How to vacation at the beach

Befriend the ghost crabs...

An easy way to do this is to have a picnic lunch on the sand. Bring heirloom tomatoes, basil and fresh mozarella from home. Pack a beer or two in the cooler. Sit in the shade while the locals gather shrimp in their seine nets. Try not to act too alarmed at the small sharks they bring ashore. Once you've forgotten about them, the ghost crabs will come out of their burrows.

 

Let the surf rock you to sleep at low tide... 

The beach has stretched out as far as it can go (and on Jekyll Island, that's pretty far!) I think low tide is the best tide... it's open, gentle and inviting. Sea life enlivens the shallow water and it's a fun time to explore what's been left behind with the outgoing tide. There's always some treasure... we caught glimpses of small sharky fins and a ray or two. Sadie seemed to love the gentle rocking of the sea. It's also a good time to start a drip castle... dig a little hole and pile up the sand... let it dribble between your fingers and before you know it, there's a world of towers, silly and crooked.

Daydream beneath a canopy of live oaks draped with spanish moss... 

Shade is important on a beach vacation; too much sun on all of those bug bites will be very painful when you're trying to sleep later tonight... I'm not sure how I lived without the occasional sight of live oaks before moving to GA... they are the most wonderful of trees, I think! 

Breathe deeply of sky and salt marsh... 

The salt marsh is another wonderful place for exploring, especially if there's a paved path to do it by bike! Fiddler crabs abound, as do the birds who hunt them.

Watch the sun go down behind the marina... 

There can never be too many sunsets over the water on a beach vacation, right? It's all sort of strange and magical. We'd gone from place to place each day trying to avoid the bugs, but they found us, especially, here. The beautiful view was almost worth the bites, though.

(The shrimp and grits were especially worth the bites!)

: )

Count the pink birds when they show up... 

Let's see... 8 roseate spoonbills, 6 wood storks, 3 tri-coloreds... who else?

Find a little town that harbors shrimp boats... 

Shrimp boats always dot the horizon here; it was fun finding them, finally, at rest.

Be on the lookout for sea turtle hatchlings!

We walked on the beach just about every night (another ploy to escape the bugs at the campground!) and all of those nights were leading up to/during/just after the fool moon. It's a wonderful walk when the tide is out... the sand glows and the water twinkles under the huge moon. So beautiful! Who could be inside at a time like that? Who could sleep? We had a magical experience with some loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings on our first night on Jekyll... more to come!