West of Pittsburgh - Adventures with the crew of MV ADVENTURES

We stopped in a few places in the tidal marshes of Georgia, including St. Simons Island to visit our friends Grady and Dottie, and Grady pointed out that we are actually west of Pittsburgh here on the Georgia coast. The shape of the land acts as a funnel for the incoming tide - which explains why the tides in Georgia are so great (9' or so).

We anchored in a number of little salt marsh creeks and since we've been running for shorter days I've sometimes had the chance to put my kayak in the water and go exploring in the tidal shallows.

The marsh grass is simply beautiful - tan at the base, then gold, then green, then tipped with gold again. It's no surprise that this area is known as the "Golden Isles".

Daufuskie sunset

The marsh is full of birds - herons, egrets, hawks, redwing blackbirds, and little sanderlings and plovers skittering around at low tide. We'll occasionally hear a dolphin blow nearby and we see their fins as they cruise around, and the shallows are full of tiny translucent shrimp and interesting fish.

Our next stop was Cumberland Island National Park, just across the St. Marys River from the north end of Florida. Cumberland is a barrier island with a variety of ecosystems: salt marsh, maritime forest, intertidal dunes, and beach. The island has a rich history starting with early Spanish explorers in the 1500's, and eventually becoming a winter resort for the ultra-weathy like the Carnegie family. The biggest mansion is in ruins, but there are other smaller family mansions on the island that have been preserved to some extent.

carnegie ruins

We loved the variety of the landscape and nature, particularly the maritime forest with live oaks that have grown gnarled and windswept, with masses of saw palmettos on the ground.

maritime forest