Cumberland Island, Georgia....National Sea Shore

Cumberland Island, one of the barrier islands off the coast of Georgia offers no roads or bridges to the island nor any stores or restaurants. But you can spend the night on Cumberland Island at the Greyfield Inn. 

Cumberland Island is 80% owned by the National Park Service and has been named a national Sea Shore.  Located south of Jekyll Island and north of Saint Mary's Georgia, most guests arrive by Ferry from Saint Mary's, Georgia.  Since I like to do everything different, my husband and I launched our jet skis from Saint Simons Island and went through intra coastal waterways to Cumberland Island. 

 Cumberland Ferry

It was a beautiful day because it was sunny and a little overcast.  But the real challenge were the winds.....the waterways when you hit open water were a little on the rough side but it was a beautiful ride to Cumberland.

Cumberland Island is about 1/3 larger than Manhattan Island and has 17 miles of beaches.  Due to the curvature of the earth, you cannot see from one end of the island to the other.  There is so much to do on Cumberland.  Here is a list of activities from National Park Service: 

My husband Conrad and I pulled out jetskis into Christmas Creek where I anchored my jet ski and took in the white sand and beautiful shoreline.  Conrad used a cast net to catch bait fish and spend some time fishing while I spent time relaxing (and taking and returning a few business phone calls). 

We took Christmas Creek inland until we reached small waterways where you can view the wild horses feeding in the marsh. 

Leaving Christmas Creek, we headed south on the ocean side of the island where there are miles and miles of undisturbed beaches.  If you look closely in this photo, you will se the while horse on the dune. (Next trip we are going to take the ferry so we can access more of the island and bring zoom photo lens cameras - it is hard to take good photos from jet skis).  

The dunes that protect the shorelines behind the beaches are beautiful and canopied with all types of trees. 

Once we reached the tip of the island and went around the jetty, we came upon a stranded boat.  My husband used his jet ski to pull this boat to a private dock on the mainland side of the island.  The very nice couple from Palm Beach, Florida in the boat were relieved.  But unfortunately, this really cut our time to explore Cumberland short (too much sun) so we lost our opportunities to take photos.  To give you an idea of what we missed, view the Geneva Kayak Center's Gallery of photos on Cumberland.

Look forward to hearing more about Cumberland....we will return.