   |
|
Have you tried the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s signature drink- “The Georgia Peach Cocktail?” Watch Kenny, their head bartender, create this drink in this short video (57 seconds).
The weather is hot and so is the fishing! Temperatures have been running in the low hundreds for the last few weeks while Tarpon have been running in the high hundreds. Captain Eric Moody jumped a Tarpon last week that he believes was the largest one he has ever jumped. He had the monster on for about 30 minutes before it made a mighty jump and straightened a 7/0 stainless steel hook. The same day Captain Larry Davis caught a fish estimated to be about 175 pounds.
Sharks up to 100 pounds are also being taken in local waters. Sharks and Tarpon can be caught in the same waters using the same fishing method. Both species feed heavily on Menhaden this time of the year. These baitfish congregate in area sounds and are most easily caught by predators when in shallow water near sand bars. Look for Menhaden gulping air and splashing water near sand bars. Anchor the boat so you can cast baits out the stern to working fish. A normal setup is one or two baits pegged on the bottom with a four ounce egg sinker and one or two baits suspended four to eight feet below a float. Tighten the drags down to the point you can hardly pull line off the spool.
Good numbers of Speckled Sea Trout and Redfish are being taken in area rivers and creeks. Most are small, below the legal 13 inch keeping length for Trout and 14 inches for Reds. Most anglers are reporting taking 20 to 25 small fish to one keeper. This happens every year in late Summer and the high number of small fish to larger looks good for the Fall fishing. These small fish will be legal this fall.
Whiting, Bluefish, Tripletail and Flounder are also being taken inshore.
COASTAL EXPEDITIONS CHARTER FISHING & DOLPHIN TOURS is owned and operated by captains Vernon Reynolds and Eric Moody. Call (912) 265-0392 to book a charter or go to www.coastalcharterfishing.com for further information.
With the Beach Music Festival and BBQ Bash just weeks away, we will be periodically bringing you sneak previews of some of the teams competing in this year’s BBQ competition. Earlier this week, we introduced you to the Lang BBQ team. Now, we’re introducing you to another BBQ heavyweight.
Right On Q – Darien, GA
This team owns a popular small town BBQ joint and catering business that has attracted quite the following recently. With close to 400 Facebook fans and dozens of glowing reviews on Yelp, it will be hard to take down this hometown favorite. Locals and tourists alike rave about the restaurant’s slab ribs, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and BBQ brisket. And of course, their award-winning Brunswick stew.
“Hands down, this is the best BBQ I’ve had. I wouldn’t be surprised if this place gets featured on a “Throw Down” episode with Bobby Flay or anything on the Food Network sometime soon.” (courtesy of one Yelp reviewer)
You better believe this team will utilize their arsenal of good ‘ole fashioned BBQ food and Southern hospitality to try and beat out the competition.
Do you think your BBQ recipe will put the other teams’ to shame? It’s not too late to sign up for this year’s competition. The cooking, or should I say, smoking begins on August 20th.
With the Beach Music Festival and BBQ Bash just weeks away, we will be periodically bringing you sneak previews of some of the teams competing in this year’s BBQ competition.
Teams are traveling from across Georgia and even North Carolina to showcase their BBQ cooking skills. All hoping that they have the winning recipe. Let’s meet one of the teams.
Lang BBQ Smokers- Nahunta, GA
With 22 years of experience, these Barbecue connoisseurs will not be easy to take down. While some teams swear by their top secret dry rub or sauce, this team relies on their smoker to draw out great flavors. With four different custom smokers to choose from, this team definitely will have no shortage of that signature rich smoky taste.
Do you think your BBQ recipe is a winner? It’s not too late to sign up for this year’s competition. The cooking, or should I say, smoking begins on August 20th.
Disclosure: Lang BBQ Smokers is also a sponsor for this year’s Beach Music and BBQ Festival.
Jekyll Island, one of Georgia’s Golden Isles, delights travelers with its rich history and natural beauty. Whether you’re seeking a weekend away with your honey or a family-friendly vacation, this place has it all and is a mere stone’s throw from Atlanta. Read the full article here.
By oceanscience
The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography is expanding its coastal radar system with the addition of a new send-receive station on Jekyll Island. The radar system, called WERA, is used to study surface ocean currents on Georgia’s continental shelf and out as far as the Gulf Stream.
