Day 324. 329; April 7 – 12: Sunday, 4/7 we said goodbye to Puffin and No Rush at Jekyll Island and departed for St. Simons and Sea Island. It would be short run (about 2 hours) so we took our time in the morning with a leisurely breakfast and lines off around 11:00 am. Had lunch underway, arriving around 1:00 pm having fought the current the whole way. We normally cruise at about 10 knots and the current slowed us down to just over 8.
We had a strange (and noisy) following of birds just about the whole way that we’ve not seen before; sort of like you see behind a shrimp boat. We saw just one dolphin on the way, although he/she only swam along with us for a few seconds. We do miss the playful pods of dolphins we enjoyed in FL, but did read that boaters are starting to see dolphins in the Chesapeake, so we look forward to that.
The Village of St. Simons with its cute shops, restaurants, pier, parks and lighthouse was just a short 2 mile bike ride away, so off we went. There was a wonderful bike path the whole way making the trip a breeze. We poked around downtown and of course, found some ice cream! We decided on a quiet dinner on the boat to use some of fresh veggies we had gotten at the farmer market and watch some of the MASL playoff games. Even though our beloved Baltimore Blast are on the sidelines, we still like to watch.
Monday, 4/8 we picked up a rental car and tooled around St. Simons checking it out as a possibility for a winter home. We stopped in and spent some time with a local realtor who gave us the lay of the land of St. Simons and Sea Island. There are many gated communities on St. Simons we couldn’t wander into, but Sea Island is entirely a private island that we’d need to wait to see on Tuesday, when Carol’s friend Jon provided us with a pass. He also provided some restaurant recommendations, the first of which was Halyards on St. Simons that we went to on Monday. Tuesday, Jon treated us to dinner on Sea Island at Tavola – which was fabulous! We could definitely see ourselves on Sea Island and it was great to get some insights from him on his experiences there. Sea Island has great golf for Gary, ocean for Carol but limited places to keep Legacy. Jon reminded us that it does get down right cold in the winter, so to keep that in mind.
Wednesday, 4/10 it was time for us to move on and head further north. After picking up our free muffins from the coffee shop, a perk of staying at the Morning Star Marina, we threw off lines around 10:00 am for a planned 3.5 hour run to Tea Kettle Creek where we planned to anchor for the night. With heavy rain and wind forecasted overnight, we decided we’d skip the anchorage and press on all the way to Sunbury making it a 6.5 hour run, but we’d be much safer at the marina. It was a twisty, turny day through Georgia’s marsh land, creeks and rivers where we needed to be ever mindful of water depth.
We are thankful for the amazing electronics on Legacy and wonder how the first looper managed this back in 1906. We arrived around 4:45, just in time before the dock hands went home for the night. There were 2 or 3 other looper boats there, but with the rain coming in, no docktails. It was just as well since Carol had a BOD meeting at 6:30 pm. The winds picked up to about 35 knots and the rain was very heavy overnight and most of the morning.
The sun came out and dried things off a bit just after noon. The heavy rain gave Carol a chance to jump on a several hour zoom call with Jane and begin to hammer out a budget for FY 2024/2025 for A Little Compassion and the Nest Coffee House. With the rain finally stopping, Gary grabbed a bucket and brush to give Legacy a good scrub on the outside. Carol got off the boat and stretched her legs a bit before getting on another BOD call that would go from 4:30 – 6:15. Then it was off to dinner at the Sunbury Creek Crab Company right there at the marina. It was quite the rustic looking place with ‘rustic’ being a generous description, so our expectations were low. The service and food were actually exceptional with Gary commenting it was the best pecan pie he’s ever had….I guess that means it was better than Carol’s….Hmmmmm.
Tom and Susan aboard Mona Lisa hailing out of Connecticut were also there, so we enjoyed chatting with them. We never did meet Chris and Lisa on Cool Beans who were tied up right behind us. Between the heavy rains and several meetings, we only saw each other through the rain drops. They were up and out earlier than us on Friday, 4/12 but we can see them on Nebo ahead of us also headed toward Savannah and Skidaway Island.
We left Sunbury around 9:30 am, a departure time coordinated with a rising tide. There are a few ‘skinny spots’ (that’s boater talk for shallow water) we needed to traverse on the way to Skidaway, so tide matters. The tidal swing here is a remarkable 6-7 feet! Check out the photo of Legacy above and note how tall the pilings are – that’s because those are floating docks that rise with the tide and need to ride up and down those pilings. It was a bit cool with winds between 20 and 30 knots on this leg of the trip to Thunderbolt Marina in Savannah. We arrived just after 2:00 pm and look forward to exploring this area, particularly a community called ‘The Landings.’
Read on for some St. Simons history if you are so inclined:
St. Simons has an interesting history as the second-largest and most developed of Georgia’s barrier islands; approximately twelve miles long and three miles wide (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River.
The Georgia coast was considered “debatable land” by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat.
Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel’s tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service.
By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. The island played almost no role in the war.
Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farmland and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or “Old Ironsides.” Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton.
Between the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons’ plantation culture flourished. One of the largest owners of land and enslaved laborers was Pierce Butler, owner of Hampton Point Plantation. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler’s Island.
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons’ plantation era. After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no enslaved laborers to work the fields. Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 in January 1865 demanding that former plantations be divided and distributed to formerly enslaved workers. This was overturned by President Andrew Johnson less than a year later, and freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms previously occupied by the sprawling plantations.
By 1870 economic recovery began with the re-establishment of the timber industry. Lumber mills were set up on the former Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided employment but also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new light house in 1872 marked the beginning of St. Simons’ tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park and the island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland.
The island’s resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island, accessible by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island.
The opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for residential and resort development.
In 1926 Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s.
The outbreak of WWII (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida, Savannah and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers.
With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats In April 1942, just off the coast, 2 US flagged oil tankers were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents.
Due in large part to the military’s improvement of the island’s infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. The island continues to be a major vacation destination as its development boom continues.
chashurley
More history that I didn’t know!