’s set or if it’s dragging along the bottom.
Our new chain and bridle system
changed anchoring for OB. The chain is
heavy and adds weight behind the anchor helping make it more secure. The bridle lowers the angle of the chain
coming back to the boat much like our keg (kettle or 10# mushroom anchor
lowered on the line following a line and chain anchor system). The low angle helps and keeps the anchor
plowing into the bottom mud or sand.
Cumberland Island is a popular stop
for Loopers. Cumberland Island has a
long history of civilization dating back to BC.
Its popularity now is the ruins of the Dungeness, a mansion built and
owned by the Thomas M. Carnegie family.
It wasn’t the first Dungeness on the sight. Thomas and Lucy had nine children. We were told some of the descendants may
still live on the island.
 |
| The old arched Oaks draped in Spanish Moss leading up the lane from the dock at the old Ice House. |
 |
| A picture of the front of Dungeness before it burned. |
 |
| The gated entry to Dungeness. |
 |
| The ruins of Dungeness from the front. |
 |
A picture of the back of Dungeness before it burned.
 |
The back of Dungeness now.
 |
| The backyard at Dungeness |
 |
| A statue of Mercury. |
 |
| The Pergola entrance near the backyard of Dungeness...where the Carnegies entertained in the summer evenings. |
 |
| The Pergola. |
 |
| The ruins of the Recreation and Health building. |
 |
| The Recreation Building ruins in the foreground and Dungeness in the background. |
 |
| The beach at Dungeness...quite a walk from the ruins. |
 |
| Todd taking a break from the long walk. |
 |
| The boardwalk that went through the salt marsh from the beach to Dungeness. |
The second sight making Cumberland
popular are the fetal horses that run wild throughout the island. They were everywhere. Most were smaller than most horses we’ve seen
possibly do to the fact that the forage off the land and are not kept. They looked healthy and beautiful.
There was a lot of other species of
wild life listed as cohabitants of Cumberland.
Wild hogs were on that list, however we saw none. We did find large herds of middle school age
children on field trips. By the time we
came across them, they looked hot, tired and depleted from their adventure.
Our second night at anchor the winds
died to nothing before sunset. OB turned
into an oven. We turned on the
generator, cooled her down with the air conditioning, relaxed and watched some
television until well after sunset.
Before bed, I turned the AC and generator off and opened OB’s windows
and doors to let the cooler night breeze flow through.
