I will confess that this is going more than 30 minutes but I wanted to share the day at the island in one blog.  For a while now I have wanted to take a trip to Cumberland Island.  Where is it you may ask.  Cumberland Island is situated on the very tip of Georgia and is is just across the river mouth from Fernandina Beach in Florida.  Of course, we are at practically at the opposite tip of Florida, so it is a good 5 hour trip just to get out of Florida.  We were heading to St Mary’s in Georgia.  We arrived late afternoon after spending some time exploring Fort Clinch in Fernandina Beach. More about that later this week.  St Mary’s has a ferry that travels from the town directly to Cumberland Island.

Why Cumberland Island?  For the longest time I have heard and read about wild horses on the island.  A bit of research also told me that there were also some ruins to visit.  Those two items were my goal.  We arrived at St Mary’s with enough time to check into our B&B called the Goodbread House.  This was a quaint multi-roomed house that had different themed rooms and a lot of knicks and knacks.  Our hosts were very friendly and got us settled into the Gable and Lombard room very efficiently.  I will add that the bathroom was dedicated to Marilyn Munro and Elvis Presley.  Such fun.

We had to go out for dinner and so we started to walk down the main street looking for different options and finally found ourselves at a place called 401.  Out in the gardens they had live music while we waited for a table to come free.  The music was awesome and they had a great selection of songs.  Dinner was the best, and added to that, I was able to photograph this beautiful sunset.

8am and we are packed up and ready to head out to the island.  We had to go and get our tickets at a local office and pay the fee to go on the island and then it was a 5 minute walk to the ferry where everyone was waiting.  I was thinking way to many people but I am happy to say that the island was so big that we really did not encounter that many people.

My goal of course was to find the horses and see the ruins, and so we began our walk down the road towards the ruins. One thing I love about Northern Florida and Georgia is the Spanish Moss that covers the trees.  It kind of gives that eerie kind of feeling.  We had tried to plan out how much time it would take us to get around the course we had planned.  3-4 hours which would give us enough time to make it back to the 2:45 ferry.

The island is made up of various sectors of nature, the wooded area, the marshy area, the rolling dunes and the wide open beaches.  We started off by walking through the wooded area, along a long road towards the ruins.  While there was not a lot of color, every so often I would spot a flower or some autumn looking leaves.

We spotted our first horses as we walked towards the ruins.  I was so excited.  My horses were the tame kind of wild horses.  Actually we were warned that if we had apples, not to show them to the horses. They were kind of pushy in their endeavor to get to your apples.  These two did not do much more than eat grass and walk away from us.  But still I was pretty stoked.

There were two horses at the entrance, one was slightly bigger than the other.

Our first view of Dungeness Ruins was as we passed the horses.   History has it that this was the winter home of Thomas Carnegie.  He lived there with his wife and 9 children. Soon after the home was constructed Thomas died.  His wife Lucy and the family continue to live there. She made alterations to the house to make it bigger.  In 1916 Lucy Carnegie passed away.  In 1959 the house caught on fire and today only the ruins remain.  We were able to walk around the house but could not go into the ruins.  Based on the ruins, the house must have been spectacular in it’s day.

In front of the ruins is where I saw my third horse, once again eating grass.  This horse did show a little more interest in us.  I actually loved seeing the horse against the backdrop of these incredible ruins.

We walked beyond the ruins heading towards the marshy area.  On our way we saw this pack of 3 horses, and just beyond that another 3 were working there way towards this group.

We continued down a pathway, through a walkway, down a slight incline, and there we were, walking along a boardwalk towards the marshland.  It was so flat and had weaving waterways.  It was great to see an Osprey overhead doing some fishing, and a Great Blue Heron hanging out in the water.  Richard also got to see a Spoonbill wading through the water sifting through the sand to find some treats.  We did not stay to long in this area before pushing on to the sand dunes.

It would be remiss to have an island habitat, without the carrion hunters and we came across 6 Black Vultures as we walked across the sand dunes.  I love the Black Vultures.  The are so elegant when compared to the Turkey Vulture, who in my opinion, is really quite ugly.

The soft sand gave way to the waters edge.  We were asked to cross the dunes at designated points so as not to do damage to the beautiful dunes.

In front of us, was a view of the island beach, stretching beyond where I imagined we would need to go, until Richard said we were walking to where all the people were and that looked a long long way away.

The first casualty of the ocean that we came across was a Horseshoe Crab.  Apparently they are not actually a true crab.  Interestingly they apparently move to shallow waters during breeding season.  The female can lay up to 120 000 eggs and then the male will come along and fertilize them.  Sadly most of them do not make it as the shore birds eagerly snatch up the eggs.

The second interesting item found on the beach was what appeared to be a buoy.  Clearly it had been around a while and was totally rusted in places.

The second casualty that I found was this perfectly formed crab body.  Look at those pincers.  I happened to spend some time before the boat left watching a couple of crabs fighting with each other.  Those pincers are serious weapons.

As we move down the beach we noticed a huge flock of terns hanging out at the edge of the water.  As Richard walked along I was hoping that the birds would take off.  They kept just moving to the end of the group.  No major take off.

Just beyond the sand dunes and the sea grasses we found a fallen log.  It was there that we ate our picnic lunch that the B&B has secured for us – cold meat stuffed inside pita bread, a packet of chips and some peanut butter crackers and some ice cold water.  It was so peaceful and I was grateful to stop for a short while.

Heading across the boardwalk the stretched along the dunes I spotted a bit of color.

A close up on the sea grass normally known Sea Oats.  The Sea Oats is a subtropical coastal grass typically found on sand dunes and beach areas.

