Southern Charms
Georgia's coastal islands are hidden gems from another world.
By Richard Daigle

White surf pounded the beach 200 yards to our left, its low roar rumbling in our ears, while the cackle of seagulls and marsh hens split the air. As the tide flowed in, we cast another jig into the winding saltwater creek, whose mouth kissed the ocean at the point of the roar. Concrete-colored clouds leaked a little rain but could not dampen the spirits of our group of seven anglers, doing our best to persuade a few channel bass to sample our bait.

A white pickup truck pulled up, and Mark Kanyok, the head naturalist at Little St. Simons Island, gave me and my colleague, Lance, the bad news. "Guys, we have to go now if you want to make the 4 o'clock boat," he said. Though we were eager to get home, we both could have stayed longer.

Lance and I laid down our rods and reels and, through handshakes and hugs, said quick but heartfelt good-byes to new friends who had been complete strangers only 24 hours earlier. The truck eased down the sandy road into a maritime forest where we saw two armadillos and a European fallow—a small type of deer Kanyok calls "goat[s] with antlers." As the vehicle moved forward past green palmetto plants and oaks draped with Spanish moss, we said good-bye to the stoic splendor of these magical marshlands and beaches. Leaving paradise is never easy.

Visiting a secret

A visit to Little St. Simons Island is more than an ordinary island vacation—it's a massage for the soul. If you're like me and can't get enough of a good thing, three other islands with three different personalities—Sea Island, St. Simons Island, and Jekyll Island—all are within a few miles of Little St. Simons. Many travelers barreling south on Interstate 95 headed for Florida are largely unaware they are passing what is becoming a not-so-well-kept secret: the "Golden Isles" of coastal Georgia.

The 15 islands off the Georgia coast are barrier islands, so called because they form a protective line of defense against storm surges in the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these islands are inaccessible and completely primitive; others are at various stages of controlled development. During my trip to the Golden Isles, located near Brunswick, I found abundant opportunities for fishing, golfing, bird-watching, horseback riding, going to the beach, hiking, and other forms of seaside recreation. Coastal Georgia tourism officials say if they can lure vacationers on their way to or from Florida, they'll be able to hook them on the area's pleasant vacation atmosphere. They had no trouble hooking me.

"If you want to spend quality time getting to know your family, this is the place to do it," says Patrick Saylor, media-relations director for the Brunswick and Golden Isles Visitors Bureau. Instead of heading off to places of "rampant commercialism," Saylor wants more travelers to try coastal Georgia—an uphill struggle considering many people in the United States don't even know Georgia has a coast.

"This destination speaks for itself," Saylor says. "This place is really worthy of your time."

The crown jewel

Sea Island is the crown jewel of the Golden Isles, and there are few other destinations with its elegance and opulence. Naturally, such excellence has an appropriate price tag. As I drove past the marina, hotel, and a line of expensive beachfront houses, I realized this resort lives up to its world-class billing.

The Cloister Hotel always has been synonymous with resort excellence, but with its new addition, The Lodge, Sea Island is competing with itself. The $47 million, 40-room facility, which opened in March 2001, combines golf and accommodations at a first-rate level. Tradition, service, luxury, and painstaking attention to detail all come together to create an experience worth remembering.

When discussing The Lodge's many amenities, Sea Island Co. Director of Marketing Judy Griggs credits ceo and Chairman Bill Jones III. "The Lodge is basically his vision for raising the bar," she says.

There's no doubt the bar is high. Griggs says just sleeping at The Lodge is a luxurious experience. Consider the bedding: triple-sheeted Irish linens. "We had to buy Irish laundry equipment and build a new laundry plant in Brunswick," Griggs explains.

Keeping a limited number of rooms is essential to providing each guest with 24-hour butler service and room service. "You couldn't do it with more rooms," Griggs notes. "Whatever a guest wants, we figure out how to do it and take it as a challenge every day."

While The Lodge is just starting to build its reputation, The Cloister is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Guests at The Cloister have included presidents Carter, George H.W. Bush, Wilson, and Coolidge, as well luminaries such as Jimmy Stewart, John D. Rockefeller, and Perry Como. Sea Island fishing guide Frank Mead told us about the time he took Carol Burnett fishing and then took us to one of his fabled secret fishing holes. In addition to fishing, Sea Island also offers some of the best golfing on the East Coast.

Guests at The Cloister also can ride horses or bicycles, attend shooting school, dance, play tennis, go boating or kayaking, or luxuriate at the award-winning Sea Island Spa. And while The Lodge caters to adults only, The Cloister has activities for the whole family.

The list of Sea Island's awards and distinctions is lengthy—and getting longer all the time. My time at Sea Island left me feeling like I'd brushed up close with royalty.

Stepping back

Pristine Little St. Simons Island may constitute the purest gold of the Golden Isles. The clock seems to stand still on this 10,000-acre island owned by the Berolzheimer family. Little St. Simons is a world apart from the other islands—indeed, from the world itself. When I stepped off the boat, I felt like I was stepping back in time.

Overnight guests stay at the Little St. Simons Lodge, made up of five cottages that sleep a total of 30 guests. The sparse number of inhabitants (and the fact that it is accessible only by boat) makes Little St. Simons perfect for those seeking seclusion in an area of unspoiled wilderness. But while there may be privacy, there's no lack of fellowship. As manager Maureen Ahern welcomed Lance and me to the island, her warm demeanor and smile set the tone for our entire stay.

