Local Area

|Brunswick | St Simons Island | Jekyll Island | Sea Island | Outer Counties

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Recently, I was back in New York City with old friends for a wedding.  Trying to explain Georgia by Atlanta terms is one thing.  By now, most people know what Atlanta is… Delta hub, the Braves, traffic jams, home of the ‘96 Olympic Games. Now, try explaining St. Simons Island! When I told them I lived on a resort Island 4 miles off the coast of Georgia, they were surprised. (I think a lot of folks don’t realize Georgia has a coast… they think it’s landlocked for some reason.) Well, my friends at the wedding were most surprised to hear that it gets cold here.  When I mentioned we go below freezing in January for a few nights and that average temperatures that time of year is in the 40’s or 50’s with lows in the upper 30’s, they were shocked.  One even asked if we had heat in our homes.

So all this really hit home the fact that I had my work cut out for me with this part of my site.  I decided to start with the lay of the land and narrow things down from there.

Coastal Georgia & the Golden Isles

The coast of Georgia is lined with barrier islands.  Unlike other states,  our barrier islands are for the most part, undeveloped and state owned.  Only a few have been opened for private development, including Tybee Island east of Savannah, St. Simons Island and in a more limited way, Jekyll Island.  All of the other major barrier islands are owned by the state and accessible only by boat.  Many of these islands are used by the state for research or as a refuge and managed by various government agencies such as Fish & Wildlife or the Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR).   Smaller islands are privately owned, undeveloped for the most part and once again, only accessible by water. For more information check out these websites on the Georgia Barrier Islands: Georgia DNR & Georgia’s Public Televisions’ The Secret Seashore.

Another thing to note is that there are no beaches directly from the mainland. We’re a giant estuary… this means that there are large rivers flowing down to the ocean creating a mix of fresh and salt water, i.e. brackish water.  It creates a unique eco-system that is actually quite important to the health of the ocean.  Our mainland doesn’t just stop at the ocean with a sandy border… it turns into these marshes… think ’swamps without the trees’.  Honestly, that’s how the tour guide described a marsh to me on a swamp tour in Louisiana and I appreciated the no nonsense explanation…and those Cajuns KNOW swamps! The marshes stretch out for miles and are cut through with ‘rivers’ until it reaches the accumulated silt that has built up from years of water flowing from the mainland rivers, otherwise known as the barrier islands.  I can’t tell you how many people ask where they can go to the beach from the mainland. You can’t.

(More to come… this is a work in progress!)