St Simon Island

We arrived at Golden Isles Marina at 4:45pm after a wonderful day of sailing. We left Fernandina Beach at high tide (10:30am) and set out for the outside pass. It was a bit rolly in the channel but once we made the turn north it was really super. Up went the Sails (helped dry them out) and we were making 7 to 8 knots followed by a school of dolphin leading the way…this is the way it’s written in the books! You don’t get too many days like this. There was a lot of debris blown up by the winds we have had and too many man-o-war to count.

When we made the turn back west into the St. Simon Channel, we were bucking the tide but had the wind behind us. It was slow going the last hour, just when you really are ready to quit for the day. Docking was easy and Schooner jumped ship quickly and peed on the dock! That was a first!! This was the first day without rain in a week…but I spoke too soon because before too long, a big thunderhead developed and down it came.

This morning we were up early (for us) and found out we would not be able to stay in Savannah until Friday, so we decided to take advantage of the bikes and explore St. Simon Island. About noon, we set out for the St. Simon Lighthouse, that is 3.6 miles from where we are docked, according to our Streets & Trips map. It was a great ride, mostly on a flat, shade covered, bike path.

Once at the Lighthouse, we toured the museum and climbed to the top for pictures. After the 129 steps to the top and coming back down we were ready for something to eat. A short ride over to the downtown (2 blocks on 1 street) we found a dinner called “The 4th Day of May Café”. I had, by far, the best-grilled grouper po-boy since I left Alabama! Gordon had his favorite standby, a Reuben, and it was good as well. I was able to find a pressed penny machine two shops down to get 3 more pennies to commemorate our outing. No sooner had we talked about NO rain, and it began to pour… it only lasted about 15 minutes, but long enough to get us wet!

We decided to ride out to Ft Frederica National Monument, (6.5miles) which was a British fort built in 1742. There wasn’t much to see but a few home sites that had been excavated and a partial wall from the actual fort. However, the film they showed in the air-conditioned visitor’s center was very interesting. A side note for any history buffs is, that at this fort, a decisive battle with the Spanish was fought in the early 1700’s. It was then held under British control, stopping the Spanish from moving any further north.

On the ride back to the boat, we made a few more stops at points of interest, making the day’s total mileage accumulation a whopping 21 miles. I have made a slide show of our journey for your perusing and will now be turning in …me and my legs are tired!!!