Today we were going about thirty miles to the Duplin River. I had noticed it on the charts and it looked like a pretty good anchorage. We made our way there and found a spot to ‘drop the hook’. We were a little ways past an active ferry dock that transports people to and from the island, as that is the only way to access the island. We were fairly close to the shore, trying to stay out of the middle of the river, but it was plenty deep all the way to shore and we were the only boat anchored there. Again the tides were extreme- they dropped and rose around seven feet! Once we were comfortable knowing we were secure, I took Frank to the island.
We made it to the island and were walking down the road when a ferry dropped off some of the locals. They all drove past and waved, but I didn’t have any contact with anyone. We continued down the only road and walked about a half mile then turned around and returned to the dock. We made it back to the boat and I was telling Lauren about the amount of cars that were parked just up from the ferry. They looked like they hadn’t moved in some time, but it made me curious, so we looked up the history of the island. Apparently it is the site of Hog Hammock, the last known Gullah community. It is illegal to visit the island without a permit issued by state tourism authorities. No one questioned me, so no harm no foul, right? More from Wikipedia: “The community of Hog Hammock, also known as Hogg Hummock, includes homes, a general store, bar, public library, and other small businesses including vacation rentals. There are two active church congregations in Hog Hammock: St. Luke Baptist Church, founded in 1885, and First African Baptist Church, established in 1866. The latter congregation has an older building known as First African Baptist Church at Raccoon Bluff, constructed in 1900 in the former Raccoon Bluff community north of Hog Hammock. It is used for special services and programs. Many of the full-time inhabitants of the Hog Hammock Community are African Americans known as Gullah-Geechees, descendants of enslaved West African people brought to the island in the 1700s and 1800s to work on island plantations. The current population of full-time Gullah-Geechee residents in the community is estimated to be 47 (2009). The residents must bring all supplies from the mainland or purchase them in the small store on the island. The children of Hog Hammock take the ferry to the mainland and then take a bus to school, as the island school closed in 1978…Sapelo Island is speculated to be the site of San Miguel de Gualdape, the short-lived (1526–1527) first European settlement in the present-day United States and, if true, it would also be the first place in the present-day U.S. that a Catholic mass was celebrated.” We also found this from Buzzfeednews: The survival of black families on Sapelo traces back to an enslaved Muslim named Bilali Muhammad, an educated man who despite bondage led one of the nation’s earliest Muslim communities and wrote what’s believed to be the first Islamic text produced on American soil. And yet few in Georgia, let alone the nation, know this religious significance because Islam was omitted from the telling of early America, historians said. The center of Sapelo society is the Graball Country Store, where locals buy cold drinks and tourists can pick up a Hog Hammock T-shirt or tea made from a plant the descendants call “Life Everlasting” because of its healing properties. Every Wednesday after sundown, the back of the store turns into a bar, the only nightlife. None of this answered why there were over fifty vehicles parked there, but it was an interesting history lesson we all just learned.
The rest of the night was quiet and peaceful. All we heard was the sounds of wildlife around us. We had dinner and relaxed, doing more research on our next destination…