Our next stop was an anchorage just off the ICW along Jekyl Island. While there are only a very few private residences on Cumberland Island, Jekyl has a fairly large permanent residents plus winter snowbirds and tourists. The weather was fine so we decided to spend a couple days touring around. The first day we landed at a public boat launch and spent the day walking along the trails and into town for a cool drink. The second day we landed at the main island marina and paid the nominal landing fee which provided us access to their laundry room, showers, and rental bicycles.
We spent most of the day riding around just about the whole island. The most spectacular area was the "driftwood beach" section where rising sea levels have drowned a great number of Live Oak trees leaving picturesque skeletons behind. For some reason these dead, bleached and scraggly tree remains are a very powerful emotional site. For those who don't believe in climate change and rising sea levels, you need to get out of your comfortable denial chair and see what is happening in the real world.
From the beach we rode back down to "town" which basically consists of two blocks of cafe's and tourist shops alongside a center grassy mall. We had a Starbucks iced coffee and relaxed in the comfortable chairs and great weather.
That evening was a "deja vu" of our visit to Jekyl Island in 2005 on our first trip down the ICW, when we sat on the deck of the Jekyl Island marina restaurant and ate steamed shrimp as we watched the sunset.
This visit it was long after sunset when we were finally seated at the restaurant (because of COVID they are understaffed and only seating half their tables), but the seafood was still excellent and, except for the no-seeums, the evening was grand.
After a couple enjoyable days, it was time to move on north once again.
