Jekyll Island

Easter Sunday found us attending services at Memorial United Methodist Church---Fernandino Beach.  A very good service and friendly church.  We stayed two nights at Fernandino and headed out again on April 9th.

Easter at MUMC

En route to join the Micheners at Jekyll Island we went past  a naval submarine base.  Just as we were approaching it, the coast guard called and informed us that we needed to hustle through the area because a naval convoy was departing.  So we put the throttle down and with a coast guard escort quickly made our way into the ICW.

Our escort service!

Our good friends from St. Louis, John and Kib Michener, rented a condo on Jekyll Island and invited us to join them for a few days.  We had a great time and it was nice to be landlubbers for a while.  Jekyll Island was the hunting playground for the extremely wealthy New York families at the turn of the 19th century.  They built "cottages" and apparently only used them December-March.  Today some of the cottages are rented as part of the hotel and some are open to tour.  Kib and I toured a few while the guys golfed.  Here are just a few of the cottages.

Wm. Rockefeller's Cottage

Sans Souci Cottage
(This pic is for the Bonne Terre readers:)

Hotel in the background

Getting ready to go to dinner one evening we noticed a strange red sun.  There was a large fire near Polatka, FL and the smoke cloud blew all the way to Jekyll hiding the sun and causing the unusual color.  Was rather eerie!

Red Fire Sun

Dinner with John and Kib near ICW

With the help of strong coffee and an insistent alarm,  I arose early one morning and went on a sunrise beach walk with John and Kib.  It was definitely worth the effort.

taking a picture of sunrise--note coffee cup

The sun grows a tail that is absorbed after it clears the horizon

  The sand on the beach was soft and cool and dotted with hundreds of sand dollars.  I collected enough for Sarah's class to have one apiece and later washed and hardened them so they will hopefully arrive intact.  Several jellyfish had also washed up.  They were very interesting but I did not collect those!

sand dollar on the sand

Jellyfish on beach

One day we decided to take Raydiance out for a small excursion.    It was a bit blustery so we did not stay on the ocean too long.  But it was

 interesting to get another view of the island.

The Crew:  Kib, John and Linda

Fishing pier at the north end of the island

                    

Shrimp boat with hopeful birds perched and following

We left Jekyll on the 12th and once again headed north.  Spending three nights ashore in a lovely condo with good friends was quite a treat.  Many thanks, Micheners!