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 |
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| Charming |
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| Coastal wet lands |
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| 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.)
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| 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.)
k
