Arrrrrrrrrrrr.....Good Food, Matey!

Camped here at Amelia Island for the week.  History has this island as a pirate area with Fernandina Beach being the place to off load all of the pirated treasures from passing Spanish and other country's ships.  At the northern end of Florida just below the Georgia state line, this was a no-mans land between Spanish Florida and the United States in the early 1800s.  A perfect place to have a pirate home.

 

Today this island boasts a quaint red brick downtown with an incredible array of restaurants.  Everything from bakeries and coffee shops, to fine gourmet dining.  Our toughest time here was to decide where we were going to eat!  Had lunch at Kelley's Courtyard Cafe where we had the very best shrimp po'boys made from local caught shrimp, WOW !!

Then enjoyed a dinner at 29 South where we had shrimp&grits and a truly southern fried chicken.  Another WOW!  This eating doesn't count the stops at the ice cream shop and the coffee shop.

But, OK, you get the message about the eating here.  What else?.......

Camping at Ft. Clinch State Park was terrific.  Great sites with full hookups, clean and modern restrooms....Great biking down the 3 mile entrance road under the live oaks, spanish moss, and palmettos.  Also you can tour the civil war era fort that was never attacked but is quite impressive.

And then there is the beach with the half mile fishing pier and the sunset watching on the St. Marys River.

Took a tour boat to Cumberland Island and checked out this large barrier island where the rich and famous (Rockefellers, Carnegies) set up shop.  They felt that Jekyll Island (the next island north) was getting too crowded and besides the Carnegies were excluded (table manners?), and wanted their own exclusive island.  Some very impressive homes from the early 1900s including the still operating Greyfield Inn are still on CI, along with wild horses and lots of birds.

Biked 12 miles south on Amelia Island to Burney Beach where during segregation, this was the only beach in Florida where blacks were allowed to enjoy the ocean.  Then biked back up AIA along the coast, an ice cream stop and back to our campsite. 

A great week here.