The unmarked campground at the western end of Little St. George closest to St. Vincent looks like it's large enough to accommodate about four to six tents, but during our overnight stay, we are completely alone. The odds are that you will be too, if you come here, because this is one of the most underutilized campsites on the bay. Driftwood and deadwood fires are allowed but cutting live trees, of course, is not. We soon have a glowing bed of coals for steaming the oysters I had collected earlier.

My oyster-cooking technique is easy and avoids the need to shuck the oysters, a tricky and dangerous operation for someone who hasn't tried it before-one slip of an oyster knife, and you have a nasty hand wound. I dig a three-foot by one-foot trench in the sand and build a small fire at the bottom (commercial barbeque charcoal is OK, too). When a bed of coals has formed, I spread them out, place the oysters on a folding backpacking grate that spans the trench and cover them with the wet gunnysack. When the steam causes the oysters to open, they are ready to eat. The only other accompaniment necessary for a gourmet feast is a squeeze bottle filled with a concoction of ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce.

The nighttime breeze is just cool enough to make for pleasant sleeping, and the next morning dawns clear. Our last objective for this trip is an old lighthouse located about three miles down the coast from the campground. The abandoned lighthouse, dating from 1833, is located on the beach at Little St. George's broad midsection, which is dominated by a forest of live oaks, native palms and pines. As a result of beach erosion, it is often surrounded by water at high tide. You can picnic at the lighthouse if you want to explore some of the sandy trails that meander across the little cape, but overnight camping is not allowed.

As you walk the trails, you may notice metal plates sticking out of some of the larger pine trees. They are remnants of a 19th-century turpentine industry. The brick chimney of an old home site serves as a reminder of the people who tended the lighthouse throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The island is also rich with wildlife, including several kinds of box turtles, raccoons, ospreys, great horned owls and a wide array of frogs, lizards, insects and shore birds. You'll want to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes and cottonmouth water moccasins. I've never encountered either species, but I'm told they often come out to sun themselves on cool winter days.

The gulf side of Little St. George has some of the most pristine, sugar-sand beaches in the U.S., and beachcombers will find many beautiful shells here. It's also a prime nesting area for the loggerhead turtle. Kayakers who can bear summer season mosquitoes and heat can join the volunteers who help protect turtle nests against marauding raccoons and other predators. (See "Accessing Apalachicola," p. 46, about how to contact the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve or the Apalachicola Bay and River Keepers for information on participating.) On the bay side of the island, the ornate diamondback terrapin-what biologist Verle Barnes calls "one of the prettiest little turtles in the world"-swims the lagoons and basks in the mudflats.