31•81, the Jekyll Island Magazine: Vol 1, No 2

THE MAGAZINE OF JEKYLL ISLAND

SPRING /SUMMER 2017

THE MAGAZINE OF JEKYLL ISLAND

Spring/Summer 2017 • Vol. 1 No. 2

34

Seeing Is Believing

For ten years, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center has invited the public to share in its crusade to heal and protect wildlife.

By Elizabeth Florio, Christine Van Dusen, and Muriel Vega

44

The Simple Life

They were one of America’s ritziest families. But the Rockefellers savored a humbler existence at their island retreat.

By Wendell Brock

52

Ranger Bre

There’s a new face patrolling Jekyll, and she’s here to teach you the right way to commune with nature. By Justin Heckert

68

Welcome to Camp

A look at the revamped campus—and rich history—of the gathering place now known as Camp Jekyll. By Scott Freeman

60

Water, Water Everywhere

By paddle, by fishing boat, by inner tube: Awesome ways to experience Jekyll on the water

By Jennifer Senator

Fronds of a saw palmetto.

Photograph by Gabriel Hanway. Retouching by Patrick White.

Shrimp & Grits Festival

UPCOMING EVENTS

Set a date to return to Jekyll Island this season

Summer Waves

30th Birthday

May–August

Jekyll Island Arts

Association: Fifty Years of Art on Jekyll

May 1–31

Turtle Crawl Weekend

May 12–14

Movie on the Green: Sing

May 27

Georgia Sea Turtle

Center 10th Birthday

June 1–30

Swim-In Movie: Moana

June 3

Movie on the Green: The Jungle Book

June 24

Swim-In Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

July 1

Parade, Fireworks, and Red, White & Bounce Party

July 4

Movie on the Green: Finding Dory

July 29

Movie on the Green: Star Wars: Rogue One

August 26

Jekyll Island Shrimp & Grits Festival

September 15–17

Movie on the Green: The LEGO Batman Movie

September 30

Trick-or-Treat & Movie on the Green: Hocus Pocus

October 28

Holly Jolly Jekyll: Tree Lighting, Skating Village, and More November–January

Details at jekyllisland.com/events

About 31·81 Published

100 James Road • Jekyll Island, GA 31527 877-4-JEKYLL • jekyllisland.com

executive director

Jones Hooks senior director of marketing

Meggan Hood

marketing communications manager

Regan Young

creative director

Claire Davis

This magazine was published by the Jekyll Island Authority in cooperation with Atlanta Magazine Custom Media. All contents ©2017. All rights reserved.

publisher

Sean McGinnis

editorial director

Kevin Benefield

design director

Cristina Villa Hazar

senior editor

Elizabeth Florio

art director

Marla Kaplan

associate publisher

Jon Brasher

travel sales director

Jill Teter

production director

Whitney Tomasino

Photography courtesy of Jekyll Island Authority unless otherwise noted.

Dear friends,

The spring and summer months are beautiful on Jekyll Island. The weather is warm and Jekyll’s beaches start to see visitors from all over. Sea turtles and sunbathers alike gather on our serene coast, though each with a very different purpose.

It’s this time of year I am most reminded that an important part of my job here is the stewardship of this beautiful island. With every decision we make, Jekyll Island staff strives toward balance. As stewards, we are responsible for preserving the island’s natural beauty. At the same time, we are commissioned to welcome guests from every part of Georgia and beyond.

Inviting the public to join us for Turtle Walks, Night Patrols, and the myriad of eco-programs our research, conservation, and Georgia Sea Turtle Center teams offer is just one part of our balancing act. For every person who attends a sea turtle release, visits Horton Pond, or searches for bald eagles with our park ranger, we aim to educate as well as entertain.

This summer marks the tenth anniversary of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center’s opening, a tangible example of this commitment to balance.

Dr. Terry Norton and his team have treated and released more than 3,000 “patients” of various species. The center’s education team has reached more than 144,000 individuals. The research team has tagged, tracked, and studied more than 5,800 animals, growing our understanding of environmental shifts and human impact.

Looking forward, I am excited to see what the future will bring for this little island. I hope to see you around Jekyll soon.

A Year Round Destination

Jones Hooks

Executive Director, Jekyll Island Authority

It’s this time of year

I am most reminded that an important part of my job here is the stewardship of this beautiful island.”

JEKYLL ISLAND AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael “Mike” Hodges chairman St. Simons Island, GA

Robert “Bob” W. Krueger vice chairman Hawkinsville, GA

William “Bill” H. Gross secretary/treasurer Kingsland, GA

Sybil D. Lynn Jesup, GA

Mark Williams Georgia Department of Natural Resources Atlanta, GA

Joy Burch-Meeks Screven, GA

A.W. “Bill” Jones III Sea Island, GA

Hugh “Trip” Tollison Savannah, GA

Joe Wilkinson St. Simons Island, GA

Milestones and Makeovers

What makes sea turtles so likable? With fossils dating back to the dinosaur age and life spans rivaling those of humans, they seem to possess an ancient wisdom. Their hatchlings are as adorable as any mammalian fur ball. And as water-dwelling reptiles go, they are nonthreatening. I’ve always had a phobia about swimming with marine life, but I think I could handle sharing the water with a loggerhead. (They get pretty large though. Ask me in the moment.)

Maybe it’s this general appeal that has helped the Georgia Sea Turtle Center become nothing less than an institution on Jekyll Island since it opened a decade ago. Or maybe it’s the fact that, as a working wildlife hospital, the center offers an unforgettable look at the perils these creatures face. In honor of the organization’s tenth anniversary, we’ve put together a feature that—much like the center itself—contains plenty of cold-blooded cuteness while highlighting the serious work being done to save animals and teach environmental responsibility (page 34).

Of course, ten years is nothing in the life of a sea turtle—or a Jekyll tourist attraction. On Jekyll you can walk the beautifully restored homes of Industrial Age titans like William Rockefeller (page 44), or stumble upon historic cannon emplacements in the woods (page 14; don’t worry, the ammo is long gone). Even the water park, Summer Waves, is turning thirty. The park, part of our roundup on water recreation (page 60), will ring in its third decade with a brand new kids’ attraction.

But no Jekyll venue has gotten a bigger update than the long-standing 4-H Center, which underwent a two-year, $17 million rebuild by the Jekyll Island Authority and reopened as Camp Jekyll last December. Turn to page 68 for a look at the site’s rich history (B.B. King performed there) and a glimpse of the smart new confines presently being overtaken by students and campers. They’re getting a crash course in environmental science and also just having fun outside. If sea turtles are the unofficial mascot of Jekyll Island, a muddy child is surely next in line.

Elizabeth Florio Editor

Committed to Jekyll Island

At Ameris Bank, our customers and the community are always at the center of everything we do. From big-ticket decisions to everyday services, we’re committed to serving our neighbors on Jekyll Island.

Of course, ten years is nothing in the life of a sea turtle— or a Jekyll tourist attraction.”

1 Jeff Holt is known for creating artistic and timeless collections of work that capture a raw sense of truth and emotion. He has worked with some of the world’s largest brands and traveled extensively around the globe, which has helped shape his perspective and sensibilities as a photographer. He was born in North Carolina and now calls Charleston, South Carolina, home.

2 Freelance writer Jennifer Senator is a former senior editor for Atlanta magazine

and has contributed to the New York Post, Food Network magazine, Town & Country, and Frommer’s travel guides, among other publications. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and two children.

A native of Atlanta, she spent summers visiting Jekyll, and one of her favorite spots on earth is Driftwood Beach.

3 Atlanta-based food and culture writer Wendell Brock grew up on a Southwest Georgia peanut farm. A longtime editor and writer for the

awards and an award for feature writing from the Football Writers Association of America. His oral history of the Cabbagetown music scene was recognized by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. He is the author of four books, including critically acclaimed biographies of the Allman Brothers Band and Otis Redding.

