Brunswick & the Golden Isles
July 20, 2015

Kayaking with manatees . . .

We did it - the new boats have gotten their keels wet.  Perhaps I haven't mentioned that we replaced the old kayaks because the ladies full moon float on Watson Lake at home revealed a small leak in one of them.  I thought it best not to embark on a long float with one of them seeping; after all, it could have been the one I was using.

The South Brunswick River was our choice for the maiden voyage after perusing several of the endless waterways thereabout.  This country is less dry land than wet - one large river after another, river-sized creeks in between connected by vast expanses of reedy marsh.

I had my doubts about taking a kayak into water frequented by manatees, gargantuan creatures that surface to breathe.  Granted, they are docile algae eaters; however, I was not sure how that placid nature would help if one decided to surface beneath my boat.  At least they would not eat me if I fell into the water, so deciding it was at least a step better than boating with 'gators, off we went.

 

Our interest was more in exploring small marshy channels and the South Brunswick was perfect for that.  As we traveled upstream, we found many opportunities to leave the main river and wander.  The trick is to leave bread crumbs so as to find a way back out of the mazes, each one dizzyingly like the next; however, the birds must have eaten the crumbs as soon as I dropped them over the side.

I wondered about the various flattened reed spots tucked back into the marsh until I saw an adult bird startle out at our approach leaving its chick behind to pace back and forth on its natural raft and peer at me through the vegetation.

Despite that, we had a wonderful time and found our way back to our starting point without incident, even assisted by the outgoing tide that promised to take us out to sea if we did not interrupt its progress.  After such a long time without kayaking, we expected to have sore muscles, but we fared pretty well in that area.

Sidney Lanier . . .

Now that we are aware of the poet, Sidney Lanier, we notice his name attached to any number of southern things.  Many times during our week in Brunswick, we drove over the Sidney Lanier Bridge, as graceful a span as I've seen, more like an art sculpture than a utilitarian structure.

I snapped approximately a hundred photos of it as we approached, finally accepting that taking pictures through the windshield while driving 60 miles per hour was never going to net anything worth while.  I share a couple of them here nevertheless.

A cable-stayed bridge (no, I don't know just what that means, either) it was constructed to replace a vertical-lift bridge that was struck by ships twice.  Can't help but wonder just how that happens even once, but twice?  Don't they know they won't fit???

Anyway, our curiosity about where in the world those people were going who were walking that span was answered when I read about an annual bridge walk.  Either they are preparing for that, or going up and over that puppy twice is how some choose to stay in shape.  In that humid heat and on pavement for the duration, it would not be my idea of a good time.

Hofwyl, plantations . . .

Never ones to pass up a historic tour, we opted to check out the Hofwyl Plantation.  A film about the place was excellent, the tour not so much unfortunately, and the walk down to the fields overlook was impossible because of hordes of yellow flies, nasty wide-winged insects that attacked in droves.

The place was somewhat unique in that the last member of the clan, Ophelia Dent, operated the enterprise and willed it to the state upon her demise.  In an entrepreneurial way, the last generation to live there converted from growing rice, a labor-intensive crop that was made unfeasible by emancipation, to running a dairy and thereby managed to keep it profitable.

This structure at Hofwyl Plantation is the family's modest winter home on the farm; the larger manor house would be inland where a person could stand to be in the sweltering months. 

The Golden Isles/Brunswick region was settled by planters who established large rice and cotton plantations that were worked by hundreds of slaves.  After the Civil War, some of those acreages were purchased by 19th century magnates to build estates for their families.

Now, most of them have been broken up into housing developments; one sees many signs for this plantation and that plantation - upscale residential areas.

Cannon's Point, John Couper . . .

When we read that there were archaeological ruins of prehistoric and historic eras at Cannon's Point, we opted to spend a day checking it out and what a day it was!

Another former plantation property, Cannon's Point has been preserved by the St. Simons Land Trust to which it was deeded.  In their zeal to insure the area experiences as little damage from usage as possible, they allow parking only in one spot.  In order to see the area, one may either ride a bicycle or walk.  Being bicycleless, we were relegated to walking . . . with temps in the 90s and humidity in the 80s . . . for seven or so miles . . . in the 2-1/2 hours before they closed the gate.

