Ringing in the New Year at Kingsley Plantation

Happy New Year everybody :) We were planning on finally sailing to Cumberland Island to celebrate it but, unfortunately, we only made it to Kingsley Plantation. It was about a 5-6 hour sail but the sun was going down, so we decided to anchor there for the night instead of going on to Cumberland, which was another 3-4 hours away.

Kingsley Plantation is in a gorgeous area and apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought so (there was a group of about 5 boats all anchored there for the night. 5 or so people were even sitting on a mud flat and lighting off fireworks all night). We played with some sparklers but then quickly retired to the cabin because there were little biting gnats everywhere...I felt like I was breathing them in because there were so many, sick.

You know, we spent the entire evening laying in our cabin and doing nothing more than reading, talking, looking at the stars through our little hatch door (Ryan made a piece of screen to velcro over it so the bugs wouldn't get in) and it was probably my favorite New Year's Eve ever. The water was so calm and the only noise we could hear was the people on the mud flat every once in a while when they cheered on the fireworks. Romeo, on the other hand, did not find our evening nearly as enjoyable and tried to burrow in every nook and cranny in the boat to escape the scary firework noises. Oh well, you can't please everyone!

The only downside to our first anchoring-for-the-night adventure was that Ryan was so stressed out all night that our anchor would pull loose and we'd crash into another boat or the shore. He had an alarm set on his phone to alert him when the current changed, so he could make sure we didn't pull free. At about 3 am, a mysterious, and VERY LOUD, alarm went off and Ryan was up and out of the hatch door in seconds! He was convinced that it was our alarm and that we were minutes away from certain doom. After being awake for a little while, we both realized that the alarm was either coming from one of the other boats or the shore but we couldn't tell which. We were quite certain that a serial killer had broken into the Plantation and was going to swim to our boat at any second (I say "we" but I'm pretty sure Ryan wasn't afraid of this).

We made it through the night, murder free, and realized that we didn't have enough gas to get home. The wind hadn't been cooperating the day before, so we had to motor practically the whole way and used 2/3 of our gas! Ryan was worried but I was very comfortable in bed and wasn't really worried about anything at all. He motored us about 2 hours to a dock where we had to make a decision: walk 3.3 miles to the nearest gas station, toting 6 gallons of gas on the way back OR motor to The Sandollar restaurant, where we could get a bite to eat and walk the block to the gas station. It was an easy choice for me, but Ryan was convinced we wouldn't make it there on the gas we had left. (He worries too much!!) We went with the sane, food involving choice and I'm happy to say that all was well. We even had a beautiful, relaxing sail back home and made it there before the sun went down! All was right with the world and we were making it back home in time to rent a movie, put our feet up and enjoy the long weekend.

So, of course there was a problem. If you have read any of the past sailing posts, you know that it couldn't be this easy! Even though it was only 2 hours after high tide, we got stuck...mega stuck. Like, our-boat-was-almost-completely-out-of-the- water-because-it-was-sitting-on-the-ground-and-there-was-no-water-around stuck. Lucky for us, Ryan had completely repaired our leaking inflatable boat...with military grade duct tape! Although it was black and matched the bottom of the boat perfectly, it did not do such a great job of sticking. With Romeo and the two of us, we quickly had water up to our ankles, which is cold and very irritating when you're trying to paddle to safety.

Yada yada yada, we make it home and have a nice hot shower, get a bite to eat and make the decision to stay the night on the boat so that we could easily move it into our slip at the next high tide: around 4 am. We climb back into the leaking, inflatable and paddle back to The Perfect Temperature, only this time, it is now so far out of the water that we're afraid to board her because we're afraid she just might tip over and then where would we be?! We paddle right back to shore where the inflatable meets an untimely death on some oysters growing on the dock. Luckily, our friendly neighbor, who saved us the last time our boat got stuck, agrees to let us borrow his canoe at 3:30 am so that we can move our boat.

There is nothing worse than waking up at 3:10 am, on a very cold morning, and going canoeing. Well, I take that back, after the initial grumpiness wears off, it's actually kind of nice but the first 15 minutes that you're awake? PURE HELL! We got the boat into our slip, returned the canoe and wearily nestled back into our still warm bed. Operation New Year's Eve Sailing Weekend had finally concluded.