Atlanta JournalConstitution, he won a 2016 James Beard Award for journalism for his profile writing. A University of Georgia graduate, Brock has  contributed to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Cooking Light, Atlanta magazine, Delta Sky, the Bitter Southerner, and many other publications.

4 Scott Freeman is managing editor of  ArtsATL. He has worked at Atlanta magazine and Creative Loafing and has received three Green Eyeshade

5 Justin Heckert is a writer based in Charleston, South Carolina. His stories have appeared in GQ, Esquire, ESPN The Magazine, Grantland, Atlanta, the New York Times Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, and the Oxford American, among others. He has twice been named Writer of the Year by the City and Regional Magazine Association. He is from the bootheel of southeastern Missouri and a graduate of the University of MissouriColumbia. He lives with his wife, Amanda, and their dog, Cooper.

Golden Isles Carriage and Trail at Three Oaks Farm

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The purple passionflower imparts its singular beauty

More on page 18

The Gun Mounts

Now shrouded in overgrowth, two mysterious cannon emplacements offer a glimpse into Jekyll’s past

BY CHARLES BETHEA

In 1965, a pair of surveyors stumbled across two cast-iron Civil War–era gun mounts— also known as emplacements—jutting out of the dunes along the southwestern side of Jekyll Island. The southern inlet between Jekyll and Cumberland islands was once a “point of wartime concern,” according to the Jekyll Island Authority’s director of historic resources, Bruce Piatek. Long-since-lost cannons were fitted to these surviving emplacements and pointed at enemies we can now only imagine a half mile offshore, just within range.

Though of Civil War vintage, the emplacements were installed during the Spanish-American War at the end of the nineteenth

century. “My guess,” Piatek says, “is that these may have been installed to discourage or fire upon any Spanish vessels that tried to attack the mainland.” But if the strategic goal was to protect Brunswick Harbor, there was a slightly less strategic perk. In his autobiography, President Teddy Roosevelt complained about the pressure to protect “everything everywhere,” writing: “One Congressman besought me for a ship to protect Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia, an island which derived its sole consequence because it contained the winter homes of certain millionaires.”

There’s no evidence that the emplacements and their cannons were ever used, except for

traces

practice, which would have worked this way: A spotter offers a compass heading for a target—say, forty-two degrees east of south. The soldier manning the cannon muzzle-loads a bag of powder and some wadding and places the projectile inside. “Finally,” Piatek says, “some brave lad lights the touch hole and the thing fires and sends the projectile flying!”

Each of the emplacements was equipped to mount both 100- and 200-pounder muzzle-loading seacoast artillery. (Translation: ridiculously big guns for coastal use.) The guns themselves are long gone; the government ordered them removed on May 17, 1898, soon after the Spanish Pacific Squadron was defeated in the Battle of Manila Bay. Likewise, other accessories—like magazines needed to supply powder and shells—are missing. Shelter, too. “There’s not much point in having gun mounts,” Piatek says, “if they’re not manned. So one would think there was somebody living in the vicinity.”

Today, the emplacements are far removed from the beachfront—some 800 feet from shore—due to the slow and steady accretion of sand. (Here, they don’t seem particularly useful to the casual observer.) Piatek and other Jekyll experts believe there are more mounts to be found. Campground man -

ager Ronnie Douglas discovered an identical set farther east of the known pair while walking around one day many years ago with his father, Lloyd. “They said, ‘Oh yeah, we should probably come back and take a look at that’—and then, the next time, they couldn’t find them,” laughs Piatek. So the next time you take a walk on the island, keep an eye out for rusted steel; you never know how the sands will shift.

GETTING THERE

The gun mounts are tucked in the woods about a half mile from St. Andrews Beach. Bring bug spray and a sense of adventure.

Passionflower

It’s as sweet as it is striking

BY MURIEL VEGA

The purple passionflower is whimsical, durable, and even edible. You might spy its kaleidoscopic blossoms on marsh-facing beach trails on the island’s western side—though local animals are quick to gobble them up.

It’s hardy in all seasons. There are more than 400 species in the genus Passiflora, most of them tropical evergreens. But Passiflora incarnata, or purple passionflower, is deciduous and can survive winter frosts.

But individual blooms have a very short life, usually about one day.

The name has religious ties. Early Christian missionaries believed the flower’s various parts represented Jesus’s crucifixion.

It has possible sedative effects. Passionflower was once an approved over-the-counter sleep aid in the U.S., but it was taken off the market in 1978 over doubts about its safety and efficacy.

The vine is home to several kinds of butterfly larvae, including Gulf fritillary and zebra Longwing.

It’s a favorite treat of the island rabbits. The gold nectar inside the plant’s “maypop”—the vine’s egg-shaped green fruit—tastes similar to apricot. Yes, you can eat it too.

BAJA MEXICAN CUISINE WITH AN OCEAN VIEW

Roseate SPOONBILL

Meet the island’s resident pop of color

BY CANDICE DYER

That flash of bismuth pink

you see hovering over the marsh may look, at first glance, like a flamingo, but zoom in with your binoculars. It is actually a roseate spoonbill.

The spoonbill is smaller than a flamingo, with a short neck and a bill shaped like a salad server— perfect for sifting shrimp and plankton for food. It’s a relative newcomer to Jekyll Island, the product of a shrinking habitat. “They’re normally farther south,” says Tim Keyes, a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, “but as Florida wetlands dwindled, they started showing up on the Georgia coast in the 1980s. Some that were banded [for research] in Tampa have turned up here.”

Their coloration comes from an abundance of carotenoids, or algae pigments, in their diet. The older the bird, the pinker the feathers.

Pastel juveniles and their more vibrant elders can be spotted on Jekyll on the golf course, at the amphitheater pond, and along the causeway at low tide. Some birders have even reported a spectacle of around 100 spoonbills feeding together, swinging their spatulate beaks from side to side.

The roseate spoonbill differs from other birds in the sound it

makes—a guttural grunt reminiscent of a pig. “It lacks a song,” says Lydia Thompson, a local bird conservationist and avian artist, “so it relies on its visual appeal to attract attention.” The feathers darken at the edges to crimson red when the birds are breeding, and the adults have startling red eyes, giving them the look of a dowager’s old-timey brooch come to life.

In fact, the bird’s unusual beauty was almost its undoing. In the 1860s, it was hunted for its plumes, which decorated women’s hats and fans—a practice since outlawed.

“They’re a delight to observe and easy to spot for those who are new to birding,” Thompson says.

The older the bird, the pinker the feathers.

BY TONY REHAGEN

Far left: Linginfelter and his wife, Sandy. Above: W.S. Linginfelter worked for Atlanta Gas Light in the Golden Isles. His son would rise through the ranks of the utilities company (now Southern Company Gas) over his three-decade career there. Left: Linginfelter’s dog, Buddy, frolics on the beach.

Linginfelter came aboard the foundation in summer of 2011 and was thrust almost immediately into the chairmanship. His task was to make the organization self-supported and proactive. According to fellow member (and former chair) Buff Leavy, Linginfelter didn’t hesitate to take the reins. “He can be a man of action when he needs to be decisive,” says Leavy. “But he does it in a very genteel way. He is a great listener, a compassionate leader, who always knows when to pick up the ball or assist others and pat them on the back when they do a good job. He was also a perfect fit because he grew up on Jekyll. His heart was in it— he knew how perfect Jekyll is.”

