Cumberland Island
Sunday December 6, 2020
It’s great to be anchored 200 yards off the shore of Cumberland Island. Once we left Cotinga, it only took us a couple of minutes in the dinghy and we were safely tied up to the dock on the south west corner of the island. Cumberland Island is the biggest of Georgia’s sea islands; it’s 17 miles long and about 36,000 acres - a little longer and twice the area of Manhattan.
A brief history …
There have been people associated with the island for 4,000 years but the vast majority of the island remains undeveloped. In 1806 Nathanael Greene, who was a revolutionary war hero from Rhode Island, started to build a mansion out of “tabby” (a shell based mortar) at the south end of the island. He died before it was completed, but his wife Catherine Littlefield Greene finished the project and named it “Dungeness”. This building was burned to the ground in 1866, but in 1884 Thomas Carnegie, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, built a new mansion on the same site. He also died shortly after its completion. His wife Lucy then remodeled the property into a 59-room mansion based on a Scottish castle. She and her 9 children used it as a summer home and the estate had an additional 40 smaller buildings to house the 200 servants! In 1959 this latest version of “Dungeness” also burned to the ground. By this point in time the Carnegie family owned 90% of Cumberland Island and through their donation and the work of numerous environmental groups it came into public ownership and was designated a National Seashore. One condition of Carnegie donation was that the family horses be allowed to roam free on the island.
Cumberland Island is absolutely beautiful. It’s a mixture of salt marsh, ancient live oak woods draped with Spanish moss, barrier island sand dunes and pristine beaches. Can you imagine an undeveloped beach that is so long that you can stand in the middle of it and not be able to see either end because of the curvature of the earth? Today we took a 5 mile walk, recommend by the National Park Service, that takes in a little of all these areas. We saw several of the famous feral horses as well as deer, raccoon, dolphin and a wide variety of birds. Highlights amongst these were several pileated woodpeckers, hooded mergansers, Carolina wren, Forster’s and Royal terns, Wilson’s and piping plover. It may only have been 5 miles but we were ashore for almost 7 hours. If the weather is reasonable we will go back tomorrow.
Whilst the anchorage is good it’s quite open and not very protected from the wind. The current also runs very strongly. There are two cold fronts coming through over the next couple of days and one review we read of the anchorage said that it could get really nasty with strong winds over tide. Think washing machine! The winds aren’t predicted to be too strong and should blow across the current rather than against it, so hopefully it won’t get too bad.
Mike
30 45.353 N, 81 28.553 W
I am having my morning coffee as I am reading your blog and I am really enjoying it. What a beautiful place, especially with the wild horses! Great photo of the horse on the boardwalk!
ReplyDeleteHi Sheila, as the horse approached it wasn't clear which of us was more nervous. I wanted it to get closer so I could get a better photo but I didn't want it too close. In the end we both retreated!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how you were able to get that photo Mike! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI remember this island well as we walked down the main road to the beach and were enjoying nature when a sand dune buggy barreled down the beach(think James Bond villain) towards us- turns out, it was a ranger warning us that there was a hunt in progress- ( where was the sign?) he drove us back to our anchorage so we missed the great ruins of the scottish carnegie Mansion. Thanks for letting us see it after all!
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