Jekyll Island

After a couple of nights of anchoring, we arrived at beautiful Jekyll Island. This is the office at Jekyll Harbor Marina, but don't be fooled by the down home appearance. This is a friendly and well run marina with great WiFi and cable TV. The floating concrete docks are designed to accomodate the 7-9 foot twice daily tides.

This is the walkway up to the restaurant, the azaleas are in full bloom all over the island.

Jekyll Island is only 7 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. There are 22 miles of bike paths winding through the old forest, along the beaches, and to the historical village that makes this island so unique.

In the late 1800's a group of famous and wealthy families bought the island for their winter retreat. They built a clubhouse, put up individual "cottages" for their families, and outfitted the island with tennis courts, a golf course and a marina for their yachts. After a good run of about 50 years, the club disbanded and the island was purchased by the state of Georgia. The original clubhouse is now the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. The bike trail led us to the hotel.

The marina is right on the ICW and is a favorite stop for Loopers and ICW Snowbirds. This morning we returned to the hotel with Loopers Richard and Laura (boat: Laura Lee) for breakfast. This is the view down the hallway to the dining room.

Here are Steve, Laura, and Richard in the courtyard.

We biked to the beach on the Atlantic side. The water is brown tinged from the all the sand that is being stirred up from the north winds that have been blowing much of the winter.

We finally saw our first alligators (in the wild) in this pond on the bike path.

Jekyll Island is a wonderful stop and we really enjoyed our time here. Tonight we spent some time with Greg and Judy (boat: Majic II) who have a Mainship just one year newer than ours. It was fun to see their "sister ship", in excellent condition, but a completely different interior than ours. All the Loopers and Snowbirds, who were spread out all over Florida and the Bahamas for the winter, are now now heading north on the ICW. Next stop will be Savannah, GA.