EllisIslandLoop: Saturday, April 8

Saturday, April 8 - Cumberland Island

Before we left this boat-rich area, we wanted to get a closer look at the navy ships at Mayport, so we cruised out to the river entrance. I don't know exactly what types we saw, but one had a helicopter on top.

After Mayport, we passed through some beautiful marshes. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Amelia Island was next. As we got close to Fernandina Beach, we saw these extremely long docks. I hope they had golf carts to get out to their boats.

Navigating in this area is pretty tricky due to shallows and tides.

We had planned to eat lunch in Fernandina, but the city dock had a been damaged in the hurricane and didn't have a place for us to pull up. I was really looking forward to playing tourist here. We also saw lots of boats with hurricane damage.

Cumberland Island was high on our must-see list for the loop. When we visited Tybee each year, we always wanted to visit Cumberland, but it took too time to get down there, take the ferry, explore and get back to Tybee. This was our chance! As we approached the island, we saw lots of boats anchored. We headed for one group of boats, only to find very shallow water so we had to go back out and come in from a different channel.

We anchored, then took the dinghy in to explore.

From the Visitor Center, we hiked at LEAST a mile to the Dungeness ruins. On the way, we saw some of the wild horses, an armadillo, and some beautiful trees.

The ruins were impressive, but sad. The signage and historical markings were minimal compared to most national park sites we have visited, probably because there was less historical significance than evidence of great wealth.