Cumberland Island, southernmost of the Georgia coastal islands, is a nature preserve. There are no bridges to the island. There are no shops on the island, not even for food. The U.S. Park Service runs two ferries a day, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. They also run just one tour per day. It lasts six hours, has a ranger as the guide, and takes a maximum of twelve people; there were nine of us the day that I took it. Here’s what I found.
I didn’t start learning about Cumberland Island until a week before I intended to visit. I expected there would be a bridge from Amelia Island to Cumberland. Instead, you have to drive pretty far inland to avoid the swamps, then double back to St. Mary’s, Georgia which is where the ferries depart. St. Mary’s is further from Cumberland than my campsite on Amelia was. The Park Service number to call for reservations on the ferry and the tour was continuously busy - not a good sign.
I arrived in St. Mary’s on a Sunday afternoon, planning - or rather, hoping - to tour Cumberland on Monday. It was the Sunday before Lent, and St. Mary’s was having a Mardi Gras festival:
It was a fun glimpse into small-town America. I sampled and subsequently bought several packages of delicious chip dip mixes at one of the booths.
Surprisingly, the Park Service office was open on Sunday, but the ranger confirmed my worst fears: tours were completely booked a month in advance. But… sometimes there are no-shows. “If you’re here tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. - an hour before the ferry leaves - you might get on.” Though my campsite was 30 minutes west of St. Mary’s, near the Interstate, I was there at 7:45 a.m. the next morning. My hopes were buoyed when one of the rangers showed up 30 minutes late for work; there was a big traffic jam on the northbound Interstate, he wouldn’t be surprised if many people with reservations arrived too late. Sure enough, when decision time came, I got on, along with several other walk-ons.
Here’s the port in St. Mary’s:
The building in the center is the Park Service office. It’s a 45 minute ferry ride from St. Mary’s to Cumberland Island. Inside seats were full by the time I got on, so I crouched behind the wheelhouse on deck to get out of the cold wind. Below is the dock on Cumberland, which I was very glad to see:
Some people rent bicycles for the day, some backpack to other side of the island, or further north, to set up camp for several days. After about fifteen minutes of standing around, a ranger led our group of nine to a passenger van for the tour. This is the only official transportation on the island; campers have to hike to their site and hike back, even if it is fifteen miles away. We passed several parties doing exactly that.
There is only one road on the island, south to north. Our ranger drove without stopping to the north end. Even so, it took two hours to cover the fifteen miles. We saw some sights along the way. An armadillo:
Several tidal rivers:
Some interesting trees:
I’d heard about wild horses on Cumberland, and I’d imagined herds galloping across windswept fields and beaches. No. Here’s a typical wild horse experience:
And realize, these photos were taken with considerable zoom.
On the drive north, our guide filled us in on the history of the island. Native Americans first inhabited the island, then it was used for hunting by English General James Oglethorpe, then it was a cotton plantation. In the 1880’s, the Carnegies began buying land and building homes, and before long owned the entire island except for the very northern tip, where a colony of freed slaves remained. In the 1950’s, some Carnegies wanted to give their land to the Park Service, while others began to sell theirs to a developer. Eventually, conservancy groups convinced the developer to sell his holdings to the Park Service as well, but traces of his plans still remain. A hanger for a small airport:
and electrical junction boxes as far as the north end of the island:
Also complicating the situation are descendants of the Carnegies who still have property rights and mansions on the island, and the very posh Greyfield Inn (think $500 per night sort of range), off-limits to mere tourists.
Even so, Cumberland gives the impression of a very natural, wild place. The southern half is a nature preserve, the northern half is a designated wilderness area:
The difference is that in the wilderness area, no human intervention whatsoever is allowed. Hunting and trapping are not permitted, even for the Park Service to clear invasive species. (There's a serious pig problem on the island.) Fallen trees cannot be removed, even if they encroach on healthy trees. The road itself had to be set aside from the wilderness area so that the tour van would be permitted to drive on it. Why does the Park Service commit a ranger and a van every day to providing a tour for at most twelve people? That too is a provision of the legislation that established the wilderness area.
Arriving at the north end of the island, we were in the now abandoned slave settlement. The Park Service maintains a house there as a restroom stop:
An ardent conservationist also runs her own small farm there:
The most notable structure is the church where JFK Jr. chose to get married:
The wedding party, of course, stayed at the Greyfield Inn. Here is our trusty tour van, and a good portion of the tour group:
We then began the drive south, with stops this time to see the sights. Our first was the western shore of the island, facing the Cumberland River which separates the island from the mainland:
Remains of a pier where nineteenth-century tourists came to island:
and nearby oyster beds:
We had another thrilling (ho-hum) wild horse encounter:
Then we came to a truly magnificent sight: the Carnegie Mansion, Plum Orchard:
On the lawn, we ate the lunches we had packed in from the mainland, then toured inside:
Upstairs:
An architectural detail:
Back on the main floor, the kitchen area:
The basement:
This mansion was one of the first anywhere in the States to have electricity:
Fuses are not in one place, but distributed all over the basement:
The generator actually used; note the crank start:
A mechanical air conditioner based on brine; I’m still not sure how it works:
The squash court:
The pool and a dressing room:
Continuing on our way south, we passed the owner’s house from the plantation era:
Reaching the southern tip of the island, we had our best wild horse encounter yet:
(actual distance: 50 yards). And some equally fearsome wild turkeys:
The ranger let us out to explore another Carnegie Mansion, Dungeness, which burned down in 1959:
I’ll borrow a Wikipedia image to show what it looked like before the fire:
I found the ruins fascinating:
and the surrounding grounds:
That concluded our day on Cumberland Island. For the ferry ride back to St. Mary’s I boarded plenty early and got an inside seat.
Jekyll Island, next up the Georgia coast, is in many ways the polar opposite of Cumberland, but beautiful and fascinating in its own right. That’s the topic of my next post.
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