Cumberland Island
I was excited to spend a day on Cumberland Island National Seashore after spending much of our vacation in cities. Off the coast of Georgia, but almost on the Florida/Georgia border, Cumberland Island is only accessible via ferry from St. Mary’s, Georgia.
Currently the ferry leaves from St. Mary’s at 9 and 11:45am and returns at 10:15am, 2:45, and 4:45pm. It can sell out, so it doesn’t hurt to buy ferry tickets in advance. Many people go for just a day trip, but there are several campgrounds, so overnight trips are possible. There’s also the Greyfield Inn, a 4 star hotel.
We were asked to check-in and pick-up our ferry tickets an hour prior to departure, which was 8am, so we spent the night in St. Mary’s. There are not a ton of lodging or dining options in the area (I would recommend the Riverside Cafe, but the Best Western could use a refresh), but it worked okay for one night. The ferry took about 45 minutes to arrive at Cumberland Island and we were returning on the 2:45 ferry so we had about five hours to explore.
We got off the ferry at the Ice House Museum dock. The other option is Sea Camp, which is closer to the campground. Once on the island our transportation was our legs, so we did a fair amount of walking and our first stop was the Dungeness Ruins. Cumberland Island had been inhabited for many years, but the last residents were the Carnegies, starting in the late 1800’s through 1925 and the mansion was destroyed in a fire in 1959.
Our next stop, not far from the ruined mansion was the boardwalk, with pretty views over the marshlands.
And then we headed to the beach where there were so many birds and almost no people.
We walked south for awhile and saw something in the distance that looked like two people walking up the beach, but it turned out it was two wild horses walking up the beach.
When it’s warm enough, swimming is an option. And beach combing is allowed for any shells that are not inhabited, which is unusual for National Park sites. I found lots of nice shells, but not any sharks teeth. After a long beach walk, we returned inland at Sea Camp Campground and walked over to Sea Camp Ranger Station.
We returned to Ice House Museum dock via the River Trail from Sea Camp Ranger Station and along the way we ran into a pretty green lizard and an armadillo. Not long after that, the ferry arrived and we returned to the mainland.
