Day 9 - Fort Clinch State Park

 After dinner on Hilton Head we drove about 15 miles off the island to a Cracker Barrel near the highway where we spent the night. It was relatively quiet for a CB, but you never sleep that great in one of these places. 

When we stay at CB we try to have a meal there to help compensate them for being kind enough to allow us to park there overnight. So we had a nice breakfast and were on the road about 8:30AM headed for Fort Clinch State Park to meet up with June's cousin Keith and his wife Debbie. 

We arrived at Fort Clinch around 12N, check in is at 3PM, but they allowed us to park at the beach and wait for our site. The ranger said check back in an hour, it might be ready. We parked, had a quick lunch, unloaded our bikes and met Keith and Debbie for a ride. The Fort Clinch is big for a state park; the gate, the beach, and the campsites are several miles apart. If you don't have a bicycle it would be a lot of walking. The park is very bike friendly, the roads are like tunnels with Spanish Moss hanging from the trees and the biking is beautiful. 

We rode from the beach back to Keith and Debbie's campsite which is a few miles, by then it was time to go see if we can check in. So Deb and June went for a walk and Keith and I rode our bikes to the gate to check in, about another 5 mile bike ride. 

We got checked in, rode to the Serenity Falcon and drove to our site. As luck would have it, our site is back to back with Keith and Debbie.  This was not planned, talk about dumb luck! The picture below is from Keith and Debbie's site, we are just thru the trees (red circle).

After we got settled we took our bikes to the beach, we wanted to walk on the beach, in our bare feet, in the water, and we did. 

When we walked on the beach we saw a large ship on the north end of the beach, I asked Keith what it was doing, he said dredging sand. There was a pipe about 4ft in diameter running to the south of the beach, we wondered where it goes. So we walked and walked, eventually we came to an area that said, danger, and there were a few 'guards' that yelled at Keith and I when we went past the markers.  What we saw was the end of the big pipe blowing out a huge fountain of brown water, clearly water and sand from the dredge, and huge bull dozers pushing it into the ocean. Do these guys really think they can change what Mother Nature does...seems like tipping wind mills to me?

As we walked the beach I could not help but notice the people with small scoops made of screen digging sand on the beach. So I walked up to this elderly lady and asked what she was looking for, much to my surprise, she opened her mouth and pulled this black object off her tongue and said "shark teeth'.  A bit later I asked a gentleman about it, he said that a shark looses 10,000 teeth in a life time and he had a pocket full of them. He told me that Fernandina is one of the best beaches for finding shark teeth. So I told the group our mission now is to find a tooth, they were not nearly as enthusiastic about it as me and demonstrated a complete lack of commitment. It did not take too long and I found one, it is not large but a souvenir it is.  I did not realize collecting shark teeth was a thing, but apparently it is a hobby for many and if you find large ones, they can be worth quite a bit of money. It is fascinating what people will collect and trade. 

After walking the beach we returned to our bikes and started back to the campsite. I spied an off road trail that I wanted to check out, the others took the road back to camp. It turns out Fort Clinch has multiuse trails of 5.4 miles for those that want to hike or mountain bike. I did the whole thing and it was a blast, lots of ups, downs, dives and sweeping turns.  I had a good time and needed a shower when I got back. 

We had dinner with Keith and Debbie at our site (BYOD) and had a visitor during dinner, he was not the least intimidated by us and just did his thing. Armadillos are everywhere here, but still new to us. 

After dinner we retired to our respective homes on wheels..it was another good day.