Carolina Sojourn | Part 3, The Road To Turtle Wellville

First Flight

Kristy, Izzy, The Bear, and me en route to Jekyll Island, GA

People's first experiences in light aircraft vary widely. Some are quick hops around the pattern. Others might involve a $100 hamburger trip. I like to take first time flyers sightseeing over local landmark Chimney Bluffs. My first flight was an evening jaunt after work. But Izzy's first ride in a light aircraft took her from Hilton Head Island, SC to Jekyll Island, GA to visit a sea turtle hospital. As first flights go, this one has to qualify as more exotic than the average hamburger run.

Of course, this was premeditated. Not only did we remember to bring a fourth headset with us from 

New York, but we did not take on additional fuel after landing at Hilton Head to ensure that we were light enough to fill every seat in the Warrior. A full house is a rare occurrence in my airplane.

We launched IFR from Hilton Head in front of an airliner requesting an early release time. "Not gonna happen," replied Hilton Head Tower to the frustrated 737. "Cherokee Four Eight One, cleared to depart 21, fly runway heading."

Heh.

 Georgia Seaboard

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
09 Aug 2021	N21481	HXD (Hilton Head Island, SC) - 09J (Jekyll Island, GA) - HXD	2.1	2322.2

Georgia's eastern seaboard is characterized by chaotically branching waterways that make for an intriguing sight from the air. One of the things that I have come to appreciate as I have flown around our country is that each region possesses a unique geological character. There is no mistaking the Appalachians for the Adirondacks, the flat agrarian vistas of Indiana for New York state's orchards, nor the rugged coast of Maine for the distinctive Georgia seashore that passed beneath our wings that morning. It is all uniquely beautiful.

Low clouds over the Atlantic on departure from Hilton Head

Tybee Island

Savannah Approach was working several Army helicopters in and around their airspace. When Army 310 stopped responding, Savannah asked me to relay a new frequency to them. When I did so, the helicopter pilot did not acknowledge.

"Army 310, Cherokee Four Eight One, did you get that?"

“Yep," came a clipped, surly response. Well, alrighty then. For some reason, I expected better radio procedure discipline from a military pilot.

"Here on Jekyll Island"

ForeFlight ground track from Hilton Head, SC to Jekyll Island, GA

Jekyll Island. Photo by Kristy.

With such beautiful views to survey, subjective time passed incredibly quickly. Izzy was taken aback to learn that our quick hop spanned the entire length of Georgia. Before long, we were descending for Jekyll Island, flying an offshore clockwise track around the island to join a right downwind for runway 18. It was the same maneuver that we flew a decade prior on our first visit to the island.

Jekyll Island. Photo by Kristy.

The Bear was four years old when we last visited. At the time, we regularly listened to the album "No!" by They Might Be Giants. A favorite song was "Fibber Island": "Here on Fibber Island, we strum rubber guitars. Our friends live on Mars. And we sew buttons on our cars."

In flight, "Fibber Island" was substituted with "Jekyll Island" and we made up silly lyrics about the ridiculous things we would do on Jekyll Island. Ten years later, I caught myself humming the melody to Fibber Island as we entered the pattern. Some memories are just well-ingrained, I guess.

Overflying the causeway connecting Jekyll Island to the mainland. Photo by Kristy

Final, runway 18. Photo by Kristy.

Final, runway 18. Photo by Kristy.

Just as I remembered, the runway was completely surrounded by swamp. It had obviously been resurfaced and repainted since we last visited.

A Bug That The Bear Didn't Ask Me To Squish

Ground transportation on Jekyll Island can be provided by Red Bugs, street-legal (on Jekyll Island, anyway) electric vehicles leased through the airport. The entire inventory was booked for the week, but the oldest Red Bug in the fleet is reserved as an airport courtesy "car" for itinerant pilots. It had a two hour time limit and, because we arrived so early in the day, it was available.

A Red Bug fuel truck.

"Don't try to go all the way around the island with this one, the battery won't last that long," we were warned. "But it will get you to the sea turtle center and back." I was reminded of the sage wisdom I received from Glenn Crabtree about beater courtesy cars: don’t drive them any farther than you want to walk. It seemed pertinent here.

Cruising in our sweet ride. Photo by Izzy.

Our loaner Red Bug’s capability was well matched to the driving environment. The local speed limit was 25 MPH and, when completely floored, that was exactly how fast the beastie would go. It was surprisingly loud for an electric vehicle, growling and rattling like an old riding mower. But I cannot deny that it was fun.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center

We located the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and parked in a spot where I could recharge our loaner Red Bug.

It might be tempting to wonder why an animal rescue organization would be founded on an island that once played host to America's wealthiest families and served as the 1910 birthplace of the United States banking system. I think it was a self-selecting system. Sea turtles have been making their nests on Jekyll Island's beaches for decades. Why not build the center where the turtles are?