Research technician Trent Moore works on a radar antenna in the dunes on Jekyll Island.The Jekyll Island unit is the third station in the system. Two original stations were installed on Pritchard Island, S.C. and on a coastal island south of Savannah. The three systems work together to create a detailed map of surface ocean currents across an area stretching more than 125 miles off shore from South Carolina to North Florida. The map consists of hundreds of data points on the ocean surface which are updated twice an hour. The map shows the speed and direction of the surface current at each of those points.
The equipment was purchased with a grant from the Georgia Research Alliance, combined with funding allocated by South East Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System.
“Measurement of surface currents and waves has a broad range of economic, societal, research and educational applications,” said Skidaway Institute professor Dana Savidge.
Those include search and rescue operations; tracking and predicting the trajectories of oil spills and pollutants; maritime operations; commercial and recreational fishing and boating; ecosystem assessment; and improving our understanding of the response of the coastal ocean circulation to major winter storms or hurricanes.
Aside from the practical applications, Savidge says the primary purpose of the system is to improve researchers’ understanding of what is happening on Georgia’s continental shelf.
“The ocean continues to be very poorly observed,” she said. “For example, we do not know how material from the land crosses the shelf. It may be organic. It may be manmade. It may be pollutants. Where does it go and how does it get there? These measurements will help us find out.”
The new site will significantly increase Savidge’s ability to study eddies that develop at the juncture of the shelf edge and the Gulf Stream. These eddies may affect the supply of nutrients available to marine life in that area of the ocean.
The radar data can been seen as a map, with the color, length and direction of the arrows showing the velocity of the surface currents. The orange and yellow arrows on the bottom right indicate the Gulf Stream.There are presently approximately 100 similar radars operating throughout United States. The installation on Jekyll Island will greatly increase coverage to include the entire Georgia shelf and northern Florida. It will add critical overlapping redundancy with existing installations, providing essential two-installation operation during periods when one installation of the three may go down due to lightening strikes, power outages or other problems.
The new radar system is located at the Villas by the Sea condominiums on the north end of Jekyll Island.
“We can’t say enough about how great the folks at Villas by the Sea have been to work with us on this and allow us to install our antennas there,” said Savidge. .
Data from the radar system can be seen at the Skidaway Institute Web site.
Thanks for Sharing Jake and Stone!
Reposted with permission from travelgracenotes.blogspot.com
Travels with Jake and Stone: A Paradise Lite.
Thursday, January 21, 2010 – Our ride down from Jersey to Washington, DC, proves to be surprisingly easy. We rendezvous with our old DC pals, Da Labetts, and the previously mentioned Farles, for dinner at the Carlyle in the DC suburb of Shirlington. When we parked in the garage nearest the restaurant we parked in one of the many spots reserved for “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report: 9am-5pm.” And sure enough, WNET was right across the street, where they are apparently in no hurry to repaint the reservations with the updated “NewsHour” name.
Our meal was a wonderful all-around experience – great food, good wine, good service, and a stylish atmosphere. The crowd was typically DC, which meant it was hard to find anyone over 30 years old. And it was busy. It seems that in DC they have yet to hear about the recession. The dinner was a terrific way to start this vacation, that celebrates our 30th anniversary, with two other couples so happily married for almost as long. God bless us, everyone.
Friday, January 22, 2010 – We breakfast at a suburban DC diner called the Music Box and again we are six in number. But here Mrs Da L (who had to work, poor dear) has been replaced by the Farles’ son who will soon begin work in DC as a lawyer. After eggs and ham, and hugs and goodbyes, we hit the road aiming for Lexington, VA. The drive is rainy and cool, with some trees actually frosted by twinkling ice.
In Lexington we have some soup at a little bakery on Washington Street, then walk over to the campus of Washington and Lee University for a tour of Lee Chapel and Museum, which we can highly recommend. Highlights: the early portrait of a young George Washington by Peale that hangs on the left side of the chapel, the recumbent statue of Lee which dominates the scene, the concise museum downstairs, and finally, the Lee family crypt. This chapel — which is not really a chapel in the usual sense, having no religious or denominational connection — serves as a reminder of the religiosity that marked the Civil War, since it could be argued that Robert E. Lee lies in the crypt below the chapel in the same manner and for the same reasons that Popes are interred in the Vatican Grotto.
But then again, this is Virginia, not Rome, and it should be noted that outside the chapel, near the crypt doors as a matter of fact, one can visit another marked interment: that of General Lee’s horse, Traveller.
