Part 1 of 2010-10-12 Jekyll Island


This page will be a bit longer than my usual photo pages, lots to see.  To begin with, when we stopped for a snack on the way, we were entertained by these guys.  Aren't they cute?  And they weren't even afraid.  They just sat that and watched me walk into the store.


Jekyll Island is only a few hours from the house.  We still had plenty of daylight remaining when we saw our first sign letting us know we were getting close.


We stopped for lunch at the "Georgia Pig" barbeque restaurant.


As we approached the coast the marshes became evident.


Since this was my first time to see Jekyll Island I was impressed by the sign.


The entrance was equally impressive.


We turned onto the beach road for our first look at the Atlantic.


Notice these plants below the trees on the extreme right and extreme left in this photo.  If you look closely you can also see them beyond the underbrush.  They're called Palmettos and they're all over the woods in this part of Georgia.


The coastal trees began to look really windswept as we stopped to walk out a path to the beach.


The state places benches on the beach for enjoying the view.


This beach is called "Driftwood Beach" for obvious reasons.


I stood in front of this old tree trunk totally unaware than my life was in danger!


Look closely at this view inside the hollow tree trunk.


Here's a closeup in case you missed it in the above photo.  The legs of this little hermit crab are filling up the right side of the photo.


No doubt the little fellow would have "threatened my life" if he could.  After all, I was the intruder to his home in the sand.  Since he couldn't get back to his hole in the sand he took refuge in the tree trunk.  Haha.


Here's a much more realistic menace -- sand burrs.  They're all over the place and attach themselves to your clothing.  See the one attached to the cuff of my pant?  If you're not wearing shoes, they'll try to "attach" themselves to the sole of your foot!


We smelled something "fishy" and discovered this dead horseshoe crab.


There are lots of ruins on the island dating from the colonial period (before we became a nation).  This plaque tells about William Horton who established a home here after he came over with the founder of the Georgia colony, General James Oglethorpe in 1735.


This plaque commemorates his home that was built here.


Here are the remains of the home that's over 250 years old.


The home was built from "tabby" a mixture of shells, lime (made from more shells), and sand mixed with water.  The stuff set up like concrete.


Here's a closeup of tabby used in this wall.  They didn't use modern construction methods.  Today we build wooden or metal forms and simply pour the concrete in letting it set until hard.  In the early 1700s they would use s small form the size of a large box.  They would fill this form and let it set until firm then remove the form and move it on.  In this way the wall took shape a layer at a time.  You can see the layers if you look closely.  The holes are where wooden dowels were inserted in the tabby while it was still wet to help stabilize it.


Here's the view from the home's back yard.  These old oak trees are everywhere and they're all covered with Spanish moss.  When they first arrived, the colonists used the moss to stuff their mattresses not realizing the stuff was loaded with red bugs (chiggers).


Across the road from Horton house is a cemetery where another early family is buried.  In this photo I'm walking toward another bench overlooking the marsh near the cemetery.


There are only a few graves here but they're well preserved considering their age.


Linda reads the plaque which tells how this was the former property of the du Bignon (due bin NYON) family, a group of French Hugenots who lived on this island for nearly 100 years.


Here's another view of the salt marsh.


This tells how the marsh is a stagnant mix of salt and fresh water that relies on the tides to keep the plant and animal life alive.


Of course some of the animal life is unafraid living on land with the humans.  These raccoons seemed unafraid as they pranced by very close to us.


Back at the motel, we were impressed that we had a clear view of the ocean.


There was a nice pool but we wanted to walk on the beach.


They have nice walkways to the beach.


How about this butterfly?  Cute, eh?


Linda got a photo of this barge but it was so far away you can barely see it.


There were lots of sea gulls.  The sand wasn't as dark as it looks.  It was just late in the day.


In this last photo of the day there was a talented little girl making sand castles.  She even put a mote around her castle.  If you want to see more of the Island, we took lots of photos the next day too.  Help yourself by going to that day's pictures.



Hit your browser's BACK button to return to the Main Page for more.

~ END ~