Even after leaving the chairmanship in October 2013, Linginfelter has remained a force on the foundation. Over the past seven years, he has helped raise funds to relocate and renovate the historic Skeet House, a gathering spot for skeet shooters during the Jekyll Island Club era; to preserve the diamondback terrapin and the Wilson’s plover; and

to build the Horton Pond wildlife viewing area and nature trail. The foundation’s biggest initiative—perhaps its largest undertaking since the establishment of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in 2007—has been the revitalization of the Jekyll Island Museum. So far the campaign, known as Jekyll Island Mosaic, has raised more than $3.1 million to redesign the museum’s interior, build an outdoor education center, and revamp programming to illuminate the human and environmental wonders of Jekyll. “I just think we need to make the space as welcoming as possible,” he says. “It will give people a full understanding of the natural and man-made history of the island.” Meanwhile, Linginfelter has been revisiting his own history. He and his wife now own a cottage on St. Simons, where they hope to retire and stay engaged on Jekyll. “I believe that when you retire, you should be where you can build lasting friendships and contribute,” he says. “Tourists love to come to Jekyll, but it’s not necessarily a tourist’s place. Jekyll is a true community.”

family in Atlanta, Linginfelter heard the bells of the Golden Isles calling him home once again. An executive vice president for Southern Company Gas, he was on his way to Jekyll for a thirty-year reunion for his class at Brunswick’s Glynn Academy when, while idling on the bridge to pay the island’s entrance fee, his car was nearly hit by an oncoming vehicle. He decided to call his old friend Jones Hooks, executive director of the Jekyll Island

helped reconnect him with his past. Linginfelter’s father had worked as a manager for the Atlanta Gas Light Company in the Golden Isles; the family would head to Jekyll for company picnics. Jekyll was also where young Linginfelter would go for his high school dances and proms, at the old convention center. “I have a deep connection to the island from those experiences,” he says.

He has helped raise funds to relocate and renovate the historic Skeet House, to preserve the diamondback terrapin and the Wilson’s plover, and to build the Horton Pond wildlife viewing area and nature trail.

Horton Pond Skeet House

Birth of the Fed

The secret expedition that formed America’s central bank

BY SCOTT FREEMAN

Just before Thanksgiving in 1910, U.S. senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island invited six members of America’s banking elite to a covert retreat on Jekyll Island. This was before the first transcontinental call (placed by the president of AT&T from a phone on Jekyll in 1915). It was before the internet and cable news. Secrets could be taken to the island and secrets would stay there.

Wishing to avoid public scrutiny and pesky reporters, the group—dubbed the “First Name Club” because no one used last names during the rail trip down—agreed on the cover of a gentlemen’s duck hunt. (One attendee even toted a borrowed shotgun.) Instead, they holed up for nine days at the Jekyll Island

Clubhouse to discuss how to prevent another Panic of 1907, when a run on banks nearly collapsed the United States economy. J.P. Morgan (a Jekyll Club member) personally bailed out banks, New York City, and the New York Stock Exchange.

Out of those clandestine meetings emerged a draft of legislation that would eventually form the Federal Reserve Banking System, the country’s central bank network and a financial safety net that remains in place today. “It was absolutely an epoch-making event,” says the Jekyll Island Museum’s Andrea Marroquin. The reward for their labors? A robust Thanksgiving feast and a day off for that duck hunt.

Jekyll Island Clubhouse

Senator Aldrich 50 BEN FORTSON PARKWAY, JEKYLL ISLAND, GA 31527

BY CANDICE DYER

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF HOLT

When she was eighteen years old, Kristen Pickett spotted a classified ad that intrigued her. “It said: ‘Glassblower wanted, will train.’ I thought why not? There weren’t many women in that medium at the time.”

The Long Island native learned to sculpt Pyrex with a torch while also studying pottery, painting, and drawing at Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina. She set aside those hobbies for twenty-five years, though, to work as a nurse in cardiac care and hospice. “At night I was always dreaming about glassblowing,” she says. “I couldn’t wait to go to sleep so I could dream some more.” Her family owned a summer house on Jekyll, which she had visited every year before moving to the island in 1981. There, she met her musician husband, Eddie, and fired up her torch full time.

At first her glass business grew modestly, at festivals and on merchandise tables she shared with Eddie’s band, the WharfRatz. Today, Pickett operates Gypsea Glass, a combination gallery, gift shop, and art studio on Pier Road. Customers can schedule demonstrations to watch her craft jewelry, marbles, and abstract

sculptures. After work, she unwinds at the Wee Pub, where she and Eddie are part owners.

A nurse’s sure-handedness has served her well.

“Burns and cuts are an occupational hazard,” Pickett says, explaining that she typically dons eyewear, Kevlar sleeves, and a leather apron before wielding a flame that reaches 3,000 degrees. “One of my flames is the size of a needle, which I use for detailing on jewelry, but I also have the big, bushy flame for larger projects.”

“When I got a chance to watch her

work, she was making an angelic cupid,” says fellow glassblower Erik Anders. “The strings on the bow and arrow were so tiny and delicate that it really opened my eyes to the world of glass.”

After concocting her colors with tubing, rods, powdered glass, and crushed glass (called frit), she puts her final designs in a kiln to anneal, which relieves the stress of the glass and helps its jumpy molecules settle and strengthen.

Pickett draws inspiration from her island surroundings. “I make seashell pendants and wildlife sculptures such as fish, birds, deer, and alligators,” she says. “Right now I’m doing a series of women representing each element: earth, wind, fire, and water. The wind figurine is shaped like the windswept trees on Jekyll, and the water figurine is a mermaid.”

Does she still dream of glass? “Absolutely,” she says. “In this medium, you never stop learning, and there are always new ideas, new designs, new things to make.”

Kristen Pickett fell in love with glassblowing as a teenager. Today she operates a combination art gallery and studio, where she often gives demonstrations, in Jekyll’s National Historic Landmark District.

“David knew I wanted to get married here one day. My family has been coming to Jekyll for fifty years, ever since my grandmother drove her six kids down every summer from Elmira, New York. I remember my mom and aunts doing French braids and putting sunscreen on fourteen little girls— that’s how many of us there were . . . We wanted our wedding to be all about family, and when we think about Jekyll, we think about family.” —Jessica Ivey

As told to JENNIFER SENATOR • Photograph by BROOKE ROBERTS

Jessica and David Ivey live in Washington, D.C., and were married on Jekyll Island in 2015.

Seeing is believing

THE GEORGIA SEA TURTLE CENTER

CELEBRATES A DECADE OF HEALING ANIMALS AND SPREADING THE GOSPEL OF CONSERVATION

By ELIZABETH FLORIO, CHRISTINE VAN DUSEN, and MURIEL VEGA

Photographs by JEFF HOLT and GABRIEL HANWAY

tep inside the georgia sea turtle center, and you are greeted by the massive skeleton of the prehistoric Archelon. Suspended from the vaulted rafters of a 114-year-old brick building, the bygone sea creature spreads his mighty flippers over rows of colorful T-shirts and plush turtles. But this is no museum or aquarium, a fact driven home by the large glass window in the exhibit gallery. On the other side of the window, in a room the staff calls the “fish bowl,” sick and injured sea turtles undergo routine exams and complicated operations. Onlookers might see veterinarian Terry Norton and his techs tend to a laceration on a 200-pound loggerhead, or clean barnacles off the shell of a debilitated green sea turtle. The team uses state-of-the-art medical equipment and sheer muscle. It’s like watching an episode of sea turtle E.R.

On the elevated walkway in the Rehabilitation Pavilion, schoolchildren look down on reptiles—some decades older than they are—gliding around in open tanks on the road to recovery and, hopefully, a return to the Atlantic. Patient sheets outside each tank explain what brought the animal here: boat strike, cold-stunning, debilitation.

“We’re really known for our integration of rehabilitation, education, and research,” says Dr. Norton, who along with the Jekyll

The team uses state of the art medical equipment and sheer muscle. It’ s like watching an episode of Sea Turtle E . R.

Above: Visitors look into the animal treatment room.

Left: Dr. Terry Norton secures a loggerhead on a hand truck.

The animal suffered from cold-stunning, the sea turtle equivalent of hypothermia.