We spend the night at the Kerr House B&B in Statesville, NC. Unlike DC, here there is a recession. The restaurant we wanted to go to has closed, as has the music place we had hoped to frequent after dinner. At least the B&B proves to be quite nice (though up for sale!) and we get a good night’s sleep.
Saturday, January 23, 2010 – After a good breakfast and a friendly chat with the B&B owners we head down toward Walterboro, SC, which bills itself as “The Front Porch of the Low Country.” In the attractive historic area of town we drop into the Downtown Books and Espresso for a light lunch of coffee and pastry. Two elderly women sit and knit at one of the communal tables; we ask if we can join them, they say “of course.”
One of the best reasons to travel is to realize your own presumptions. We had sat down thinking we would find little in common with these two old, small town women and their knitting. Well, turns out they had just come back from a vacation themselves – to Peru! They talked of sharing some local “brew” with almost toothless native men in a dirt floored café of sorts, of hiking around Machu Picchu, and of para-gliding(!) off the cliffs of Lima. It all made Jekyll Island seem rather tame. Still we had a wonderful time talking with them, and realized what we would realize again and again on this trip – that down here conversation comes easily.
We get to Jekyll at 4pm, get the keys to our 2 BR duplex, and move in, all before 
dark. Down here just above Florida there is at least one more hour of daylight than back home. We want to make it over to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel while there is still light, for we know from previous experience that the Club’s sprawling grounds can be difficult to navigate after dark.
We make it to one of the hotel’s several eateries, Vincent’s Pub, just as happy hour is ending, which is good, because it opens up some seats in this intimate place. We toast our first night in Jekyll with a couple of martinis, then order some crab cakes and a burger from the room service menu, despite the 20% service charge. Though happy hour has expired, several southern male aristocrats are still seriously in the spirit of the hour(s) past, but we find charm in their bluster, thanks to their accents and our martinis.
Just outside Vincent’s and up one level is the hotel’s in-house deli where we get some java and croissants to go. Even at night the grounds of this grand old place, once the exclusive haunt of millionaires, are quietly enchanting. Our walk back to the car, amidst the quiet demi-dark of palm trees and formal gardens, seems magical, but looming as well. But once back in our simple but sweet 2BR place all that truly looms is a good night’s sleep.
Sunday, January 24, 2010 – Bike rental for the two of us for what’s left of the week is about $100. We take the bikes for a little exploratory ride down to the beach via King Avenue where we see way more birds than people. We do some food shopping at the little grocery store in the strip mall that is the only serious retail on the island. Today’s temp is perfect for us: 61 degrees.
Stone drops Jake off for some windy golf at Great Dunes, an interesting 9-holer that dates from 1926 and costs but $10 to walk. The layout is basically links-like, except for the 
occasional stand of wind-blown trees, and the grass is all brown (dormant, Jake guesses) except for the greens, which range in size from small to micro. In fact, Jake stepped off the two axises of the the circular 9th green and they each measured 16 paces. While Jake fights the wind and his game, Stone drives around a bit, visiting the sea turtle center and finding a close-in parking spot for our next visit to the hotel. Back at the ranch/duplex we do some lunch, some napping, some reading, and then it is time for dinner and a DVD movie.
Monday, January 25, 2010 – Stone says Jake slept trough a major thunderstorm last
night and on Jake’s morning bike ride to get a newspaper the evidence of the downpour is everywhere. Puddles dot the bike trail, and the broad and empty beach looks newly washed, with nary a footprint marring its plaster like sand.
Besides Great Dunes, Jekyll has three 18-hole golf courses, but today Oleander is closed because it is too wet to play. The starter suggests Indian Mound where, even though it is sunny and prime golf time (10 am) Jake tees off alone. The course has brown fairways, is very wet and the wind is quite stiff most of the time, but the sky is sun-filled and for $26 to walk it’s one heck of a deal. There is no extra charge for seeing a rather large turtle (at least by Jersey standards) and several herons. Stone spends the morning biking and walking along the beach. We both need some nap time after our lunch back in the duplex.
When we were here before we had a good meal at Coastal Kitchen so we go then again tonight for dinner; we are not disappointed. This classy restaurant, right off the causeway on the way to St. Simons Island, features a large list of wine by the glass and great seafood, including fresh, wild Georgia shrimp.
