The lovely thing about our life on Discovery Magic is that no two days are the same.  So far, none of them have been lazy, partly because we have never been able to kick the habit of looking round the next corner, but with e-mail and Skype there is always an excuse to be at the computer, let alone do jobs around the boat.

Last Sunday however, I thought was particularly varied and action-packed.  True, just after midnight I was asleep, but as we were on the 170 mile passage from Charleston to Cumberland Sound, I was up for the 2am-5am watch and then again just after dawn as we came in through the long, low sand-duned coastline. We dropped the hook just in front of Fernandina Beach, the first town south of the Georgia/Florida border.  Grabbing a quick breakfast, I took the dinghy ashore, enthralled by the pelicans and cranes which have the air about them that they own the place. A brisk walk took me through the brick, Victorian town centre, with its decorated reminder that Christmas is on its way, along leafy suburbs and out past the town limits to a church.  As it was a Baptist church and we were only just (by about two miles) out of Georgia I was wondering how many other white people would be at the service, but I was also looking forward to learning some gospel singing.  Imagine my surprise when a multi-million dollar building came in to view, which could seat a 950 and had golf-carts to give the congregation lifts from their cars to the front door!  It was an all-white service, slick and virtuous, but the soul was lacking.

With the forecast not great, we knew we wanted to move on early the next morning, so as soon as I got back John and I up-anchored and went just five miles north to Cumberland Island – what a great place!  We used our folding bikes to explore as much of this National Park as we could in the time, starting with a route through Maritime Forest:  fronds of Spanish moss hanging from the dark, arching branches of the Live oaks, like washing swaying in the breeze; Tarzan creepers reaching down to the vibrant green ferns which spring from the litter of dried leaves.  The Carnegie family had a large estate on the island, with all the amenities of a wealthy family holiday home of the late 1800s. Fire in the 1950s destroyed the house, but its shell, garden layout, ice-house and other outbuildings remain.  We saw feral horses grazing in the parkland and wild turkeys strutting along the sandy track out to the beach – with such boldness, it was as though they knew that Thanksgiving was over for another year.  Enjoying the marshland area was made all the easier by an extensive boardwalk, which took you much of the way through the dunes - with their prickly pear and stunted palms - to the Atlantic side of the island. Whilst terns and sandpipers sought food on the great arc of fine, white beach, we enjoyed the effect of the strong wind - not only how it whipped up the waves which thundered on to the beach, but also watching the marching sand’s ever-changing pattern of ripples. Our next surprise was an armadillo ambling towards us. It was concerned only with finding a few tasty morsels in the scrubland and not at all bothered by me taking close-up photos.  As we cycled through a clearing in the forest we stopped to watch some white-tailed deer.  There were just so many animals in a short space of time it was almost like a Disney film.

As the sun went down we got the boat ready for an early departure. John cooked an excellent steak on the barbeque, which coupled with a good bottle of red wine and loud music was a great end to the day.

So that’s a great thing about cruising – there’s always something to explore, you never quite know how the day will unfold, but it’s nearly always rewarding.