May 27, Tuesday – Our First Island

In the morning we returned to St. Marys prepared to spend a day on the island. The park service did an excellent job preparing the visitors for their day on the island with illustrated signs with the gear you needed to bring because there were no stores and water was very limited. Forty five minutes later 60 passengers disembarked at the Ice House Dock. Ginger, our naturalist spent an hour with us walking down one lane sand roads with maritime forests on either side. She repeatedly spoke about the cycle of the island: the first people of the Timucuan nation. They were the most advanced natives north of the Central America nations with agriculture and trade. They welcomed and worked with the Spanish explorers that lived on Cumberland. Then the English arrived followed by the Americans after the Revolutionary War with famous names such as Arron Burr and Nathanael Greene connected to it. However the established fame revolves around the fortunes of the Thomas (brother of Andrew) Carnegie family. Carnegie’s millions came from the steel industry and was expressed on Cumberland Island. Carnegie’s wife had nine children and each got their own mansion. Today the Plum Orchard Mansion is the show place of the island. Hannah and I walked with our group to the old original mansion called Dungeness. It was abandon when the mother of the family died and was burned in 1957. Portions of its brick four stories pierce the skyline.
After leaving the ranger tour, Hannah and I walked out the boardwalk to the ocean side of the island. We found unusual shade for a beach boardwalk and both collapsed for a well-deserved nap. Napping on the ground is always out of the question due to the ants, ticks and chiggers however we felt safe on the walk because it was three above the sand/soil and no one was on the boardwalk.
The beach walk north for a mile brought to a cross trail back to the protected west side where we waited on the large ranger station porch. We joined the others in the string of rocking chairs. How south!! Rocking chairs on a long porch with live oaks; strings of Spanish moss next to saltwater channels.
The 45 minute boat ride back to the mainland to St Marys was a wonderful final act for the day.