After dinner we drive into St. Simons looking for the movie theater that seems so easy to find on Google maps. Alas, we get lost in a maze of malls that would do Jersey proud, and are about to give up when we spot a small sign that saves the night. We catch the last show of the night, “Sherlock Holmes,” which gets out at about midnight. Rather than risk another mall maze we see a sign for I-95 and know our way from there, so we take the Interstate home.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 — Jake bikes into the strip mall again for the morning 
paper. The day is sunny and breezy. The ocean along the bike path is much calmer than yesterday and several people walk the sand. After breakfast we two take a beach walk. After our walk we visit the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and its attached turtle hospital, which proves quite interesting. We had hoped to have lunch at the Crane Cottage but it is closed, so we walk over to Latitude 31, but they are not doing lunch either. We end up at Morgan’s Grill at the golf course(s), which serves surprisingly good golfer food.
Since tonight is our anniversary night we go upscale to Halyards restaurant on St. Simons Island. The drinks and wine are first rate. Stone’s Chilean sea bass is wonderful, as is Jake’s blue fin tuna salad. Finding out that it is our anniversary they give us a free dessert. It all makes for a memorable evening and we don’t even get lost going home.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 – Another day of sunshine and temps (eventually) in the low 60’s. Did somebody say perfect? We do breakfast at Morgan’s before Jake does another 18 holes, this time on Pine Lakes. Jake plays with a friendly married couple who summer in Maine and winter down here. The green fairways (different type of grass?) give Pine Lakes a better look than Indian Mound, and the course is surprising dry, giving a good run to drives that fine the generous fairways.
Stone does a long bike ride of around 10 miles, heading up to the northern end of Jekyll Island and back. Along the way she discovers some gift shops, marsh lands with lots of birds, the historic Horton House and an equally historic cemetery.
As the afternoon lengthens, we head over to the hotel, which is on the western side of this small island (Jekyll must be only about 1.5 miles wide in most places) in hopes of seeing the sunset. At the Lobby Bar (which was featured in the movie, “The Legend of Bagger Vance”) we get our drinks, then find some seats on the veranda 
overlooking the sculptured lawns, the palms trees, the walking paths, and the developing sunset over the small river that separates Jekyll from mainland Georgia. There are maybe half a dozen other people on the veranda. We all fall into easy conversation as the sun sets, the sky ribbons itself in purplish rust, and another wonderful day on Jekyll slips into darkness.
Thursday, January 27, 2010 – Stone is eager to show Jake what she discovered on yesterday’s bike ride, so off we go on the main bike path north. Last night on the veranda we were told not to miss Driftwood Beach, which is on the northern part of the island, and indeed to day we find it just off the bike path through a set of trees. Driftwood Beach is littered with giant trees, apparently washed up during Hurricane Hugo. No wonder it is the most photographed place on a very picturesque island. Along the beach we find some sand dollars that are still alive and some unusual shells, including welks, one with the little animal still inside!
The bike trail then heads into a vast marshland where herons and egrets stalk the muddy ri
vulets with patience and a ballet-like tempo that can be mesmerizing to watch. At the top of the island there is a fishing pier and a picnic area. Then we bike down the west side of Jekyll, curving through miles of high trees that drip Spanish moss almost ostentatiously, as if each tree were trying to out festoon its neighbor.
Back down near the hotel we ride on Old Plantation Road to the Crane Cottage (built in 1919 by one of Jekyll’s millionaire families), where after a comfortable 15 minute wait in the cottage’s “living room,” (made more comfortable by a waitress taking our drink order) we have an alfresco lunch aside the cottage’s center courtyard and loggia (this millionaire had a thing for Italian architecture); delightful in every way.
Later in the day, around 4:30, when it’s safe to say hardly anyone will be on the golf courses, Jake finally gets Stone to join him in hitting and then chasing the little white ball around the landscaping. We have a wonderful time by ourselves on the Oleander course, which is now open for play but still quite wet. We end up having only time for seven holes
before darkness sets in, but during our good-walk-not-spoiled we see a family of deer and a lone bald eagle, hear an owl hoot from somewhere in the gloaming, and watch the almost full moon harden into view above the pine trees, tall guardians of this bit of Nature.