Relaxing in the common room in our cottage, first-time guests Sam and Susan Cathey of Chattanooga, Tenn., seem to have smiles permanently etched on their faces. Susan is a financial planner whose typical day revolves around the ever-changing stock market.

"I [couldn't] care less what the market is doing today," Susan told me. They relish the idea of staying overnight in a place with no television, no phone, no cell phones, no computer, and no locks on the door.

Susan claims she and Sam were able to push a "pause button on life" while relaxing on Little St. Simons. "You're not putting any pressure on yourself to be entertained," she says. "It just is what it is."

Jim and Carol Dove from Springfield, Ill., have been all around the world but say Little St. Simons is unique. Jim, a cardiologist who routinely works 15-hour days, says he was able to forget about the cares of life. Carol says she enjoyed meeting fellow guests at communal meals. "You always learn so much from other people," she says.

For the most part, guests are free to do whatever they want whenever they want, be it fishing, beachcombing, boating, kayaking, horseback riding, bird-watching, bicycling, or just lying in a hammock with a good book. Puttering around the island one can spy a large variety of birds, including bald eagles, ospreys, wood storks, falcons, northern harriers, and a number of shorebirds.

"The shorebirding here is amazing," says Kanyok, noting that Little St. Simons is recognized by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Network as one of the top 500 bird areas in the world. The more than 300 species draw bird-watchers from all over the world, particularly during the peak migration months of September/October and March/April. It's also common to see deer, armadillos, alligators, wild boar, otters, raccoons, or other marsh critters.

Pleasant trends

A trendy 24-carat gold tennis bracelet would befit St. Simons Island, where visitors can enjoy fine dining, shopping, and nightlife—all this only a stone's throw from sand dunes, sprawling old oaks, and fascinating historical sites. St. Simons is the most commercial of the four islands, but its development is carefully controlled to blend into nature.

If you enjoy tennis or golf, St. Simons will suit you well. The island's 99 holes of golf and acres of tennis courts should keep you occupied. If you're looking for something different, try bicycle riding, hiking, or horseback riding. Or see the island's natural splendor up close on a trolley or boat tour. Many fishing captains offer chartered inshore or offshore fishing trips.

Your first activity on St. Simons should be a walk on the pier, something I took as soon as we parked. Be sure to climb up the spiraling steps of St. Simon's lighthouse, rumored for decades to be haunted. And don't miss Fort Frederica, a national monument found on the north end of the island. Gen. James Edward Ogelthorpe, the founder of Georgia, led a group of colonists in 1736 to establish fortifications on the Frederica River to protect the English from Spanish intruders. The powder magazine and cannons still stand guard along the river. One also can see the foundations of town shops and dwellings that existed centuries ago.

Another popular tourist attraction is Christ Church. The edifice's magnificent, stained glass beauty has graced St. Simons since 1884, when the present sanctuary was built to replace the original church destroyed by Union troops during the Civil War.

A natural state

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Jekyll Island easily could be called the Fort Knox of the Golden Isles. Its history is rich in more ways than one—in 1886, the Rockefellers, Morgans, Cranes, Pulitzers, and Goulds, whose collective assets were reputed to represent one-sixth of the wealth of the entire world at that time, purchased the island with the intent to establish an exclusive winter retreat. In 1900, the families founded the highly exclusive Jekyll Island Club.

Luckily, things have changed since the early 1900s, and I found Jekyll Island to be much more conducive to my middle-class wallet (despite a $3 parking fee assessed each time I left and reentered the island).

The state of Georgia's purchase of Jekyll Island in 1947 has ensured its protection from residential and commercial overdevelopment. State law limits development to 35 percent of the land above mean high water, so the majority of the island's 5,000 acres will remain in their natural state.

Jekyll Island Authority Director of Marketing Eric Garvey calls Jekyll "a true escape" for vacationers who want a great getaway that's not overcommercialized. "[There are] no stoplights at all on the island," he says. "That's how simple things are."

The original clubhouse of the Jekyll Island Club has been restored and turned into the Jekyll Hotel, located in the heart of the Jekyll Historic District. You can wake up, have breakfast, and take a walking tour of the Jekyll Island Club's cottages and structures that have been restored and opened for tours.

The clubhouse isn't the only offering on Jekyll Island for history buffs. Spanish missionaries, English armed forces, French settlers, and Civil War soldiers were here long before the millionaires. Garvey notes that the Jekyll Island Authority just received a grant to restore Horton House, the second-oldest standing structure in Georgia, built in the early 1700s. It was the home of Maj. William Horton, the key assistant to Ogelthorpe. Next to the house is a cemetery with poignant epitaphs. Elsewhere on the island are precolonial Indian mounds.

Farewell

Each of the islands offers something different, yet they all provide relaxation, comfort, and a soothing pace. In our room on Little St. Simons lay a diary with the musings of past guests.

"This has been a great escape of the first order—do we have to go back to real life?" wrote one, while another grumbled, "Do we really have to go back to the snowy north tomorrow?"

One quote summed up my feeling about Little St. Simons and the Golden Isles in general: "I have only one complaint—our visit was too short. We look forward to returning soon."

Amen.