After a week of getting rained on in the Outer Banks, the Bosslady and I were ready for a change.  We spent one night in Wilmington, NC visiting with her aunt and uncle, then it was time to head down the coast to St. Simons Island, about 90 miles south of Savannah.

We stayed at the Sea Island resort, which is actually three hotels:  The Cloister, located on the beach on Sea Island (a narrow finger of land just off St. Simons), The Inn, located centrally on St. Simons, and The Lodge, which occupies the southern tip of the island.  This trip had us staying at The Lodge.

The Lodge used to be a working plantation called Retreat.  The Avenue of the Oaks that lead to the hotel was planted in 1848.

 

There are guard gates at both The Cloister and The Lodge.  The guards at The Lodge are supplemented by a colony of feline assistants.

 

 

As the hotel is located right on St. Simons Sound, we were treated to the sight of the wreck of the MV Golden Ray.  In September 2019, the ship was leaving the nearby port of Brunswick, entering a sharp turn in the channel that leads to the open Atlantic.  Turns out that the ship’s officer had made a serious oopsie when putting in numbers in the vessel’s loading computer, and when the turn was attempted, the boat (and some 4000 cars) heeled over and sank.  It couldn’t be righted or refloated, so a giant scaffolding was erected and the ship was sawed into pieces and barged away.  The hulk was finally cleared in November 2021.

 

 

One more shot, for scale.

 

 

As ships leave the port, they “salute” the lighthouse at the entrance to the sound with their horns.  The lighthouse was first erected in 1810.

 

 

The lighthouse was knocked down during the unpleasantness of ’61-65, then rebuilt in 1870.

 

 

Just up the coast from the lighthouse is a former Coast Guard rescue station.  It’s been converted to a local history museum.

 

 

The museum touched on pre-Columbian peoples, and had a bit on Colonial-era landowners and customs, and the growth of the region as a tourist destination.  The largest exhibit by far, though, was St. Simons in World War II, when Brunswick was churning out Liberty ships.  Given the emphasis on shipbuilding, I was mildly surprised to see a large plane on exhibit.

 

 

On our second to last day, the missus went to the spa, while I went fishing.  Cruising past the wreckage in the sound, I was able to catch one of my better sunrise shots of the trip.

 

 

Mid-summer in the Golden Isles means shark and tarpon.  While the weather was gorgeous and the tides were right, the bait pods were nowhere to be found and the tarpon had lockjaw.  No matter — I wasn’t looking for the catch of a lifetime, just something that would pull back.  Four blacktips and one spinner shark later, I was a happy boy.

 

 

The wife is becoming more and more impressed by the region, especially since due to the westward bend of the Atlantic coastline north of Daytona Beach, the area doesn’t get hit by hurricanes all that often (after 5+ decades in Florida, we’re both kinda hurricane’d out).  But that’s speculation for another time.  For now, we’re good with visiting a few times a year and appreciating the natural beauty of the place.

 

 

‘Til next time…