Savannah Retreat - Final Day

We were very sad to be heading back to the real world, we had a great time. Teresa managed to get us an invite to Sapelo Island due to her mother's connections through the UGA Marine Institute (note: it is VERY special to get onto this private island - not many people are allowed to do this and you must have special permission to do so).

We woke before the crack of dawn because we had to be at the ferry dock at 8:30 sharp and we wanted to be there by 8:00 since we had no idea where we were going. It was about an hour and 15 minutes further south from Savannah. We made the boat with plenty of time to spare.

Now of course once you get to the other side of the island, the Marine Institute said they would provide us with a car to ride around in. Now, we were not expecting anything spectacular but...we were not expecting a very rusted, very moldy, very scary car. It ran okay though and that is what mattered. We dubbed him "Jimmy" - well he already had that name technically so we just let it stick with him.

Thank goodness Teresa drove - I don't think I could have handled those roads - she did a great job - I was quite impressed by her driving skills actually. Only a tiny bit of the island is paved, the rest of it looks like this:

We first went to the Chocolate Plantation (which is derived from a French name - they didn't grow cocoa beans or make chocolate there or anything).

We also saw the Hogs Hammock community (which I kept calling Hogsmeade ala Harry Potter). It is a community owned by the Gullah people. We then saw the Reynolds Plantation (I think it made Teresa a bit sad to see that it had not be well maintained since she was last there as a child and also that we could not get into it)

We were running short on time - I wanted to make the noon ferry and it was already 11:30. Luckily our gracious UGA Marine Institute Program Director, Gracie, drove us to the lighthouse and to the ferry dock in record time. As we stepped onto the boat, they closed the chain right behind us...whew!

I would have like to have stayed on the island a couple of hours longer at least but if we didn't make the noon ferry then we couldn't leave until 4:30 and I didn't want to leave going home that late, we'd have to still eat lunch/dinner (there is no where to eat on the island) and we wouldn't get home until after midnight if we stayed that long. Hopefully one day, we can go again and spend a little more time there. We had 3 hours but wanted a little more.

All and all.... a great weekend retreat - we had a wonderful time and shared a lot of laughs. I wonder what we will do next year on Confederate Memorial Day?