And just like that we were heading back into the shaded wooded pathways that lead back to the campsites and the ferries.  Oh yes you can camp on the island, but be warned, it is rustic camping.  There is no electricity and showers are heated with a solar bag system.  From what I have heard, when the sun goes down the mosquito’s and no see ems come out to play.  Thankfully we were not camping, because they do love me.

One of the highlights of the trip heading back to the mainland was Richard spotting a dolphin.  The pictures are not perfect, but it was an amazing moment.  The dolphin was swimming just ahead of the boat and kept popping up out of the water.  It traveled with us for quite a way before it dived deep.  Trying to time when the dolphin would appear was hard, but it was worth hanging over the edge of the boat to see this beautiful mammal.

45 minutes later we are back at St Mary’s and ready to disembark, drop off the cooler bag, and head out.  Next stop was Vilano Beach in St Augustine.  However, look out for our visit to Fort Clinch later this week. We had stopped at the fort on the way up to St Mary’s.

Thank you for joining us for another month of 30 Minutes. Just a reminder that this is a circle blog.  I would encourage you to take some time to visit my very talented friend Jess from Crystal of Crystal Bella Photography and see what she has for you this month.  I am pretty  excited to learn more about these wonderful ladies from all over the world.  I would certainly encourage you to visit their pages

It’s July, it’s the hottest day in New York City and yours truly is not in air-conditioning, no!, we are walking through Central Park.  Welcome to 30 minutes in the Life and this is mine plus a few additional minutes 🙂

You may remember that I did a quick overview of the New York City trip.  Honestly, that was 15 of about 1500 images.  Since the Rochester training trip my life has got a little hectic and honestly I feel like I do not have the time to go out.  I have become in the last couple of months a workaholic because I know I have a deadline to pull together a brand new system and ensure that it is ready to go live before the end of the year.  No pressure here, but it makes it a little harder to get out and go walking in the city looking for photo’s to take.  Added to that South Florida is miserably hot.

Part of this day we planned to walk in Central park and then head to the Natural History Museum to cool off and spend the hottest part of the day inside there.  I think a million other people had the same idea.  So off we go, water in hand, camera bag on my back, and a bus ticket in my hand.  We arrive at Central Park and need to cross the road.  I have this image in my mind of looking up a New York City street with iconic taxi’s in my view.  Moving and taking pics is not working so I get to the side of the road and stop to get my images.

Lesson one.  When you are out with people who are not taking the same photographs as you, keep an eye on them.  Oh yes, I lost them. Of course, they did not keep an eye on me either.  They wandered off, not waiting for me.  I went down the way I thought I had seen Richard go.  Walked down this off beaten pathway with a stranger who also seemed to be “lost” and eventually came out at the through road.

Crossing the road, I discovered I was in Shakespeare’s Garden.  No family but the garden was really pretty.  So I meandered around the gardens, which I might add were really tranquil and finally decided that since I had not found them I should go back to the through road and try and figure out where the castle was.

I did not find the maps terribly user friendly.  The WhatsApp group had gone silent despite a number of messages being sent by yours truly.  Finally I stop at a concession cart and ask for directions on how to get to the castle.  The seller gives me directions and off I go.  Once again I am following a road blindly.  There were no directional maps nearby and my gps now tells me I have a long walk around the lake, so I plod on.

Just as I am passing Romeo and Juliet and then a major row of toilets, my phone rings (which it could have done far earlier) and it is Richard asking me where I am.

Umm, I am on the other side of the lake looking at Belvedere Castle.  Yip.  Probably if I had looked really closely, I could have seen them all glaring at me.  However, If I had gone the way they had gone I would not have seen then next few beautiful views.

Off I plod again.  I say plod because my feet are kind of sore already.  Remember that post op feet are still not what they should be.  They still get sore pretty quickly.

Finally I arrived the Belvedere Castle, to the faces of 3 unhappy people.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.  At least I got the spectacular (in my mind) front view of the castle over the lake.  I certainly enjoyed the views from the tower looking over central park.  Richard told me to walk through the castle, while my brother and his wife went walking down by the lake.

Once I was done we headed down to the lake and enjoyed the cooler tree covered pathways.

We walked back around towards the castle and up onto the lower level to take the short cut back to the main road.  Apparently the short cut that I should have taken.  I traveled the long road.

Richard went off to find the bathroom, and while I was waiting who should arrive but my brother and his wife.  So we waited for Richard before heading off again.  As you can see I quickly got behind.  This set the tone for the rest of the stay.  They walked ahead, I meandered, stopped, smiled and caught up.  They rested while waiting for me, so the minute I caught up they moved on – no rest for the weary that was for sure.

We did head back to central park another day but the upper end of it.  It wasn’t as interesting as the lower end to be honest, but there was one stop we made at a pretty lake.

So that was Central Park, done and dusted.  Did I like it, yes although it was a little stressful and seriously hot. I think we were all overheated.  Next stop was the Natural History Museum.  Richard is not a big museum fan and after 60 minutes I got a call to say he was leaving.  I kind of headed out as well.  We stopped grabbed some lunch and shade, tried the WhatsApp again for the other two but no luck, so we headed down to Times Square and Grand Central Station.

Thank you for joining us for another month of 30 Minutes. Just a reminder that this is a circle blog.  We have a number of new ladies join the 30 minutes group, making us now 11 active bloggers, and I would encourage you to take some time to visit my very talented friend Ceri Herd Photography and see what she has for you this month.  I am pretty  excited to learn more about these wonderful ladies from all over the world.  I would certainly encourage you to visit their pages.  If you have time I have a second blog going simultaneously of our trip to Staten Island.