A few things I left out:

-At one point, Ryan walked through waist deep silt/mud to get the inflatable out of the water. His legs were completely black with mud.
-That same mud was all over our jib sheet the next day and stained it, we think, permanently.
-The next day, when we returned at low tide, there were giant footprints in the mud. What sort of crazy human being would walk in the poop mud? Ryan.

Lessons learned from this trip:

-Prepare for everything! This includes bringing enough gas, bug repellent of some kind, complete first aid kit, food, etc.
-Flexibility is key. If we had pushed on to make it Cumberland Island, it could have ruined our night as we struggled to find a place to anchor in an unfamiliar area or gotten lost completely in the dark. Kingsley Plantation was lovely and super safe.
-Block entrances to parts of the boat that a dog with sharp claws could get into while in a fireworks panic and sink the boat by puncturing certain plugs.
-Motoring is not failing (fake sailing), sometimes it's just necessary.
-It was awesome having a ton of food to eat and snack on that was healthy. Kept us satiated and not feeling like crap from eating an entire bag of Doritos.
-Drink enough water!! I tried not to drink very much because using our head is a pain in the butt...probably not a wise move.

Kingsley Plantation, Amelia Island, Fernandina Beach, Pumpkin Hill State Park

(Sea Island Cotton)

Remember how I mentioned that we were supposed to spend Labor Day weekend on the sailboat, sailing to Cumberland Island? Well, since that was not the safest option without a powerful engine (we have since obtained a 6 HP engine, hooray for Craigslist!) we decided to just get in the car and drive. I had read about the Kingsley Plantation a while ago when I was looking for interesting things to do in Jacksonville and since it was only about 30 minutes away, this seemed like a good start. (Tip for those who don't want to end up in somebody's crab shop in their front yard: don't type "Kingsley Plantation" into Google maps on your phone, instead, google it on the internet, and follow the link from there or else you'll end up buying crab from some backwoods shack.)

Kingsley Plantation is open every day from 9a-5p and there are limited tours of the plantation house, but even if you show up 25 minutes before they close, like we did, you'll still be able to see quite a bit before the park ranger makes you leave. Things like the crops that were grown by Zephaniah Kingsley and his slaves. If you go to this website you can read more about the history of the plantation and the Kingsley's. Interesting fact: Zephaniah's wife and children were his slaves until he "gave" them their freedom. It is sad to think of the lives that slaves had (especially the ones who worked turning indigo into blue dye, they had about a 5-7 year life expectancy) but it is important for us to learn from this period in history, so that we don't make similar mistakes in the future. Even if you have absolutely no interest in history, it is a pretty cool place to walk around and maybe have a picnic, the house sits right on the water and boaters pass by it constantly.




After you leave the Kingsley Plantation, it's about 20 minutes to the Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach area. It's a very beautiful and peaceful place to visit and reminded us both of New Smyrna Beach. There are shops and restaurants and, of course, a gorgeous beach with white sand. The drive from Jacksonville is one of the prettiest drives I have taken; you go from heavily wooded areas to rivers to ocean and I think the drive alone is worth the trip! If you bring a bottle of wine disguised in a water bottle (not that we'd ever suggest such a thing) you could enjoy a very romantic picnic or you could head to one of the local restaurants for a bite to eat and a drink. We went to the outside bar at Sliders, mostly for the view, and enjoyed a few drinks and an appetizer without breaking the bank.


I should probably mention that we came out to this area two days in a row. We wanted to stay overnight but we had a few obstacles: 1. Romeo, our dog and 2. There are no affordable places to stay if you wait until the last minute, during Labor Day weekend.
The second day we brought Romeo and a romantic picnic because dogs are allowed on the beach. It was so romantic in my mind, but Romeo wanted to make sure that no birds, dogs, humans or waves hurt us, so he spent the entire time lunging at any moving thing and barking at, well, just everything. This cut our romantic picnic short but we felt ripped off, so on our drive home, we followed the signs to Pumpkin Hill State Park.



We enjoyed a nice hike on a sandy trail for about 10 minutes before Ryan shouts "HOLY CRAP". This instills fear into my heart and I freeze. This instills Ryan's photographer instinct and he closes in on the following creature:


That, my friends, is a dusky pygmy rattlesnake (it's pretty hard to see in the picture). Once Ryan told me that, I decided that this wildlife sighting concluded our nature hike. We spent the rest of our visit on the safety on our car, listening to the wind blow through the trees, a rooster in the distance and....absolutely nothing else. It was pretty cool.