Friday, January 29, 2010 – This morning both of us bike for the paper, and as we pass the beach we spot four or five dolphins less than 100 yards off shore; quite thrilling for us. While watching the dolphins we meet a guy from Florida (he is not particularly impressed by the dolphins’ presence – he says sees them all the time where he lives) who used to live on St. Simons. Again we fall into easy conversation about this and that, and he ends up giving us some local recommendations for food on St. Simons: Barbara Jean’s for crab cakes, Sweet Mama’s for breakfast and the 4th of May for just good local food.
While Stone spends the day reading and biking and walking, it’s another golf day for Jake. He plays on Pine Lakes again, with another husband and wife duo, this time from North Carolina. Jake enjoys the round, which includes a baby alligator sighting, yet finds that the golf on Jekyll has not all that he had hoped. Perhaps his hopes had been too high. The golf is plentiful and cheap, but he found the 18-holers to be without much personality, and with few memorable holes. In fact, the Great Dunes Nine had the most memorable hole: #5: a 466 yard par 5 that ends with a pur-blind shot to a seriously elevated mini green that overlooks the ocean.
We do an early dinner, do the packing for tomorrow’s leaving, and watch another DVD movie. Outside, our near week of perfect weather (ever day sunny, usually a breeze, mornings in the 40’s, highs near 60) seems about to change. The evening’s sky is full of scudding clouds, the moon rises and then disappears behind a bank of pearly, soon to be charcoal, clouds. On a final check before bedtime, raindrops begin to dot the sidewalk.
Saturday, January 30, 2010 – Rainy but a balmy 57 degrees as we drop off the duplex keys and head back north. Our weather continues to be rainy but is not problematic till just outside Fayetteville, NC, where I-95 slows down due to ice and snow. We pull into Dunn, NC, to find the town beginning to shut down, virtually paralyzed by what is a major ice storm. On the main street we find a fast food place that remains open and have what passes for lunch. We are there a good half hour and all the while not another soul enters the place.
Worried that dinner in town will be impossible, we ask where we might buy provisions and are directed to Wal-Mart where we get some nice snacks and two good looking salad platters. When we arrive at our B&B – it is only a couple of blocks off the main street (which seems to be the only plowed street around) and we are one of the few cars on the road which makes driving on the ice and snow a lot easier – our hosts are kind enough to invite us to dinner that night with them and two other couples who live within walking distance. We offer our salads and a bottle of wine as our contribution to dinner, then go up to our room delighted with our good luck.
The dinner is everything a good dinner party should be – good food, good drinks, good people. Jake and Stone are both put immediately at ease, and we both revel in the dinner conversation that ranges from local politics, neighbors, and the history of Dunn, to more worldly affairs – and those southern accents as well!
After such a dinner it should go without saying that this B&B in Dunn is on our highly recommended list, but even if the storm had not occasioned such generosity 
from our hosts, we would still think that the Simply Divine B&B simply lives up to its name. The bedrooms are large and smartly decorated, the parlors are several and comfortable, and throughout the house, which dates from 1906, there is a pervading sense of quality and pride. And the price was divine, too.
Sunday, January 31, 2010 – The drive north from Dunn on I-95 is slow going at first. After our first 2 hours we had gone only 60 miles. But then things got better and once we hit Virginia it was pretty much clear sailing all the way to Washington, DC – or more specifically, Alexandria, VA.
We checked into the Morrison House in the Old Town part of Alexandria, where somehow we had gotten a room for under $200 total – including taxes and valet parking. We feared such a luxury place might be a little snooty, but everyone on the staff was friendly and helpful, and what few patrons we saw seemed normal enough. Everything was just about perfect – from the plush bathrobes to the free wine hour – except for the WiFi. Why such a “luxury boutique hotel,” has such a Byzantine wireless sign-up process is baffling. We ended up doing without the service. But just to get even, Jake wears his plush bathrobe as often as possible.
We didn’t have much time to explore the area, and the foot travel was made difficult by the often still not-shoveled snow on the narrow sidewalks, but we did discover an interesting place for coffee: Misha’s Coffee Roaster Coffeehouse. Misha’s is the opposite of elegant, but with art on the walls, coffee bean bags lying about, and a variety of clientele, it is its own kind of scene and worth a visit.
Down King Street, about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, is Brabo restaurant, where we meet a couple we became friends with recently and who live in the DC area. We hadn’t seen each other in some time and it was great seeing them again. Brabo is a fairly new restaurant and we hoped it would live up to its generally rave reviews. Well, it did. The room is elegant without being stuffy, the service both friendly and impeccable, the wine affordable, and the menu so enticing that we all had to ask for more time to decide what to eat. At the end of the night we all agreed the evening had been – well, great.