Right: Another GSTC success story is released into the Atlantic.

Island Authority founded the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in 2007. Before that time, turtles stranded on Georgia’s coast had to journey to neighboring states for treatment. “If it were just rehabilitation, we wouldn’t be impacting the population of sea turtles,” he says.

All three pillars are critical to the center’s overall mission of protecting coastal wildlife and promoting environmental stewardship.

1. Rehabilitation: Since its inception, the GSTC has treated more than 1,500 injured, stranded, or sick animals—not just sea turtles but also gopher tortoises, diamondback terrapins, box turtles, snakes, alligators, and birds.

2. Research: Staff members routinely publish in peer-reviewed journals, and the center partners with universities and zoos to advance the body of research on turtles and other coastal wildlife. The Georgia Aquarium,

The Comeback Kid

In January 2013, a juvenile green sea turtle was found attached to a picnic table on Florida’s Vilano Beach, tangled in fishing line. At the GSTC, she underwent surgery to remove fishing line from her stomach and right flipper, but the damage to her flipper was so extensive that doctors decided to amputate.

Within days of the operation, Mahi, meaning “very strong” in Hawaiian, regained her appetite and started swimming in a deeper tank. Her full rehabilitation took two years and included learning to dive again and practicing foraging behaviors. During that time, she became a star of the GSTC’s symbolic-adoption program, Adopt-a-Turtle. Her 1,200 adoptive “parents,” each of whom donated $50, made her the most adopted turtle in the center’s history.

“Mahi went through so much but thrived through it all,” says GSTC director Dr. Terry Norton. “Rarely did she miss a meal. It was hard to tell Mahi was a three-flippered turtle. She moved through the water gracefully.”

for example, contributed $21,000 for the development of the ideal tube-feeding formula for weakened loggerheads. The center is currently leading a study on terrapin mortality on the Jekyll Island Causeway.

3. Education: The GSTC hosts school groups, a summer day camp, and numerous opento-the-public programs like “Turtle Walks” or “Gatorology 101.” Veterinary students, college interns, and AmeriCorps members serve at the center, gaining vital experience. But more than that, the GSTC educates simply by existing, by letting people look in on a very real hospital.

By May 2015, Mahi had regained enough strength to attend sea turtle boot camp at Panama City’s Gulf World Marine Park, a long-term marine mammal rehabilitation facility. Two months later, more than 500 spectators watched as she was released back into the Atlantic. If researchers ever encounter her again, a tracking tag will reveal her as the little turtle who made a big splash during her stay on Jekyll.

Top

left: Visitors in the exhibit gallery. Top right: Education staff member Nicki Thomas shows a diamondback terrapin to a young visitor. Left: A diamondback terrapin hatchling gets an examination.

Some 100,000 people visit the center each year—and they see firsthand that the biggest threats to sea turtles come from humans: entanglement in or ingestion of plastics, drowning in fishing nets, collisions with boat propellers, habitat destruction.

“Every single person who visits our facility can do something small that can have a big impact—like recycling, or thinking twice before they drop that piece of trash or use that fertilizer,” says Lori Hunt, the GSTC’s administrative coordinator. “If we change one mind out of 100, that small behavior change has a big impact.”

In conjunction with broader conservation efforts around the state, the GSTC appears to be making an impact. The Department of Natural Resources began tracking the nests of threatened loggerheads (the only sea turtle species to routinely nest in Georgia) in 1989. In the

last five years, their numbers have roughly doubled— helped by GSTC patrollers who mark and sometimes relocate nests at risk of human or tidal interference. In 2016, loggerheads broke the state record by laying more than 3,000 nests along Georgia’s coast.

Despite the uptick, the fate of the species remains fragile, inexorably at the mercy of humans. And the dedicated staff and volunteers at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center will continue their life-saving work, animal by animal, person by person.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center (top left) is housed inside a retrofitted historic power plant. Built in 1903, the Greek Revival structure supplied electricity to the Jekyll Island Club. In 2008, the building project nabbed the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation’s Marguerite Williams Award—the organization’s top honor.

ANIMAL AMBASSADORS

SOMETIMES AN ANIMAL CANNOT RETURN TO THE WILD OR MUST STAY AT THE GSTC FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD. THESE CREATURES GIVE VISITORS A CLOSE-UP OF THE UNIQUENESS AND FRAGILITY OF THEIR SPECIES.

MINKUS

Diamondback Terrapin

After a student brought a sickly Minkus to show-and-tell, a savvy teacher brought the animal to the GSTC. Minkus’s eyes were terribly swollen from being kept in freshwater instead of brackish. As a former pet, Minkus cannot return to the wild, but the “diva” turtle relishes attention (and food) as an educational animal.

INDY

Eastern Indigo Snake

Before coming to the GSTC, Indy served as an educational ambassador with the Savannah River Ecology Lab Herpetology Program. Approximately twenty-two years old and nearly blind, Indy is a voracious eater of mice.

TINY

American Alligator

Tiny was found inside an abandoned egg on Jekyll’s Pine Lakes golf course in 2013. Since alligators require up to three years of parental care, the GSTC adopted Tiny, who now serves as an educational animal for the center’s Gatorology 101 program.

DAN

Gopher Tortoise

Dan was hit by a vehicle but made a full recovery. A first attempt to reintroduce him to the wild, on St. Catherine’s Island, failed when Dan stopped eating and moving. (He bounced back at the GSTC.) A second release is planned for spring 2017. Dan enjoys a good stroll in the grass—and is surprisingly quick.

Every single person who visits our facility can do something small that can have a big impact like recycling, or thinking twice before they drop that piece of trash or use that fertilizer. ”

Ten Years of Second Chances

A LOOK AT THE GEORGIA SEA TURTLE CENTER’S IMPACT

It all started with a sick loggerhead named Georgia. With no place to treat the animal, Dr. Terry Norton wheeled her to a dock in a Rubbermaid tub to change out her salt water. In 2007, with $3 million in funds raised by the Jekyll Island Foundation and the Robert R. Woodruff Foundation, Norton and the Jekyll Island Authority founded the Georgia Sea Turtle Center— the authority’s single-largest investment in conservation. Since then, the center has treated and rehabilitated more than 3,000 turtles and other animals.

REHABILITATION RESEARCH EDUCATION

1,125 TURTLES TREATED

104,496 FIELD TRIP AND OUTREACH PARTICIPANTS

Five Ways to Give

SAVING SEA TURTLES IS A GROUP EFFORT

Buy an annual membership or make a donation

1 2 Purchase a brick Purchase a brick in the “Walkway to Wonder” leading to the center

1,411 TURTLE NESTS MONITORED Annual membership

3 Adopt a turtle

Adopt a turtle or become a Nest Tracker to receive a personalized certificate, emailed updates, and more

4 Purchase a license plate

Purchase the Georgia Sea Turtle Center license plate; a portion of the proceeds go back to the center

5 Volunteer! Opportunities range widely, from working in the gift shop to clearing marine debris from beaches Get more details at gstc.jekyllisland.com

the fate of the species remains fragile, inexorably at the mercy of humans.

in their beloved retreat known as indian mound, jekyll’s most famous family found an escape from Gilded Age glitz

n the front parlor of Indian Mound Cottage on Jekyll Island hangs a portrait of a regal older woman. She is dolled up in Victorian finery and swimming in pearls. Look closely at another image in the house, and you’ll see she has curly white locks and wire-rimmed glasses, like a grandmother in a Norman Rockwell painting, the kind who would call you “dear.” Now picture a cigar-smoking, elderly man with a top hat and cane—her husband the nature lover, often seen tooling around Jekyll dressed in a knickerbocker suit, on a new invention called a bicycle. Such were the charms of William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (1841–1922) and his wife, Almira Goodsell Rockefeller (1844–1920). They were impossibly rich—William co-founded Standard Oil along with his older brother, the legendary John D., the wealthiest American ever.

