Two Days at Fort Clinch

February 27-28 & March 1, 2017

Our first night at Fort Clinch was at the Atlantic Beach Campground and it was a pleasant one. Unfortunately, it was the only night available at the beach campground. Our other two nights were booked at the Amelia River Campground on the other side of the park. They could not be much more different than they are.

The beach campground is wide open and, although you cannot see the water, it is right next to the beach. There were pleasant breezes and lots of sun (even though we were plugged in and didn't need solar charging) and the site pads are packed sandy gravel. The river campground is in deep woods, only one site has a direct view of the river, and each site is surrounded by trees. There is no sun and virtually no breeze reached our site and the site is on damp, dark dirt.

No need to guess which is our favorite.

It was a sunny Monday morning when Ellen went for a long bird walk (longer than she expected) and I went for a moderate bicycle ride into Fernandina Beach. Ellen's goal was birds and mine was coffee, namely the Amelia Island Coffee Company (about 10 miles round trip). They make an excellent cafe latte. I lingered over a cup while catching up on mail and news via their fast Internet connection (the cellular service at the park is fairly poor).

On my way back to the campsite, I stopped at the park entrance office to see if we could stay at the beach campground. I was told that no one had cancelled and it was unlikely that anyone was leaving early, but to check back around noon.

When I returned to Speedy, Ellen was still not there. I decided to ride over to the river campground to check out the new site and see if she was out on the road in that direction as I'd not seen her on the way in from the entrance. We met about halfway to the entrance to the river campground road. She had gone down the road to the closed youth group camping area and then taken a trail that she thought came out further down the road. It actually led deep into the marshes and eventually petered out. With a bit of bushwhacking, she finally came out on a road which leads to the back entrance to the park (a locked gate), rather farther away than she had expected. While it was a bit of a slog, the real disappointment was that she saw no birds in all that walking.

I rode back up to the gate before noon and there was no change in our situation so we moved to the river campground into our rather dank site. Ellen went off for another walk and I another ride. This time I went about halfway to town, stopping at the Egan Creek bridge for a bit of fishing. More accurately just casting a fly into the water. No fish were harmed in this endeavor, but I did get a good list of birds flying into the marsh in front of me.

After a rather damp and sticky night, it was a repeat morning on Tuesday. Ellen was off chasing the park's birds and I was off to the coffee shop. After returning, we put together Ellen's bike and we both rode to Fernandina Beach for a stroll through the historic downtown and a bit of poking into the shops. The only purchase was a couple of bagels at the local bakery to have for lunch.

After our lunch of bagel sandwiches, it was a lazy afternoon but we did squeeze in a load of laundry. Another damp and sticky night and stinky as well, since we seemed to be downwind of the local pulp mill. Next morning I picked up a red Croc (rubber shoe) that belonged in the next campsite. Clearly the raccoons had been busy overnight.

After morning showers, it was time to pack up and continue up the road, primarily I-95. While we basically like Fort Clinch, Fernandina Beach and Amelia Island, I don't think that we would stay at Ft. Clich in the river campground again.

Wednesday was another travel day, destination Buck Hall Recreation Area, north of Charleston, SC. It was a rather quick and uneventful 200-mile-plus trip up I-95 to US-17, then around the city and into the Whole Foods in Mt. Pleasant for a bit of provisioning. We also picked up a pound of pulled pork from Melvin's BBQ, which is just across the parking lot from the Whole Foods for our dinner.

Another 20 miles of US-17 brought us to Buck Hall with a quick stop at the Cape Romaine Visitor Center. We were able to reserve one of the best sites in the campground, an open site, #14, at the end of the loop overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs past the campground. It was a warm and sunny afternoon and we collapsed until dinner time.

Ellen made a tasty sweet potato salad to go along with the BBQ pulled pork and an excellent dinner was had, topped off with a pretty good slice of tres leches cake from Whole Foods.