Monday, February 1, 2010 – On the way home, which took us but 3 hours from the hotel to exit 9 on the Dear Old Jersey Pike(!), we reviewed Jekyll to see if we might go again. The weather, the golf, the biking, the walking, the ocean, and the (sea)food, had mostly met or surpassed our expectations. Indeed, our week in Jekyll had turned out to be a sort of toned down version of our month in Sequim, WA, which we consider our summer paradise. We could never spend a month in Jekyll as we did in Sequim, but for a winter’s week (or maybe two weeks, next year) it certainly turned out to be a Paradise Lite.
via How to Visit Georgia’s Jekyll Island | eHow.com.
Decide how you want to experience Jekyll Island. You can enjoy the island from a camp site under the stars or from within the comforts of your hotel room. Either way, you are sure to have an exceptional time. For nature-lovers, the island offers stunning sights. For luxury-seekers, the island offers world-class accommodations.
Book a dolphin tour. You can see the ocean and the island this way and get a fantastic break on oceanfront rooms, including food and tickets for the dolphin tour.
Become a beachcomber. Jekyll is a barrier island, so this means 10 miles of unique and constantly changing beaches. You can enjoy the array of seashells, wildlife and evolving changes brought about by time and tide.
Kayak through the inland waterways. Georgia’s Jekyll Island has an extraordinary protected ecosystem just begging to be explored and a kayak ride through the marshes offers amazing opportunities to see the unique wildlife of this area.
Look at the sea turtles. Unique to Jekyll Island are its female loggerhead sea turtles who come to lay their eggs in nests on the beautiful beaches between May and August of each year. They are almost extinct; so it is truly a wonder to see these rare beauties.
Jekyll Island, Georgia is a prime example of an outdoor learning laboratory, one geared towards the maritime environment.
The following Jekyll Island educational opportunities not only present prime opportunities for learning, but they’re fun!
Drop in at Tidelands and experience a wide variety of nature activities revolving around marine ecology. It’s kids and nature, one on one!
Kids can touch and handle fauna, flora and just plain icky stuff at several hands-on study stations. Or learn about the lives of sharks swimming off the Jekyll Island coast. They can study maritime forests from close up, hiking through natural woodlands.
And learn about salt marsh, and how living things (including humans) benefit from it’s protection.
Kids can even learn to kayak, and take a guided kayak trip through Jekyll Island’s salt marsh ecosystem.
This unique center located, in Jekyll Island’s Historic District, is dedicated to the study, protection and preservation of both sea and land based turtles. Kids can learn everything there is to know about sea turtles, from loggerheads to greens to leatherbacks and more, and about land-based turtles, too. Take a walk on the wild side – a turtle walk, that is, along Jekyll Island’s 10 miles of beach, looking for sea turtles and their nests, attend a sea turtle camp and become a junior conservationist, visit the Georgia Sea Turtle Center’s hospital, and see how the staff rehabilitates sick or injured turtles, become a virtual sea turtle, and experience the life journey of a turtle, from hatchling to (hopefully) old-timer, adopt a sea turtle you can call your own, attend a turtle release, where the Center’s staff releases rehabilitated turtles back to the sea.
Maritime Forests -Kids can learn about the importance of a maritime forest, and it’s relationship with other Jekyll Island ecologys.
Take guided walks through the maritime forest environment, and learn how it relates with the ocean, beach, dune, and marshland ecosystems. Don’t want to walk? Take a Segway tour, riding a gyroscopic Segway, and learn about the forest in style!
Kids get wet and wild with a kayak adventure into Jekyll Island’s river and salt water marsh environment.
Rent a kayak at Tidelands Nature Center. Their guides will teach you everything you need to know for safe kayak operation.
First leg – paddle across Rixen Pond. Watch out for leaping mullet – they’ve been known to jump into boats!
Second leg – portage from Rixen Pond to the boat ramp and put into Jekyll River, and gain first-hand experience with wind and tide. Paddling with a rising tide, with the wind at your back – that’s a breeze. But paddling into an ebbing tide, with the wind in your face – you’ll work like a dog!
