Jekyll Island ... a Jewel in our memories as wellWhen I was a small boy, only days from my 11th birthday, our family first visited the Golden Isles off the Georgia coast. The wonderous eight days spent on Jekyll and an afternoon visiting St. Simons Island, etched on my mind the amazing bigness of the ocean and the ecosystem it is. This was my first time seeing an ocean. I had read of them all. But I was amazed at the vastness, power, hypnotic pulse, dangers and attraction they hold sway .. in the moment and over the years to come. Since that initial visit I have returned to Jekyll Island six times over the 44 years I've known her. Each time has been a special event and made more special by events of each trip. My wife and I honeymooned on Jekyll in 1973 and returned the next year to introduce our newborn (12 days old) son to the wonders of the Island. Then again, we ventured to it's welcoming shores this year to accompany our son and his wife and two children as our grandchildren and 'new' daughter became acquainted with the 'golden lady'. 'SHE' was most kind. We look forward to more visits in years to come. I'm sure She will not disappoint them either. 
The life that hangs on the winds and breezes of Jekyll are hypnotic. I can watch the birds flying in the onshore winds and dancing with the waves for hours-on-end. As a kid on my first visits to Jekyll, I would try to catch the shore birds. Looking back on it; the futility of my desire to catch them; I see I was storing up knowledge for later years lessons. Chasing after futile efforts are no less disappointing that trying to catch a sandpiper, plover, avocet, stilt, yellowleg, snipe or pharalope. Life is not a gentle mistress. She can be most cruel. Yet, nature provides both classroom and instructors if we will but listen.
We may take some spills in our 'dream chasing' - and incur costly results - in-the-end we learn valuable lessons. As for the shorebirds, gulls, egrets and assorted other avian teachers, at least they seem to garner some fun from the exercise. If we take the time to listen and understand the voices from our exposure to nature, we too will find pleasure in the exercise. 
Looking out upon the vast horizon of an ocean and seeing the majestic cloud formations is both an humbling and and exhilarating experience. The sun blazed beach surface makes us shield - even our dark-glass protected eyes. We see and feel the power of the sun; it gives life and lesson on the same wind.
A walk upon the beach is an inspiration as well as a test. The test is the ability to stand against the heat of the sun and force of the wind; to find the positive reason for going on. Yet, even then there is a beckoning that overpowers the urge to just 'go inside' and escape the force. We are thus inspired to continue on in our journey and to take the resistance as building and learning measures. Life lessons learned while strolling along the beaches of the Golden Isles. What better place to enter life's classroom? 
Growing up in the midwest I saw fields of corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and hayfields. Pastures were grazing grounds for cattle and sheep. Those were our harvesting scenes, accentuated by the seasons of the year. Commercial fishing was not a part of this diorama of rural life. But, here? On Jekyll, I look out and see the horizon dotted with shrimp boats, commercial fishing boats, charted fishing boats. The harvesters of the sea. How foreign and how exotic this is for a kid from the farmlands of the cornbelt.
Bobbing on the swells of wave after wave, dragging their nets across the sand bottoms offshore, the shrimp boats march. Watching them rolls with the waves, making wide sweeping turns, hauling nets and dumping their bounty. I was mesmerized. By the foreign movements of these sea-bed harvesters and by the abundance of life living under the water. My interest in all-things-water did not begin on Jekyll Island, but it was certainly reinforced. Over the years my love continues - though I have become less enthralled by what I now see as over-harvesting of the sea's bounty. But I do still admire the tenacity and the fortitude of the 'farmers-of-the-sea'. For it takes a special breed to take on the sea. She does not give up her bounty easily and she exacts a very serious toll for her goods. 
The trees of Jekyll Island are a most intriguing element of its scape. Wind-shaped. Wind-formed. Wind-tossed. Each tree on the island has wind's effects upon it daily; all-day-long. There are basically two kinds of trees on the island: palm and live oak. Both trees offered this country boy from the Hoosier state something very new and different to experience.
The palm tree, by its very shape and texture is exotic. We don't have palm trees growing in the woods in Hoosierland. It's just too cold in our neck-o-the-woods. Besides, palm trees elicit visions of ocean, beach, island, hula-girls and pirates! None of those are found in the midwest - outside of a library! So, walking up to and touching a real-life palm tree was a super experience. The bark and leaves were so strange to me. Then there were the coconuts.... uh, yeah: Where were the coconuts? What disappointment I encountered to find that not all palm trees produce coconuts. But again, the education-by-nature method never leaves you without an equal or better replacement for your anticipation. The small fruits of the 'cabbage palm' were at least unlikely to cause any kind of aerial-injury, like what would be expected from such an encounter with a coconut palm. And the fruits brought in a lot more animals to view. Cabbage palm gives you the look and feel - without even more. The other 'major tree' is the Live Oak. This is a truly a majestic tree. |