The Center occupied a building that once served as a power plant for the island.

Now that's a big turtle!

Izzy found a hat!

Inside the exhibit space, we learned about the lives of sea turtles and the threats they faced. One statistic in particular jumped out at me: only one in 4,000 sea turtles lives to full adulthood. Life is rough for the little amphibians before they grow up.

Beyond the exhibit space was the actual sea turtle hospital. Turtles that experienced boat strikes, attacks from aggressive species, excessive barnacle accumulation, or other ailments convalesce here under the care of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center's experts.

This guy was pretty agile for a sea turtle missing a rear flipper. The staff expects him to be released back into the wild soon.

Mealtime consisted of leafy greens and bell peppers stuffed into a PVC tube. The tube functioned as a sinker to force the turtle to dive for its meal the way it would in the wild. The Center had no desire to turn their turtles lazy by allowing them to scavenge on the surface.

Success!

This is Bert. Bert is a Gopher Tortoise that was hit by a car. Bert has probably had better days.

No $100 Hamburgers in Sight

With some time left on the Red Bug, we drove into town in search of a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we were too early to find any place open for lunch, yet. Despite that, it was a great opportunity to explore.

Specifically, we had opportunity to see the Jekyll Island Club, Jekyll Island's answer to Mackinac's Grand Hotel. When I saw the croquet players in their dapper white outfits on the well-manicured lawn, I wondered if we had gone through a time warp. Nope. My iPhone confirmed that it was still 2021.

It was so hot in Georgia that even the trees were melting.

We ate dinner on this pier a decade ago when the restaurant was still called Latitude 31.

Georgia Peaches

Jekyll Island added a small fuel farm at the north end of the ramp since our last visit. However, the credit card kiosk would not read any of my credit cards. While there was enough fuel in the Warrior to still return to Hilton Head with a legal reserve, I was hoping to pad the fuel quantity a little bit.

I returned to the terminal building to find Kristy battling with Peaches, the airport dog. Peaches had swiped a Goldfish wrapper out of her backpack where The Bear had left it tantalizingly available. Worried that the dog might choke on it, Kristy was trying to pull the wrapper out of the dog's mouth. Cleverly, she distracted Peaches with a ball. An excellent horse trader, my wife.

Peaches was clearly a little long in the tooth and we wondered if it was the same airport dog we met there in 2011.

Jekyll Island Club

Turning northbound on departure, I considered landing at St Simons Airport to take on a little extra fuel, but the $100 BBQ crowd was streaming in from all directions and I decided that it was not worth the effort. We had plenty of fuel to get home, but it meant running the tanks lower than I usually do.

Whoops

Photo by Kristy.

We saw a very curious structure in the water of St Simons Sound between Jekyll and St Simons Islands.

Photo by Kristy.

On researching the site later, we learned that the large yellow structure was a massive floating crane put into service by the "St Simons Incident Unified Command" to manage the wreck of the Golden Ray, a cargo ship that foundered there in September 2019 while carrying over 4,000 cars, trucks, and SUVs.

Photo by Kristy.

Over many months, the Golden Ray has been painstakingly sliced into sections that were lifted out of the water by the crane and returned to shore by barge.

From this angle, we could actually see a cross section of the remaining ship. What a mess.

St Simons Island.

Wassaw Island

"Home" Again

When we departed Jekyll Island, a pair of very isolated cells were dumping rain on portions of Hilton Head. We monitored their movement carefully on the flight home. The troublesome cells lumbered off to the northeast and out of our way before we arrived.

Hilton Head Island in the haze of the day.

Hilton Head Island.

As we flew along the beach, I spied a line of blue umbrellas like the ones we rented for the week. But I quickly realized that it was not our beach when I saw the enormous homes behind them.

But the next batch of umbrellas were ours. Our villa was one of the brown, low-rise structures just left of center.

A disproportionately large, brightly colored building on Broad Creek caught our eye. Two days later, we would learn that it was a boat storage facility operating from the same pier as Sky Pirate Parasail.

Hilton Head Island.

Hilton Head Island.

Hilton Head Island Airport.

From above, the tiny commercial terminal on the northwest side of the runway could be distinguished from the general aviation facilities on the southeast side of the runway. Even the control tower at Hilton Head conformed to the local architectural aesthetic, both in terms of appearance and stature.

Back on the ground, we secured Warrior 481 until her next flight.

"Well," I asked Izzy. "How was the flight?" I was curious because she had not volunteered any kind of opinion about the experience. Her answer surprised me.

"I am going to learn how to do that," she replied with confidence.

I do not doubt her.

Postscript

Walking back across the ramp toward Signature, I noticed an unusual sign posted at the end of the row of parked transient airplanes:  "Alligators may live here"

Yikes. I think I preferred the sea turtles of Jekyll Island.