Simple Life The

By WENDELL BROCK

Left: Indian Mound, the early-twentieth-century winter home of Almira and William Rockefeller. Above left: William’s hat and cane. Above right: William circa 1915.

William left a fortune of $150 million. He and his wife owned a Fifth Avenue mansion and a 204room country manor in New York’s Westchester County. But underneath the starch and lace, they were by all accounts just plain folk.

Fittingly, their favorite haunt was their winter home on Georgia’s coast: Indian Mound, a magnolia-draped cottage built in 1892 by Gordon McKay, a Civil War–era shoemaker and member of Jekyll’s storied millionaires club. Some of the richest, most influential men of the time enjoyed membership in the Jekyll Island Club: J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, Marshall Field, and William K. Vanderbilt, among others. And yet Indian Mound offers an illuminating glimpse of the Rockefellers as homebodies and beachcombers, two retirees basking in their grandchildren and the sunshine.

At Indian Mound, the couple could escape the glare of society life and the tabloids. Almira (or Mira, as she liked to be called) could gather her family in the large living room they added to the back of the house, where they would read, play games, or listen to the Victrola. William could sit

Above: Indian Mound circa 1904. Left: The desk inside William's bedroom, where he could retire to write personal notes. Right: In renovating the cottage into his dream vacation home, William wrapped the house in porches.

at indian mound, the couple could escape the glare of society life and the tabloids.

archival image: courtesy of the jekyll island museum; writing desk : jeff holt; exterior of house: gabriel hanway

Rockefellers A VISIT WITH THE

Indian Mound Cottage may be toured on the hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Purchase tickets at the Jekyll Island Museum (100 Stable Road) or at the cottage (credit card only). The house is located on Riverview Drive directly across from the Jekyll Island Club Resort; free parking is available behind the hotel or by the wharf. (On a pretty day, you might consider strolling or biking from the museum.) Look for your Indian Mound tour guide outside the cottage, under the porte cochere that doubles as a front porch, or ring the doorbell if you don’t see anyone. Tours last about forty-five minutes.

Tickets: Adults, $10. Children ages 7 to 15, $5. Free for children 6 and under. 912-635-4036; jekyllisland.com/rockefellertour

on his private upstairs porch, puffing a cigar, contemplating the river and spying on club shenanigans just across the lawn.

“One of the things that fascinates me about the Rockefellers is that they were very down-to-earth people,” says Andrea Marroquin, curator of the Jekyll Island Museum, which oversees Indian Mound and the other properties in the island’s National Historic Landmark District. “They did not come from wealth . . . They worked hard and they earned it, and they appreciated what they were able to do with it, but they were real people.”

Gilded Age ostentation was never the intent of the Jekyll Island Club, founded in 1886 on the pristine barrier island where reptiles crawled and live oaks sprouted Spanish moss and resurrection fern. The coastal paradise was the opposite of gaudy Newport.

“It was utterly unlike these Northern resorts in that it consciously embraced a clearly delineated philosophy of simplicity,” author June Hall McCash writes in The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony, published by University of Georgia Press in 1998. Though they may seem grandiose by today’s standards, most of the early cottages were built in Queen Anne or shingle style, making them the unfussy beach bungalows of the time. Club members were slow even to add electricity, finally surrendering in 1903, a full decade after the lights came on in nearby Brunswick. They balked when the Crane family built their Italian-style villa in 1917, and again in 1927 when Walter Jennings constructed Villa Ospo, an elegant Spanish Eclectic and Italian Renaissance affair designed by John Russell Pope, the architect who gave us the Jefferson Memorial and the National Gallery in Washington.

The Rockefellers remained almost quaint by comparison. When the couple bought the seven-bedroom McKay cottage in 1905, they were in their early sixties. Over time and a series of renovations that included a servants wing, a capacious downstairs living room, and an upstairs suite for Almira, Indian Mound became a leisurely haven for the Rockefellers, their four adult children and in-laws, and seventeen grandchildren.

“They were not of the manor born, either one of them,” tour guide Frank DeLorenzo tells me on the December day I tour the house. “That’s probably why they had such strong family values.”

This page, top: Almira Rockefeller’s sitting room is staged as if its occupant just stepped out, leaving a hat and book on the couch. Above: In her luxuriousfor-the-time private bathroom, Almira enjoyed a towel warmer and a special faucet for saltwater baths. Right: A portrait of Almira hangs in the front parlor. Opposite page: An upstairs sewing room was among the many updates the Rockefellers made to the house.

jeff holt jeff holt

Named for what was thought to be a Native American burial site in the yard, the house may not be palace. But by the time the Rockefellers were done with it, it was hardly rustic, either, with the trappings of wealth one might imagine for the brother of a Victorian-era Croesus. Almira, for all her maternal attributes, had appearances to keep. That meant clothes—so many that a dumbwaiter was installed to lift her luggage to her palatial second-story suite. DeLorenzo shows me a walk-in vault where he says William kept cash, Standard Oil stock, and possibly guns, since Jekyll was a hunting club. When the Rockefellers closed up the house for the summer, he presumes they locked up the silver, too.

and though she had ropes of oriental pearls, diamonds, and furs, almira had come to shy away from parties.

Maintained by the Jekyll Island Museum, the Indian Mound of today has been imagined as it was exactly 100 years ago. It is March 1917, and a silver tray on a credenza in the foyer holds a few calling cards.“We try to maintain the period style of the house but also to give you the sense the Rockefellers just stepped out,” Marroquin tells me.

As with most house museums, establishing authenticity can require a bit of sleuthing. When it came to photographing the interiors of their grand homes, it seems the Victorians were

somewhat modest. The Jekyll set commissioned family portraits, shot pictures of outdoor tea parties, but they didn’t allow us a look at their inner sanctuaries. This makes it challenging to re-create rooms exactly as they were.

And by the time the state acquired Jekyll in 1947, most club members had abandoned their cottages along with their contents. The left-behind furnishings were stored randomly and never labeled, so determining who owned what can be tricky, if not impossible. “It is a bit of a mystery piecing it together,” Marroquin says.

Nonetheless, Indian Mound’s formal front rooms are decorated with lovely period pieces. The carpet is red, though back in the day the floors were said to be covered in crushed red velvet. A stained-glass window in the stairwell has a rose design; DeLorenzo remarks that Almira loved roses.

Because the Jekyll members generally took their meals at the club, most of the cottages, including Indian Mound, only had small kitchens. When the Rockefellers took over, they added a large back room with an enormous fireplace and picture windows with a river view. The space is mirrored upstairs

by Almira's suite. Like many Victorian couples, the Rockefellers kept separate bedrooms. His has a view of the club. Hers has a spacious bathroom with a white-marble vanity and a steam-heated towel rack.

By the time they created their retirement home, the Rockefellers seemed less interested in worldly things, more caught up in the beauty of the natural world. As part of their improvements, they wrapped the house in porches. “He thought very carefully, I’m sure, about how he wanted to redesign it, and the porches are a major feature,” McCash says. From those welcoming porticos, they could enjoy a splendid view of the Jekyll River or watch tennis players volley on clay courts laid out in 1909. And though she had ropes of Oriental pearls, diamonds, and furs, Almira had come to shy away from parties. “Now do not wear yourself out over entertaining” she wrote in a letter to her daughter Emma, which is quoted in a display in the front parlor. “It is not worthwhile. All this rush of entertaining is nonsense.”

Whether Almira knew it or not, the social world she knew would soon crumble, and her words would prove prophetic.

Opposite page, clockwise from left: The stairwell displays vibrant red carpeting and stained-glass windows inlaid with roses, a favorite flower of Almira; William sponsored the creation of the Rockefeller Bicycle Path on Jekyll in 1901; Almira's bedroom was separate from her husband's, as was the case for many wealthy Victorian couples.

