30 nautical miles

We pulled anchor and started for Cumberland Island around 7:30 am. There was a nice breeze from the northwest. During the sail, we passed by the Kings Bay submarine base. My dad said they keep about 4 submarines there. You could tell that the channel leading from the base to the ocean was well-maintained; Coast Guard boats were patrolling the channel and there was dredging 24/7 all year long. The channel near the base was nice and wide; a big change from the rest of the waterway!

We flew the spinnaker with the engine off and averaged 8 knots the whole time. We were having so much fun with the sail that we missed the channel entrance to the Cumberland dock! We took the sail down and turned around.

By 11:30 am the boat anchored off of Cumberland Island and we were heading in to land. After we decided which route to hike, we set off. The hike we wanted to do was a nice-sized loop around the island. However, it had a sketchy section of water towards the end of the hike that we weren't sure we could cross.

The island was beautiful! It had lots of marsh, brush, trees, and greenery sandwiched between long, pristine beaches. At the beginning of the hike we saw a wild horse grazing in a field near the western beach. Then, on the western (Atlantic) beach, I found a shark tooth that was over 1 inch long.

Soon we came to a trail splitting off the beach that led to the other side of the island. As we started along the trail it got continuously narrower and more unkempt. I even got an inch-long thorn in my calf. Thankfully, the tight forest trail widened when we got to the marshland.

The trail was supposed to be raised above the wet mud that covers the bottom of the marsh, but I don't think it was because we walked in some extremely mucky areas. Despite the mud, the marsh was beautiful and gave us a clearer view of the island. We saw some more wild horses too. At one point, we passed within 50 ft of a horse! Luckily, he wasn't bothered by us.

Soon we got to the eastern beach. The tide was rising, so we decided to run the rest of the way to the water crossing. Crossing this stretch of water was key to getting back to the boat on time for dinner with family friends; not making it across meant turning around and retracing our steps around the island again! Once at the crossing, we decided, with much deliberation, that it was too deep and we had to turn back. By that time we were all tired, thirsty, and sunburnt; or in other words ready to get back to the boat. But we had no choice, so we turned around and completed the hike.

By 4:30 pm we were on the boat. We got underway while eating late lunches and drinking buckets of water. The boys and I did our schoolwork on the short sail to Amelia Island. My dad coordinated the timing for dinner with the Fuschs, good friends of my grandparents. When we arrived at the Fernandina Beach Marina we tied up at the dock and took quick showers.

We met up with the Fuschs at a dockside restaurant around 6:30 pm. The table we sat at gave us a gorgeous view of the sunset while we ate dinner. The food was amazing; especially the dessert. They had peach bread pudding! Because bread pudding is my dad's favorite dessert and this one had peaches, we got two bowls. In hindsight, we only needed one! The bowls were so big that we had leftovers. DESSERT leftovers. Now, bread pudding is officially my favorite dessert!

After saying goodbye to the Fuschs we went back to the boat. We reserved a mooring for the night, so we motored out and picked up our mooring before heading to bed. I really enjoyed meeting and having dinner with the Fuschs. They're so nice and Mr. Fusch is really funny!