Third leg – into the salt marsh, via several creeks that constantly narrow as you ply up-stream. Learn about several types of marsh grass. The barrier islands off the Georgia coast are known as the Golden Isles because the marsh grasses turn burnished gold in winter. Look for crabs, redfish, herons, and other marsh wildlife. And find out how the salt marsh environment not only feeds the fish that feed us, but filters pollutants from the uplands.
Jekyll Island is rich in history, and inquisitive kids can soak in a rich brew of historic fact – along with a bit of speculation.
Check out the Millionaire’s Village. From the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, Jekyll Island was a playground for millionaires like J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller. The Jekyll Island Club was their play house, and the renovated mansions you can visit within the Historic District were their “cottages.
Visit the Jekyll Island museum for further history lessons, including Jekyll’s role in creating the Federal Reserve. Learn about the Wanderer, one of the last slave ships to bring slaves to America. It landed on Jekyll in 1858. And, get this – even Bigfoot likes a beach vacation. A Sasquatch was reportedly spotted on Jekyll Island in 1963No matter how they’re taught, kids can benefit from fun-filled educational activities, even on vacation. Whether the classroom is a barrier island like Jekyll, a mountain cove like Cade’s Cove in the Smokey Mountains, a National Park such as Yellowstone, or even an urban environment like Washington, D.C., there are plenty of educational opportunities for your kids to get a one-up on learning.
(c) 2010, Rick Freeland
Rick Freeland is a registered landscape architect and an avid Jekyll Island enthusiast. You can find more about his families adventures on Jekyll Island at http://www.jekyll-island-family-adventures.com/.
You can find more articles by Rick on landscape and garden subjects, as well as other interests, at http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/richardsfreeland.
The treasures are hand-crafted glass floats, called Island Treasures. The glass floats have been sought after by Jekyll Island guests since 2002. Each is unique and stamped with the year to be a collector’s item for the lucky beachcomber who finds one.
Island Treasures mimic glass floats once used on the fishing nets of fishermen in the early 1900s. The floats would sometimes break loose and wash ashore for lucky beachcombers to find and keep. Collecting these glass floats became a hobby in the 1950′s, declined as commercial fishing moved to plastic and Styrofoam floats. Glass fishing floats became rare and are highly sought after and very valuable today.
During these first two winter months, the Jekyll Island Authority recreates this hunt-and-find experience. The glass float treasures are the works of commissioned artists from across the country. “Beach Buddies” hide them along the shore line every day for lucky visitors to find and keep. Treasure finders can register their Island Treasure at the Jekyll Island Visitor Information Center to receive a bio on the artist and a certificate of authenticity. The Jekyll Island Visitor Information Center has Island Treasure floats and an array of the other colorful glass creations for purchase in-store or online at www.jekyllisland.com/islandtreasures.
Since the promotion began six years ago, over 1,000 glass floats have been found by guests from across the U.S., Canada and England. Jekyll Island floats are collector’s items and can be occasionally found on auction sites like eBay.
Those who are unable to visit Jekyll Island can participate in a virtual treasure hunt on www.jekyllisland.com. Search the website for small, hidden Island Treasure pictures. The first person to click on one will win an actual Island Treasure that will be shipped to them.
We have been going to Jekyll for many years and I love the fact that we can pack the car at the last minute and always know what we are going to find when we get there! I do hope that will remain the same for the most part!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We’ve heard comments from many people about what a beautiful place Jekyll is. I know group planners work very hard on the details with guests and they come & go. this was a big thing for our family, as you can see by this and we only do it every 3 years. Not sure if you knew that Krystyne who helped me so much on the planning, was unable to attend because of her due date. She actually had the baby on the Wednesday we were there. They’re incorporated into the video as a part of the reunion memories.Thanks again for all your help in getting the details right. All the best – Rose DohertyCheck out these great photos our Facebook fans have posted as part of our Are We There Yet Promotion! Book your vacation on Jekyll Island, sign up to tell us about your trip and send us photos, and get 2 Escape! Passes.
 |
 |
| Make a Smilebox slideshow |
Hot Deals at Days Inn Jekyll Island
|
|
|||||||
 |
|
|
|||||
|
|||||||
|
| Days Inn Jekyll Island 60 S. Beachview Drive Jekyll Island, GA 31527 Phone: 912-635-9800 Visit our website for more information or call 888-635-3003 |
Intermittently, I post a picture on my twitter account (Jekyll_Island), and people have to guess where it is. Fabuluxe, a wedding planner, guessed correctly and won! The “winner” provides me with content for my blog! Lucky for me right? So she graciously sent this today (hope she likes that I put her pic!). Thank you to her! So follow me and you could “win” too!