Left: A visitor looks into the children's room. The Rockefellers' four grown children and many of their grandchildren often accompanied them during their stays on Jekyll Island.

RANGER Bre

THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN ENGAGING WITH THE ENVIRONMENT AND INTRUDING ON IT. IT’S THE JOB OF JEKYLL’S PARK RANGER TO HELP PEOPLE SEE IT.

By JUSTIN HECKERT

Breanna Ondich has a pretty great opening line. Find anything cool? she asks a little boy with his feet in the ocean, who has been lifting sand dollars merrily off the beach and into a bucket. It is a calculated line, something Ondich has thought about, and works both as an introduction and to disarm. From the bucket the boy unearths a dripping sand dollar. Ondich is wearing a tan vest that says PARK RANGER on the back and brand-new Merrell boots, her hair pulled behind a visor.

“See, he’s still alive,” she says, pointing at the sand dollar’s fuzzy skeleton. “We need to keep him in the water. You’re free to take the white ones. Make sure you put the ones that are alive back.” The boy’s mom is also watching. They have just learned the difference between a dead and a very much living part of the island’s ecosystem.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the boy says.

As the island’s first park ranger in recent history, Ondich, who goes by Bre, has to approach people like this every day. The elderly woman with a thick Georgia accent looking to decorate her sewing machine with coral. The tourists disobeying the signs and walking across the dunes. A lady and her daughter feeding raccoons at a picnic spot. The job description of a ranger—not only being outside, but educating people about the things that are there.

It’s a Friday morning and Ondich is behind the wheel of a Polaris Ranger with a loud diesel engine. In the cup holder she has a Tervis tumbler with a friendly sea turtle monogram. She drives onto a place called Driftwood Beach, where the preserved trees lean over the sand. She spots a giant piece of cardboard that has drifted onto the beach and puts it in the Polaris—another part of her job that never ends. The ocean is always bringing something in, and then leaving it behind for her to pick up.

Ondich, twenty-nine, carries a backpack full of brochures, bird and butterfly guides, and plastic bags for gathering trash. She wears binoculars for spotting birds but also to look at people, to see what they’re doing. She has insect repellent and a first aid kit, for jellyfish stings.

“I like meeting people and telling them about the island,” she says. “I educate and enforce. We can have a million papers or studies out there, but unless you find a way to take people to see

As Jekyll’s park ranger, Breanna Ondich monitors wildlife activity and enforces the sometimes-blurry boundaries between humans and nature.

opening spread and portrait above: brian austin lee

it, or touch it, or experience it, you’re not changing their behavior. If you’re going to make an impact, to keep the beach healthy, you need to be able to educate people. In that way I’m kind of a face for environmental stewardship—of what the island stands for.”

the island really needed her. To monitor sea turtles nesting at 3 a.m. in the summer on the darkened beach; to patrol, in the Polaris, people leaving trash in the picnic areas; to implement a colorful and informational wildlife placard at Horton Pond, describing the alligators and turtles basking in the sun. Also, not everyone knew they weren’t supposed to feed potato chips to seagulls; she had to tell them.

Ondich spent parts of four years as an AmeriCorps member on Jekyll, working with sea turtles and looking for their nests on the beach, and eventually she knew every part of the island. After her term of service was up and she had to get a job, she was thinking about working as a wildlife observer on a dredge boat. The Jekyll Island Authority wanted to figure out how to keep her.

“When it clicked for me, we have to get a park ranger, was the summer of 2014,

“We can have a million papers or studies out there, but unless you find a way to take people to see it, or touch it, or experience it, you’re not changing their behavior.”

Ondich first came to Jekyll in 2011 as an AmeriCorps member, studying the nesting habits of loggerhead sea turtles. Tracking and safeguarding turtle nests continues to be an important part of her job. this spread: gabriel hanway

the summer before Bre started,” says Ben Carswell, director of conservation for the authority. “I’d go on a walk on the beach on personal time, and nowhere I looked on the dunes were there not footprints. Everyone was walking on the dunes and they probably had no idea they shouldn’t be. That was a rule that was being completely disregarded by massive amounts of people. The vegetation there is super sensitive to being walked on.”

Ondich grew up in a house in the woods in northern New Jersey. “The pace on the island reminds me of home,” she says. She caught garter snakes in her yard and wanted to keep them all. She once brought forty newts into the house for exactly one day, to study their habits. Ondich knew in middle school she wanted to work outdoors and especially in

“Bre is an ambassador for our conservation on the island and the stewardship ethic we want to instill in the public. She has one personality trait that’s very critical for the job: She is someone who can simultaneously come off as friendly and authoritative.”

the water, and she majored in marine biology at the University of Tampa. She pictured studying whales and dolphins out in the middle of the ocean. She says, laughing, “Dolphins turned out to be like children. Too dramatic for me.”

The Jekyll Island Authority created the park ranger title in 2015 specifically for Ondich. No one can be completely sure, but Carswell thinks it’s the first such designation for the island.

“Bre is an ambassador for our conservation on the island and the stewardship ethic we want to instill in the public,” Carswell says. “She has one personality trait that’s very critical for the job: She is someone who can simultaneously come off as friendly and authoritative.”

“welcome, everybody. i’m Bre. i’m the park ranger on jekyll island.” It’s a Saturday in January, hours before a storm will lash the beach; the tops of the pine trees in the ancient maritime forest quiver slightly in the gray sky.

Ondich is encircled by a group of tourists and locals, having led them on a Ranger Walk into the forest. The walks, at $8 a person, offer the chance to learn about the island’s history and possibly see some birds or wildlife, depending on the season.

Bre is wearing her vest and backpack and visor and has a Vortex Optics tripod slung over her shoulder with a powerful spotting scope to see far into the trees. She has been talking about the natural history of the island and ripping up black cherry and

camphor tree leaves so everyone can identify them and smell them. She stops, sets the tripod up on the path, points the scope in between some live oaks. At first, looking through the eyepiece, it’s tough to tell there’s anything else but other trees and hanging moss. “You should see a fuzz ball bouncing around,” Ondich says. Sure enough, after some rustling, a baby bird head pokes up. The chick, with its oversized beak, is three weeks old. “I haven’t confirmed if there are one or two of them,” she says. The members of the group quietly take turns looking into the scope. The nest they’re staring up at is nearly five feet in diameter and made of pine needles, feathers, and moss. There is an echo of rustling leaves overhead. Then a gasp.

“Look!” Ondich says. High up on an oak, one of the parents

of the baby bald eagle is perched. Staring at it with the gray backdrop of the sky is like looking at a postage stamp. The parent eagle— Ondich isn’t sure if it’s a mom or dad—stands there, preening, looking back and up, unaware. Ondich begins to take pictures through the lens of her Canon Rebel T-5 camera—pictures that will later be used for the island’s Facebook page. Everyone in the party has their neck craned. This lasts several minutes, until Ondich starts explaining how the eagles sit on the eggs during incubation and the first week or so after the hatch. After that, the adults are busy hunting and the chicks growing.

“By the end of March, the chick will be the same size as the adults,” she says.

For all Bre’s knowledge and experience working outdoors, she’s still in awe of the bird, far up in the tree—just like everyone else.

“This is not something you see every day.”

Opposite page: A Jekyll bald eagle, photographed by Ondich; and Ondich with a chimney swift, after she helped free the bird from a second-story bathroom inside Indian Mound Cottage. This page: Ondich leads educational“Ranger Walks” that illuminate Jekyll’s diverse ecosystems—marsh, beach, and maritime forest—and often afford rare animal sightings.

bald eagle photograph courtesy of breanna ondich

On Jekyll you’ll find acres of marshland, miles of tidal creeks and rivers, the mighty Atlantic, and oh yes, a water park

By JENNIFER SENATOR

Imagine

sitting in a kayak, hidden among tall cordgrass and cattails as a heron takes flight. Picture shark-fishing with the kids, watching them jump with excitement at that first tug on the line. Remember how it feels to plunge down a waterslide, then drift along a lazy river in the sunshine.

