Chapter Four: Exploring the island further

We asked Cornelia how to get to a beach. She said to take a couple of the bicycles sitting out back of the house, go back to the Reynolds Mansion and then straight instead of right once you're there. Or something like that. Actually, I didn't remember her directions at all. Fortunately a woman and her dog were walking toward us as we stood there puzzled, and she pointed which way to go. We biked a little on the sand. I noticed later that a sign next to the bikes at Cornelia's said not to ride them on the beach. Pretend you didn't see this picture.


We stayed quite a while, enjoying the solitude and the broad expanse of sand.


Then we peddled back. The mansion was about a mile inland.That's my wife on the bicycle.She didn't want me to put any pictures of her in this photo, but this one could be of almost anyone.




We admired the live oaks in the evening light.


In back of the mansion, with the turkey monument in the center, were the dairy barns


They had a very central European look, not at all like American barns.

Then we realized we were losing the light and peddled as fast as we dared. Fortunately Dolores, from the bus tour, was driving by in a pickup. We loaded up the bikes and were back in no time.

The next day, we asked Cornelia if there was a way we could see the northern part of the island, which hadn't been part of our bus tour. The road was so washed out, she said, it would take something with four wheel drive. She talked to a man with a pickup who would take us for $20 or $30, I forget which. So off we went, on dirt roads with mud puddles so deep they would probably stall an ordinary car. (Unfortunately I do not have pictures. My eyes were glued to the puddles.)




Eventually we came to an open space. A sign told us where we were.


Of the slaveowner's house, only the foundations and the main chimney remained.


There was more to see at the slave quarters.






And here we are picking the pecans that ended up on our kitchen counter.


There was also a barn.


1831, the marker says.


Crossing to the northeast side of the island, the road seemed to get narrower and narrower.


Eventually we reached our destination, the newly restored First African Baptist Church at Raccoon Bluff.






Finally, here is the view from Raccoon Bluff itself, looking out toward Blackbeard's Island.


This area had an energy to it that was not present in Hog Hammock. It was drier, with a cool, pleasant breeze. We asked Cornelia about it later. "Yes, it's where people chose to live after the Civil War, where they scraped up enough money to buy a piece of land. It was a happy place. Then in the 1950's all of it went to the State of Georgia. Nobody knew where the deeds were any more, if we ever had them. And they weren't about to put in electricity up there. So we had to move to that low, swampy Hog Hammock. I never got used to it, never," Cornelia told us. If ever a developer were interested in Sapelo, Raccoon Bluff would be the place, I suggested. I thought the descendants of the people who lived there should get it, if they also lived there. I'd certainly visit there.. "Well, that's why we have the foundation, to keep those developers out," she said. I'm not sure she was convinced it would really happen that way.

Chapter Five: Leaving Sapelo

On the day we were leaving, there was a noon ferry. A group of elementary school students were there, too, back from a field trip to the island from nearby Meridian.



I wondered if any of the students were from Sapelo. The island used to have its own school, Cornelia told us. She would walk 3 miles a day back and forth. Then came mandatory school integration, and their school had to close. Instead, kids took the 7:30 ferry to the mainland and caught the 5 o'clock back. That was another reason for moving to Hog Hammock, to be closer to the ferry.

Of course we weren't the only ones taking pictures.


This little girl posed for us with her precious find, a large piece of dead coral.






We picked up the freeway again at Darien, where the river is lined with shrimp boats like in Forrest Gump. We had a fabulous "Southern Buffet" lunch. The fried fish, with grits and all the trimmings, just kept coming and coming.


Darien is another place that still looks like it was forgotten by time.


But I don't think that is going to last very long.