As a city girl transplanted in the South, I was curious to see the type of life I would live here in the Golden Isles. I can remember when I took my first trip to Jekyll Island– thinking this was a little slice of heaven tucked away for those lucky enough to find it. Eager to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city life, it was so refreshing to experience “Georgia’s Jewel”. As a destination wedding planner for my company Fabuluxe, I could not ask for a better or more beautiful place to work. All of my clients and their guests come from different places across the globe– our great United States to England, Ireland, South Africa and so many other places. It is wonderful to tell them about richness of Jekyll Island and experience it with them for the first time. It is as if a new world has been opened exclusively for them, and what better feeling and atmosphere to have on your wedding day.
Destination weddings became a trend about ten years ago, and US destination weddings have become popular for the same reasons. Some guests cannot afford to travel out of the country: it is easier and less expensive to plan a getaway to a US island as opposed to an international location. With our strained economy, wedding couples are looking for innovative ways to make their wedding stand apart while still being budget-friendly and meaningful. As a wedding planner, it is my job to assist them with creating an event experience that is pleasing to all five senses as well as within their financial comfort zone. Jekyll Island lends so much to any wedding as it provides several options for the wedding location, dining, accommodations and activities.
From the regal Jekyll Club Hotel to the coastal chic of the Beachview Club, there is something here for everyone. I have come to learn and love all of the different places Jekyll Island because it appeals to all facets of my clients’ personalities. When a couple looks back on their special day years from now, they will see the backdrop of the strong oaks with the gentle Spanish moss, the quiet river glistening in the sun, the warm sand that kisses the tide, and remember their wedding fondly. Jekyll Island becomes so much more than their wedding location, but where they choose to spend their anniversaries to recapture those moments or a family vacation spot when they want to make new memories with their blossoming family. Jekyll Island feels like the home away from home that always welcomes you back with open arms. When I ask some of my clients why they chose a specific wedding location, their answers are remarkably similar: “Our family vacationed here when I was little and I always loved it. It just felt right”.
It feels just right to me, too. I’m so blessed to do what I do, and twice as blessed to do it on Jekyll Island where the love and magic in my couple’s eyes is reflection of the island’s own natural beauty.
Fabuluxe™ Inc.
ring • fax 888.720.LUXE
www.fabuluxeinc.com
www.fabuluxeblog.com
Member of the 2008-2009 Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Platinum List
Kids love horses. They also love the beach. On a trip to Jekyll Island, Georgia, you’ll find both. Arrange a trip with Victoria’s Carriages & Beach Trail Rides ([912] 635-9500). When the Spanish moss-draped forests open up to the beach and you see the vast Atlantic blue against the horizon, you’ll hear only one word from your kid: “Wow!”
www.jekyllisland.com
Only in the South…can you ride horses on a pristine beach that has been home to English settlers, French landowners, and turn-of-the- century American elite.
If you follow me on Twitter (Jekyll_Island), I have started posting pictures of the island and people can guess where that place is. Winners get to “guest blog” here. This is Winner #1, mango2kw. Thanks for sending us your Jekyll Island memory!
Having grown up on the water in Coastal Virginia, I was very excited when we relocated from the Atlanta area to Brunswick. I was even more excited when we were able to locate a house only 13 minutes from the beaches at Jekyll Island. I envisioned spending many fun-filled hours roaming the beautiful beaches & trails that Jekyll had to offer.
However, as much as my wife and love the water, I never imagined that my dogs would like the beach. Collies usually do not care for water; and I was afraid that my boys would recoil from the sand and surf. But one bright afternoon we decided to take a chance. We loaded up the boys into the back of my Honda Element and made the quick trip cross the Lanier bridge to Jekyll. Leashes secured we ventured forth. Boy was I in for a surprise! They loved the beach! They ran and frolicked along the surf like they had spent their entire lives on the beach.
Micah, who is 12+, is a different dog when we go to Jekyll. It’s like he is reliving his puppy years again. He runs and plays as he did years ago. Conner, who just turned 3, almost has trouble keeping up with the “old man” of the pack. Now all I have to say is “let’s go the beach”, and they are ready to roll. I guess you really can “teach an old dog a new trick.” I know I learned one.
Thanks for sharing Jake and Stone!