Jekyll Island, Georgia

Wow!!  We are SO HAPPY we stopped here!  This has been a great place to visit!

We left Fernandina fairly early in the morning in fairly chilly weather, surprisingly!  However it warmed up quickly and we had a very nice day travelling through the Georgian Low Country.  (So called because it is essentially marsh, with the odd small island, which are called hammocks.)  We both remarked on how nice it was to travel this leg in the sunshine, as the last time we had been through in November, it was pretty miserable....cold and rainy!!

Georgia Low Country

wild horse on Cumberland Island

Jekyll Island is one of the barrier islands along the coast of Georgia, and is not far from Fernandina, so the fact that we left early meant that we arrived at the Jekyll Island Marina by lunch time....plenty of time to take advantage of the bicycles the marina has for it's guests and start to explore the many beautiful bicycle paths on the island!  Having these bicycles available for us to borrow made all the difference to our visit!  Every day we were there we hopped on the bikes and soaked up the casual, beautiful ambiance of the island, riding through gorgeous maritime forests with huge live oaks dripping with spanish moss and casting their cool shade over the path.  The island itself is only about 7 miles long, but there are over 20 miles of bicycles paths weaving all over the island, travelling through the forests, around the historic district where the wealthy used to play, and along the sand dunes where sea turtles lay their eggs.  There is a six mile toll bridge that connects Jekyll Island with the mainland of Georgia, which effectively keeps vehicular traffic down to a minimum on the island, so although there is virtually no need to ride your bike on the road, there is so little traffic that the roads are in excellent condition and very quiet.  While there are numerous stop signs, there are no traffic lights anywhere on the island.  Jekyll Island is one of very few places where golf carts drive safely on the road, without hindering the flow of traffic!  Both the bicycle paths and the roads wind casually around the trees instead of ploughing through them, making for a relaxed and pleasant approach to transportation!

'Don't feed the alligators'!!!

bicycle paths

Magnolia Tree

Live Oak with spanish moss

Driftwood Beach

maritime forest

Atlantic Beach 

The historic district is 240 acres of homes and landscapes that date from the 1920's when the wealthy elite such as the JP Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Cranes, the Goodyears, and many other 'movers and shakers' in the business and banking world decided to create an exclusive club, with a maximum of 100 members where they and their families and guests could come and relax undisturbed.  The Jekyll Island Clubhouse is still on the property and is now a hotel where you can stay if you like!  A number of the families built their own 'cottages' nearby, and those, too, have been restored and are open to the public as museums, or have been converted in to gift shops and art stores.  The houses and Clubhouse were abandoned when WWII broke out, and none of the families returned!  Because the island was so isolated, the buildings lay derelict for a number of years before the government stepped in to preserve it.  They also decreed that in order to safe-guard the local flora and fauna, they would not allow any more than 35% of the island to be developed, which means that 65% of the island is still in a 'natural' state!  They are presently building three more hotels on the ocean side, however they can only build where there was already an existing hotel, so that too, is being controlled.

Rockefeller cottage

Jekyll Island Club

Croquet on the Jekyll Island Croquet Lawn

street in the historic district

All that activity helped us to work up enough of an appetite that we were easily able to justify sharing a pound of fresh shrimp for supper on the wharf, at a pub called The Rah Bar, and then having another pound the following day for lunch!!

casual, but delicious Georgian shrimp!

Suffice to say, I took way too many pictures, and we had some great bike rides during our stay and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!  However, the proverbial 'weather window' was opening very nicely for us to sail outside again and make our way to Charleston, SC, so regretfully, we said our goodbyes and headed back out in to the Atlantic in the early hours of May 7.

St. Simon's lighthouse

a beautiful day on the Atlantic