IT’S ALL JUST PEACHY…

Traveling under sunny skies we leave the Sunshine State and cross the border into Georgia.  First stop the Walkabout Camp and RV Park in Woodbine.  Our Aussie host greets us with a “G’day” and enthusiastically tells us about area attractions.  We ask about a seafood place that we passed on our way in and he tells us that it’s the absolutely best place in the area for fresh local oysters, clams and shrimp.

So as soon as we get un-hitched and set up we head over to WhiteHouse Seafood to procure some local delicacies. The place is about as low key as you can get. It’s clean and quaint.  Large plastic coolers filled with shrimp, cod and scallops, a couple of glass front refrigerators and lots of fishing gear on the walls.  Karen Sharpe owns this place with her husband Richard; he does the harvesting of oysters and clams in the near-by intertidal salt marshes, she sells them.  We check out the shrimp in the cooler and decide to pick up a couple of pounds.  Then Karen asks if we’ve ever tried Georgia oysters.  Since we’ve never had this variety, she promptly heads to the walk in cooler and returns with a hand full, which she quickly shucks. She warns us that they are much saltier than other varieties. While we slurp the briny bi-valves Karen shares how the wild oysters grow in vertical mounds, shells forming on top of each other with thin shells that are sometimes difficult to shuck. Yep they’re salty, but delicious! So we pick up a bag of oysters and add a cod fillet to our order.  Back at Dimples we mix up some tempura batter and feast on fresh tempura shrimp, oysters & cod.  Doesn’t get much better than this!

Blue Goose

Charming

Coastal wet lands

Shoreline

The next morning we head over to St. Marys. Once home to pirates, smugglers, it is now the gateway to the Cumberland Island NationalSeashore.  

Alas, we’re too late to catch the ferry to the island (this gives us a reason to return.) After checking out the visitor center and National Seashore Museum, we walk across the street to the Submarine Museum.  This is a sad little museum and we don’t tarry.  But this is a charming town with a capital CHARMING!  We stroll along the Spanish moss draped tree lined streets and notice that nobody is in a hurry. In our wanderings, the Blue Goose Wine and Coffee Shop calls to us… a chai latte sounds good, oh… and maybe one of those lemon cupcakes....  Great drinks and super hospitality!  I

n the late afternoon we walk along the shore, it’s low tide and we can see where the local manatees feed in the creek. (They’ll be back at high tide after we leave.)  We are entertained by the tiny fiddler crabs scurrying about aggressively defending their holes along the shore there are oysters growing vertically in clumps in the sand bank, the water is a strange brown color… it looks like a red tide that we are familiar with in California, but no obnoxious odor. (The color is caused by decaying plant life and is normal and healthy for this eco-system.) 

  

Fiddler Crabs

It’s a perfect spring day and we sit on a bench relaxing and marveling at the scenery. Children are laughing and squealing in the background as an elderly gentleman rides by on his bicycle.  He promptly returns to us,  “Ugg… kids! Have to get away from them.”  (Hmmm… should we be concerned? Is there a restraining order somewhere?) Then he introduces himself and proceeds to share lots of corny but cute jokes and stories about the area.  He appears to be the perfect Southern Gentleman (Aside from his peculiar distain of children.)  He offers to give us a tour of the area next time we’re in town.  (Perhaps, if we don’t loose his card, and don’t have any children about, we may take him up on his offer, next time we’re here.)

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