Instantly when you step off the ferry and onto Cumberland Island, you sense that you’re in a very special place. Some guy told us it was magical, and I guess in the C. S. Lewis scheme of life: it is magical! Aslan could definitely find a home here. It is certainly unlike anything you see on the other barriers islands.

Families with lots of money once lived here along with their support staff but that was many years ago. Today, most of the island is under the protection of the National Park Services. Wild horses that are descendants to the ones brought to the island by the Carnegies and other island owners roam freely.

Before we left the Park Services offices at St. Mary’s, we were instructed to look at and not to approach the horses. I’ve been to the island several times and have never had the opportunity to see this many. We were told that nearly 150 horses are on the island. Sharon later learned that they are very territorial. Horses that live in the north portion of the island do not come down to the middle or southern portions of the island. If the various groups run into one another, they fight!

I loved photographing them. They were not in a hurry, and I just kept imagining them running free on the beaches in the evenings. Wow!

At one point when we were hiking from the southern part of the island to the Sea Camp area in the middle of the island, we kept running into one particular group. We had to wait for the right moment to pass. Anne thought this was great fun . . . and it was!

But I was the brave one (or the very crazy one), who took photo after photo at a close distance while this gallery of viewers took photos from a very safe place behind a concert wall at Dungeness! Aren’t they cute?!

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