We did a trolley tour of St. Augustine – very touristy, but we got to see the old historical part of the city without having to rent a car and figure out how to get to various sites.
The Old part of the city has many shops and restaurants in the old buildings. Kilwin’s ice cream and fudge have made it all the way to St. Augustine!As a retired teacher, a visit to this schoolhouse seemed mandatory. I’m not sure I could have been a teacher in this building.This was a closet under the stairs in the schoolhouse. It reminded me of Harry Potter living under the stairs.Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a shot of the entire tree – it was quite impressive!One of the stops was at the fort. We went under the bridge in the background on our way to the marina, so it was fun to see from land where we had traveled on the water. It’s hard to imagine what life must have been like for the soldiers who were stationed at this fort. The rooms were hot, not much light, and very primitive conditions. The “outhouse” was actually inside and positioned in such a way that the high tides that occurred twice a day would come up and wash away all the waste – very clever engineering!
From St. Augustine we went to Jacksonville for two nights. I spent the time catching up on laundry (some things need to be done no matter where you’re living.) There was a very good restaurant next door to the marina, so we had dinner there both nights – cooking is one thing I do less of on the boat 😊
This sign was posted in the parking lot of the restaurant.
From Jacksonville we headed to Jekyll Island for two nights. They had golf carts that you could borrow for 90 minutes, which didn’t seem like it would be long enough to see or do much, but we were wrong. The island is not quite 7 miles long and only 1 1/2 miles wide at the widest part, so we visited a beach and drove around half the island in less than 90 minutes.
Courtesy vehicles come in all different makes and models!Jekyll Island Club Resort. The grounds were beautiful! This is where rich people came to vacation in the late 19th and early 20th century.The only way to get to the island was by boat – and “the only way that a person was allowed onto Jekyll Island from 1886 to 1942 was by this dock, and access was only granted to members, members’ guests, and employees of the Jekyll Island Club.” Talk about exclusivity!This was taken from the wharf. Can you see our boat at the marina in the background? Where the water is in the foreground will be mud flats at low tide.A walk on the beach at low tide. This reminded me of how the sand blows into the parking lot at Oval Beach in Saugatuck.Sand dunes, beach, and the Atlantic OceanShrimp boat! I had local fresh peel-and-eat shrimp and they were delicious!
From Jekyll we went to a marina in rural Georgia – no internet, no cell phone service. Restaurant was closed on Tuesdays, handle was missing on the water connection so we used the water in our boat’s tanks, and the electric went out for half an hour this morning. But we didn’t hear any dueling banjos and the dockage fee was cheap. The docks were floating docks, which was good because the tide goes up many feet.
Low tide – notice how steep the ramp is.Near high tideI’m not sure how these trees stay upright at low tide – obviously their root systems are deep enough to keep them in place.At dusk the egrets started flying into the trees by the docks. There are at least three visible in this shot, but we saw as many as 8 at one point.I zoomed in to get a better shot of one of them perched on a tree top.