And somewhere in that span, we managed to ooh and aah and be wowed by the incredible maritime forest through which we were walking and the amazing ruins of ages-ago lifestyles.

The Gaule Indians were the prehistoric inhabitants of the region, leaving behind large middens of oyster shells.  Millennia later, in the 1700s, a European planter developed the place as a farm.

In the 19th century, John Couper acquired the 600 acres, a long narrow property that is surrounded on three sides by water - marsh, creek and river.

The Couper plantation's marsh view.

The creek that borders one side of the property - a river in my book.

An observation tower allows a view of the big house ruin from above.  The tabby piers held it above floods.  The tabby chimney (whitened in the back) is of a rare type and has been stabilized.

The house remains were striking; I couldn't stop taking pictures, soon to be painfully obvious.

This chimney was in the separate kitchen building; kitchens were typically separated from the main house so that in case of fire, the entire house would not be destroyed.

Back side of the kitchen hearth.

This is what remains of the overseer's dwelling, which in this case was quite a bit more substantial than typical.

The ruin of one of the slave cabins that has been excavated.  This appears to have been a two-sided fireplace.

Jekyll Island . . .

Each of the Golden Isles has its own personality.  Jekyll seems to be much less developed and populated than the others and has the best beaches to my way of thinking.  Like all of them, it was settled by Europeans in the 1730s and cleared for farming.

Major William Horton was the first English resident of Jekyll; his original tabby house still stands.  The crops he grew supplied the residents of Frederica.  Poulain du Bignon succeeded Horton after the Revolutionary War, and added wooden wings to the house to shelter his growing family; those portions of the house are no longer.

The ruins of Horton's warehouse.

Jekyll Island club . . .

In the 19th century, wealthy families such as the Rockefellers, Morgans and Vanderbilts, purchased the island from a du Bignon descendant to create the exclusive Jekyll Island Club, which barely survived the Great Depression, but continued until after World War II.  At that time, the State of Georgia purchased it through condemnation.  Many of the great houses make up the impressive historic district on Jekyll, of which I inexplicably did not take one photograph.  You'll have to go there yourself to be awed in person.

Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island.

He waited for us to back up so I could get a shot. 

Harris Neck, storks, gators . . .

Not sure who Harris is, or was, but his/her neck is a wonderful place to visit, especially if one wants to hike (again!) in Georgia's amazing hot and humid forest and to see a whole passel of birds plus a gator or a few.

Trooping around brought us to some lovely picture-perfect ponds with congregations of birds, wading and otherwise.  Harris Neck is a nearly 3,000-acre National Wildlife Refuge with freshwater ponds, salt marsh, open fields, forested wetland and mixed hardwood/pine forest.  The place is teeming with avian life - the most exciting of which were the wood storks - wood storks everywhere you look, overflowing the trees, flying overhead, and perched in the shallows - and what a racket they were making.

This gator is stylin' for sure with duckweed nicely draped across its snout.

How bizarre to come upon this fountain and reflecting pool - a remnant from a large early 20th century estate now lost to the jungle.

Harris Neck and the Golden Isles region added lots to our bird list for the trip.  New additions include: little blue heron, white ibis, roseate spoonbill (one of my favorites!), royal tern, Forster's tern, painted bunting, boat-tailed grackle, belted kingfisher, anhinga, wood duck, cattle egret, black-crowned night heron, blue-gray gnatcatcher, common yellowthroat, gull-billed tern (a life bird for us) and common gallinule, which we thought was also a life bird until we realized that it was a species split and we got it back when it was classified as a moorhen.

Chris wanted this shot because he thought it looked like the ship was sailing on marsh grass.  We think this is one of the ships that is bringing in automobiles to Brunswick.

I couldn't pass up the interesting shadows created by this vine.

This guy was actually irridescent.

This one not so much, but he cast a handsome shadow.

Show-off!

One of the funniest things we have seen at an RV park.  These grandparents were traveling with two small grandchildren and their mother, who chose this way to let the wee ones work off some energy.  It seemed to be working.  This park appealed highly to some we talked to but it was a tad too structured and sterile for our liking, more suited for those who can't get by without cable tv.