Milepost 717 to 684
The morning was sunny and cool when we left Fernandina Beach. I picked up coffee and orange blossom muffins at a darling little café. I stopped by the shrimp shack by our laundry/restrooms and bought two pounds of fresh shrimp at $6.99 a pound. We’ll have a good dinner tonight.
We filled our diesel cans with 5.6 gal of fuel ($23.36). We pumped out and left at 10:15 to catch the tide to Jekyll Island. Leaving Florida and following markers around King’s Bay was confusing. No submarines in sight, thank goodness. The Cumberland Island national seashore looked wild and untouched. We had met sailors in Stuart who had spent a month there and wish they could have stayed longer. Wish we had had time to explore it. The same with the "Golden Isles."
The Cruising Guide warned us about the “treachery” of St. Andrew’s Sound—the closest place to the ocean on ICW to Norfolk. We hoped the tide and wind wouldn’t fight it out today. It was a little choppy. Overall, we had an easy five hour ride. Chilly though; our first time in jeans and sweatshirt plus windbreaker.
We landed at one of our now-favorite marinas—Jekyll Island—where we had an easy tie up on a wall in front of Strider, an Annapolis area boat. We spent a lot of time with Captain Randy discussing the pros and cons of going “outside” at St. Simon’s Sound to Port Royal. The weather was the deciding factor—bad forecasts for the next three days kept us in port.
Saturday was nice, however, so we hiked the road to the Jekyll Island historical district. The Island itself has more than 20 miles of bicycle trails, wonderful beaches, nature centers, and a famed historic district dating back to 1886. The tycoons of the Gilded Age built lavish summer homes there. Harry Goodyear’s story was especially striking. He was the archetypical self made man who started as a $35.00 a month clerk, and became the scion of railroads, tires, oil, and other industries. His workaholic habits brought him to an early death at age 58, just after having completing the “Goodyear Cottage” on Jekyll so he could “relax” with the Goulds, Morgans and other elite families of American industry. John Pierpont Morgan owned a series of yachts named “Corsair” I, II, and III. The last was too long to land at the Jekyll Wharf, so he and his retinue had to disembark aboard a special fleet to get him to the landing. Asked what it cost to have a yacht like that, he retorted that anyone who would ask such a question had no business owning a yacht.
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| Professional marine therapist working with Loggerhead who can't dive |
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| This baby has a tear in his carapace. |
The best place on Jekyll was our magical morning at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. It is the state’s first sea turtle rehabilitation, research and education facility. It provides emergency care to sick and injured sea turtles and we saw the therapies being applied to various turtles in their tanks. Some can’t dive; some had boat strikes across their carapaces; some had infections; some had been attacked by sharks; some had lost flippers. Several had gotten entangled in fishing line. Others were “cold stunned” by the very cold weather along the Florida/GA coast this past two years. “Only one of 4,000 hatchlings survives to become an adult sea turtle,” says the brochure. We looked at the exhibits in the small museum, and then spent a couple of hours in the laboratory where the turtles lived in tanks to receive their therapies. Each had a special diet; some had weights velcroed to their backs to help them with diving and swimming problems; nearly all were on some medication. Some of their attendants were volunteers with Americore, a national service program for college graduates. These young people had degrees in the marine biological sciences. 
Jekyll Harbor Marina was small and friendly. The resident boat owners hosted a wine and cheese party on the dock Saturday night so we had a chance to meet some of them. They come down for the weekend from all around Georgia. There were some liveaboards as well. The marina has a restaurant and local bands play on weekends. We also had the use of a Courtesy Car for an hour. My best memory, though, will be of the wonderful blooming Azaleas all over the grounds
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We departed on a cold, gray Monday morning to meet the Mud River on our way down the ICW. This next stretch of serpentine marshes will be tricky, to say the least.
Hope your Azaleas will be blooming soon.
Maureen and Glen
March 28, 2011
Jekyll Island, GA
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