Such is the life aquatic on Jekyll Island. “You can’t experience this area from driving around it,” says local fisherman Jaime Bracewell. “You’ve got to get out on the water.”

While Jekyll’s beaches are widely known as a safe haven for threatened loggerhead turtles, which come ashore in summer to lay eggs, the island’s marshes, estuaries, and tidal creeks are protected habitats for millions of plants, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Due to the slope of Georgia’s coastal plain, Jekyll boasts some of the most expansive salt marshes on the East Coast. The island’s frequent, high tides bring in an abundance of bait, which draws wildlife to the shore when the waters recede.

“To be able to visit a protected ecosystem and be immersed in this natural environment is what makes Jekyll different,” says Dawn Zengert, director of 4-H Tidelands Nature Center. And there are plenty of options for immersion, from kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding to fishing for trout, tarpon, and many other varieties of saltwater fish. Here are three ways to have your own Jekyll Island water adventure.

GRAB A PADDLE

The best way to get an up-close look at the many animals that make their home among the native grasses of the salt marsh is via kayak or stand-up paddleboard (SUP). The 4-H TIDELANDS NATURE CENTER a University of Georgia 4-H program that provides hands-on environmental experiences for school groups, offers three-hour guided kayak tours of Jekyll’s tidal creeks. “We call it a nature walk on the water,” says Zengert. Experienced naturalists lead the tours, pointing out the wildlife that make up Jekyll’s distinct eco-geographies—egrets, herons, pelicans, wood storks, fiddler crabs, dolphins, and sometimes, manatees.

“Kids [participating in educational programs] spend two and a

Jekyll Island's waterways invite kayakers and paddleboarders hoping to get up close with wildlife (like manatees, pictured below), hunt for shark teeth, or just soak in the scenery.

opening spread and top two photos: gabriel hanway; bottom photo: john krivec, copyright 2017 st. simons paddleboard and kayak

half days here learning about the plants and animals living in the island’s ecosystem,” says Zengert. “We pack all that into three hours.” The tour is offered year-round and is open to both experienced kayakers and beginners, who receive basic paddle instruction.

Based on neighboring St. Simons Island, SAINT SIMONS PADDLEBOARD AND KAYAK offers ocean or marsh tours of Jekyll Island via kayak and SUP. Your guide will meet you at your vacation rental or a convenient

beach access point, then begin with a brief safety lesson on land. According to owner Norm Leonard, the marsh tours are particularly good for wildlife spotting thanks to the calmer water and abundant food. Look out for dolphins, great blue herons, egrets, manatees, and other animals. “Sea turtles make an appearance now and then, but they duck down real quick,” he says.

If you prefer paddling solo, KENNEDY OUTFITTERS offers paddleboard rental by the hour, day, or week. Customers usually head right out from the beach in front of the shop, says manager Casey Eaton. “You don’t have to go too far out to hit the smooth water and get the depth you need to paddle,” she says. “Plus, we don’t have huge waves here, so it’s easier for most people—you won’t get too beaten up.”

DROP A LINE

Jekyll offers several options for private fishing charters, which originate from JEKYLL ISLAND HARBOR MARINA. One local fisherman who leads these tours, CAPTAIN LARRY KENNEDY OF

This page: Fishing expeditions with Kennedy Outfitters (left) and Bracewell Charters (right). Opposite page: The Jekyll Island Fishing Pier at Clam Creek is a popular destination for fishing and crabbing.

THE AREA IS particularly GOOD FOR INSHORE AND NEARSHORE FISHING.

RESOURCES

JUST BEFORE TAKING THE plunge

DOWN THE FIVE-STORY PIRATE’S PASSAGE, TAKE A MOMENT TO ADMIRE THE LUSH MARSHLAND, RIXEN POND, AND THE JEKYLL RIVER.

KENNEDY OUTFITTERS says the area is particularly good for inshore and nearshore fishing. “We have so much bait. Our tidal flow just turns everything out.”

His company offers two- or four-hour trips, including inshore fishing for trout, redfish, and tarpon and offshore fishing for grouper, black sea bass, snapper, and cobia. He also leads a popular family-friendly shark-fishing excursion. “A five-year-old child reels in a shark and they just go crazy,” he laughs. “There’s nothing like it.”

Jekyll Island native CAPTAIN ERIC MOODY OF COASTAL EXPEDITIONS also offers small charters (six people maximum) as well as combination shark-fishing and dolphin-watching trips. Moody says he particularly enjoys telling his guests about Jekyll’s marine environment. “I try to educate people and show them a good time,” he says, “and I try to be especially patient with the kids, because I remember what it was like to learn to fish when my dad taught me.”

Moody targets speckled sea trout, redfish, flounder, whiting, Spanish mackerel, shark, and tarpon, among other saltwater fish. He provides bait, tackle, fishing license, and ice, and he’ll even clean your fish if you want to cook it for dinner.

This page, clockwise from top left: Force 3 Lightning at Summer Waves; Pirate’s Passage slide overlooking the lazy river; a child in the Splash Zone. Opposite page: The Frantic Atlantic wave pool.

CAPTAIN JAIME BRACEWELL offers inshore fishing charters, taking visitors around oyster beds and through tidal creeks and rivers. On his combination fossil-hunting trip, you’ll bring home shark teeth, sea glass, and usually, fossils from other marine and land animals. Bracewell has found bison, horse, whale, dolphin, stingray, and barracuda fossils and even rare megalodon shark teeth while foraging Jekyll’s beaches.

For those who prefer smaller watercraft, fishing by canoe or kayak is

available on seventeen-acre, saltwater RIXEN POND, which is part of (and adjacent to) the 4-H Tidelands Nature Center. Fish for red drum, mullet, and other saltwater species; drop a net for blue crabs; or try your luck catching fiddler crabs, which scuttle along the surrounding banks.

And you can always go it alone with bait and tackle from the JEKYLL ISLAND FISHING CENTER, which also offers gifts, gear rentals, and a spot to book excursions and boat tours. The knowledgeable staff will set you up to cast from the shore or the Jekyll Island pier, a popular spot for catching sharks.

DIVE IN

One of the more exhilarating vantage points from which to view Jekyll’s natural beauty is atop a waterslide at SUMMER WAVES, the island's eleven-acre waterpark. Just before taking the plunge down the five-story Pirate’s Passage, take a moment to admire the lush marshland, Rixen Pond, and the Jekyll River. Of course, the park has its own river—the lazy variety, where you can drift with the gentle current on an inner tube. Or try five additional water slides, including the forty-foot Nature’s Revenge.

Break for lunch at the on-site Larry’s Giant Subs and continue the fun by riding the waves of the Frantic Atlantic, which can reach two feet. Try to dodge the giant water bucket in the Splash Zone, or hang out in the new kids play area, Shark Tooth Cove. Here, little waders will enjoy the zero-entry pool, ten slides, and waterfalls, while adults will appreciate plenty of shade for tender skin and the promise of a good night’s sleep ahead.

Visit jekyllisland.com for a full list of recreational outfitters and companies

KAYAKING & PADDLEBOARDING

4-H TIDELANDS NATURE CENTER

912-635-5032

tidelands4h.org

KENNEDY OUTFITTERS

912-319-2079

kennedyoutfitters.com

SAINT SIMONS PADDLEBOARD AND KAYAK

912-230-4323

ssisup.com

FISHING & BOAT TOURS

BRACEWELL CHARTERS

912-996-1572

COASTAL EXPEDITIONS

912-270-3526

coastalcharterfishing.com

JEKYLL ISLAND BOAT TOURS

912-635-3152

captainphillip.com

JEKYLL ISLAND FISHING CENTER

912-635-3556

JEKYLL ISLAND HARBOR MARINA

912-635-3137

jekyllharbor.com

KENNEDY OUTFITTERS

912-319-2079

kennedyoutfitters.com

WATER PARK

SUMMER WAVES

912-635-2074

summerwaves.com

WelcomE to camp

By SCOTT FREEMAN

IN THE 1960s , IT WAS A BEACH PLAYGROUND FOR BLACK AMERICANS. THEN IT BECAME A PLACE FOR CHILDREN TO LEARN ABOUT THE TEEMING LIFE ON GEORGIA’S BARRIER ISLANDS.

