St. Simon Island

In 1834 during his tour of North American James Audubon was sailing to St. Augustine. The winds turned adverse, and his ship was forced ashore at St. Simon Island, Georgia. He was taken to the Retreat Plantation owned by Mr. Thomas Butler King. There he was wined, dined and so charmed that he later wrote “he fairly thought that he had been blown onto a fairy island such as only existed in romance and fiction.”

A similar thing happened to White Pepper 182 years later. We, however, were sailing north from Port Canaveral to Charleston. We had left on an ideal weather forecast for 3 days; however, the forecast changed quickly. We had to get off the Atlantic. St. Simon inlet was available by dawn of day three offshore.

The trip from the sea buoy is a remarkable 11 miles, but eventually the famous lighthouse (rebuilt in 1874) came into view. White Pepper turned north into the Frederica River and very soon came to the Morning Star Marina. Our gracious hosts made room for us as many boats were flocking in. Within an hour of docking there was a tremendous thunderstorm. It then rained all day and night.

The STS or St. Simon sea buoy a remarkable 11 miles offshore.

 Morning Star Marina on the Frederica River. White Pepper is in the center.

The next day dawned cloudy, turbulent, and unseasonably cool. But the rain held off. Jan and I borrowed bicycles from the marina and biked into the village of St. Simon. Here on the very land once called the Retreat Plantation we saw a lush golf course, lovely homes and a tourist village. There were the usual art shops, tee shirt shops and wonderful restaurants. There was a public park and fishing pier surrounding the old lighthouse and lighthouse keepers house. Old master King would probably have been horrified at what had happened to his plantation, but I suspect Audubon would have been pleased.

The rebuilt lighthouse on St. Simon (1876)

White Pepper could not get to Fort Frederica on the northern part of St. Simon Island. There the British general Oglethorpe held off an attack by the Florida Spanish in 1744. These were the Spanish from the fort Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine where White Pepper has visited several times. Instead we returned to the marina and took the courtesy car to Brunswick. There we resupplied and planned the trip north.

The weather forecast remains unsettled for several days with northerly winds and high waves forecast. Rather than go outside we will venture up the ICW and experience the creeks of Georgia.