The boat pulled up at the first dock and we began our journey. The mosquitoes and a pack of 6 wild horses greeted everyone as soon as we got off the boat. We tried to hurry to our first destination so that we could get ahead of a large group who were looking at the horses... we had a secret mission to accomplish. We spent quite a bit of time on the grounds of the ruins on the south side of the island.
While we were hanging out at the grounds of the Dungeness ruins, we took some time to eat a snack, mingle (from a distance) with a pack of 10 horses, and explored a couple of areas off the beaten path. We were looking for a spot to hide a letterbox stamp! This is the first time we carved and planted a box. The inspiration for the carve: the patterns we saw on our first trip out. I find a great deal of beauty in patterns that nature has created... such as in the spiral of a shell or the ripples that the water makes on the sand. (tried to convey both in this one stamp - which - may be a little clunky compared to some of the hand-carved stamps we've seen in our past hunts, but I'm happy with it overall)
It was surprising that a letterbox has not been planted on the island previously, so we had to reward letter-boxing community with a "hidden treasure" for visiting the island. (One of the rules of the island: whatever you pack in... you're supposed to also pack out. We technically should not have left this behind.) Who knows how long it will stay? If it's discovered by someone who works on the island, it will likely be confiscated. That's part of the journey -- tracking the activities associated with the box. If interested in seeing the clue and/or following the activities in the future, it is accessible through this link: http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?gBoxId=206102 Also - this photo of the outdoor "structure" offers a little clue as to where the letterbox is hidden nearby. There's another clue on the AtlasQuest website.
Once the letterbox planting was completed, we continued our exploration on the island - heading east towards the beach. We took a little detour along the way, however, and walked through the edge of the salt marsh along a boardwalk. We did not see as much wildlife in this area as on our first trip, but it's such a beautiful ecosystem that I'm happy we walked through. The boardwalk took us to the dunes that are a buffer between the mainland of the island and the beach. We saw 4 more horses on a rolling hill on the opposite end of the dunes and continued on to the beach.
The beach was the main reason we headed to coastal Georgia... we wanted to stick our toes in the water for our long weekend getaway. We played in the water for quite some time, dug in the sand with some of the beach toys we had packed, ate lunch on a blanket (and fended off some gulls), and searched for shells. It was the perfect temperature. At times, we would see others who rode over on the ferry with us, but for the most part, it felt like our own private beach. Our previous trip to Cumberland was in February 2008 -- we had a lot of very different experiences on that visit, but there was no playing in the water then. Perhaps Mercer's favorite thing - jumping waves. He did it over and over and over and over again! It was a lot of fun and we plan to spend more time at "our private beach" there in the future.
We walked up the beach until we reached a boardwalk that went back over the dunes and carried us inland. This path took us through "Sea Camp" where we camped on our previous trip. Mercer said he would like to camp there sometime.
Late in the afternoon, we reached the Visitor's Center. We were pretty worn out after our 3 1/2+ mile trek across the island and frolicking / playing on the beach. We saw a large variety of things, but there is so much more to see and do there. As mentioned several times on this post... we will definitely go back!
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