NOW THIS WELL-TRODDEN PLOT OF LAND GETS ANOTHER MAKEOVER, AS A STATE-OFTHE-ART YOUTH AND LEARNING CENTER TRULY WORTHY OF THE NAME “CAMP.”

On Jekyll, buildings tend to reinvent themselves. Because the state-owned island must, by law, limit development to one-third of its elevated land, you have facilities like the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, housed in a retrofitted power plant from 1903. Or the Holiday Inn Resort, built in the bones of the 1950s Wanderer, the first hotel ever erected on Jekyll. But perhaps no site exemplifies this blending of histories better than the old Dolphin Club and Motor Hotel, a former resort for black Americans in the segregation era. Most Georgians today know the complex as the old 4-H Center. Since 1983, some 300,000 kids have spent time at the center, getting a hands-on immersion in ecology at summer camps and on school field trips. That’s a lot of kids, and a lot of wear and tear. When the Jekyll Island Authority gave Governor Nathan Deal a

Camp Jekyll’s pavilion (left) was renovated to look exactly as it did in the 1950s (above). In those days, the “Negro Beach House” was one of the few places in the Southeast where black Americans could enjoy the ocean.

tour of the center in 2013, its facilities were—in the words of center director Richard Chewning— “tired.” Deal swung into action, persuading the General Assembly to appropriate $17 million for the Jekyll Island Authority to erect an almost entirely new campus—complete with modern sleeping quarters, a learning center with laboratories, and an auditorium—and refurbish the historic pavilion. Camp Jekyll, as it’s called, will carry on the mission of environmental education and youth development while recognizing the property’s Jim Crow origins.

The site occupies a prominent place in Georgia history. The state took ownership of Jekyll Island in 1947, and three years later, a group of black leaders from Brunswick asked the state-run Jekyll Island Authority to open up a portion of the island for people of color.

In 1955, the “Negro Beach House” pavilion

debuted on the south end of Jekyll, one of the few oceanfront gathering places for blacks in the Deep South. Four years later, the Dolphin Club and Motor Hotel opened on an adjacent piece of property, and with it an auditorium that would draw music legends such as Otis Redding, B.B. King, Percy Sledge, and Wilson Pickett to this sliver of Georgia’s coast. Desegregation for Jekyll Island came in 1964, and the Dolphin Club shuttered two years later. In 1983, the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service began using the facilities for summer youth camps, then added a year-round 4-H program a few years later. Grade-school students got their feet muddy exploring the marsh, seined for aquatic life in the surf, built sand sculptures, and ate s’mores around the fire. The 4-H Center closed at the end of 2014 as the Jekyll Island Authority began construction

Opposite page, top: Governor Nathan Deal, with his wife, Sandra, cuts the ribbon on Camp Jekyll in December. Opposite page, bottom: The complex underwent a two-year reconstruction that gave it a new name, new look, and new vitality. This page, top: The Dolphin Club and Motor Hotel, built in 1959, had fifty-eight units, a lounge, and a restaurant, and the room rate was $8.50 a night. Above: Panels tell the story of the site’s past as a beach resort for black Americans.

CAMP JEKYLL, as it’s called, will carry on the mission of environmental education and youth development while recognizing the property’s Jim Crow origins.

on Camp Jekyll. The only original building left standing was the pavilion, which serves as the heart of the campus; a total renovation actually took the structure backward in time, with a concessions and gift shop that now looks as it did in 1955. The Jekyll Island Authority erected seven panels across the grounds to display photographs of the original buildings and the people who fought to integrate the island. The showcase of the new 256-bed complex is the Sandra Deal Learning Center, constructed, in the Jekyll way, in the footprint of the original auditorium. (The Jekyll Island Authority Board of Directors honored Sandra Deal, wife of Governor Deal and a retired longtime schoolteacher and advocate for childhood literacy, by naming the center after her.) The center includes not only a 300-seat auditorium but aquatic and reptile

Left: When the Negro Beach House was built in 1955, it was oceanfront property. Today, the Atlantic is several hundred feet from Camp Jekyll, accessed by a boardwalk. Below: Students from Dolvin Elementary School in Johns Creek, Georgia, meet a diamondback terrapin.

Fifth-graders from Dolvin Elementary School sit in the Grandfather Tree in the maritime forest (top) and explore the salt marsh (left) as part of Camp Jekyll ecology classes. courtesy of camp jekyll

A Layered History

1959

A group of black businessmen builds the Dolphin Club and Motor

1955

labs and classrooms. In these rooms, kids will be able to study live sea turtles, dissect sharks and fish, and learn about other amphibians and reptiles native to the island. But it’s not all academic. The Jekyll Island Authority installed new basketball and volleyball courts, and there’s an eleven-acre soccer complex next door. Groups like soccer camps or band camps can rent out the facilities. The only requirement? The clientele must be kids.

Interest in the new Camp Jekyll surged as the February 2017 grand opening approached. When the camp began taking bookings last summer, some 6,000 kids were enrolled on the first day— many of whom know their home state only through the piedmont or mountain regions in which they live.

“The camp really comes to life when kids come here,” says Chewning. “Some of these kids have never seen the ocean before. We have a boardwalk that goes all the way to the beach, and when they walk past the dunes and see it for the first time, you can see their eyes open wide. It’s special to share that moment.”

1964

1983

It is subsequently purchased by

leased to Dave Jackson, a cattle farmer who hires his two sisters to manage it.

The Negro Beach House pavilion opens on the south end of Jekyll Island, one of the few oceanfront destinations for blacks in the South.

1961 Blues legend B.B. King performs in the lounge of the Dolphin Club.

In response to a lawsuit filed by the NAACP, a court rules that all stateoperated facilities on Jekyll must be integrated.

1966

The Dolphin Club and Motor Hotel closes. The Jekyll Island Authority subsequently operates the site as a youth center.

The University of Georgia begins offering summer camps—and soon after, year-round environmental programs—for schoolchildren and youth groups from kindergarten through high school. Between 1987 and 2014, more than 279,000 kids visit the 4-H Center.

2014

The 4-H Center closes down, to be rebuilt by the Jekyll Island Authority from the ground up as Camp Jekyll.

2016-17

The new $17 million Camp Jekyll officially opens in December, with the first 4-H group arriving the following February.

Clockwise from top: A student from Northbrook Middle School in Suwanee, Georgia, holds a fiddler crab; Dolvin Elementary students leap on Camp Jekyll’s beach; Northbrook Middle students touch and feel marine life.

Hotel.

the state and

center image: j and d images; timeline below: negro beach house: courtesy of the jekyll island museum archives; archival image: courtesy of the jekyll island museum archives; bb king: shutterstock.com

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

PATHS

Life is a fight. As one egg in a clutch of 100-plus, the loggerhead topples the odds to avoid predation from a fox or raccoon. Once hatched, the turtle, no bigger than an Oreo, makes the arduous climb out of the nest and onto the beach, in plain sight of crabs and gulls that would happily end its struggle. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the hatchling shuffles through the sand, pushing toward the ambient light that glistens off the surf until it unites with the sea. Thirty-five years from this moment, if the turtle’s luck holds, it will find its way back to this very beach, where it will lay its own eggs and start the battle anew. —tony

rehagen