Dolphins and Sea Turtles

We enjoyed a lovely sunset dolphin cruise on our second night in Jekyll Island.

Waiting to get on the boat.

On the boat

James helped pull up a net. We didn't see a whole lot of dolphins, so the captain threw a net in to see what other creatures we could find. They needed help pulling it up, so James volunteered. Everything had to be thrown back into the water within a few minutes. 

We did see a couple of dolphins. 

Pretty sunset picture

On our last full day, we went to the Sea Turtle Center.  The kids had fun dropping coins into this "plinko" type board.

The highlight of the Sea Turtle Center was the hospital area. It was a room with several pools set up to house injured or weak sea turtles.

 Can you see the baby sea turtles on the log?

 Here they are looking at the land turtles outside.

Hannah now wants to have a career in working with sea turtles. Add that to her list of dolphins, horses, dogs, cats, ferrets, etc.

Horseback Riding on the Beach

One of Hannah's favorite activities is horseback riding. She was excited when she learned that there was opportunity to ride horses on Jekyll Island.

We had to wait for another group to finish with their riding, so Hannah wasted no time in meeting the other horses while we were waiting. 

This was James' first time riding a horse. When he was younger, he had done guided pony rides at the fair and places like that, but this was his first horse ride. Hannah told him he was lucky because it was a trail ride. Her first times riding horses were limited to riding in the horse rings.


Hannah rode Roxy (or Foxy - we weren't exactly sure).

James rode a nice, gentle horse named Judy.

Chris rode Ducky.

James & Hannah waiting for our ride to begin. There was another family riding with us, so we had to wait until they were all saddled up before we could start.

Of the four of us, I was the last, so my pictures were limited a  bit to Chris' back and the head of my horse.

We rode through the woods first.

Then on to the north beach. 

Our ride was 1 1/2 hours. It was only $10 per person for the extra 30 minutes. Later, I started to regret that extra 30 minutes! Our horseback riding was the day after our day of biking. I was in a bit of pain for a day or so after the ride. 

James really wanted to get off the horse and pick up shells. 

The north beach is referred to as Driftwood beach.  We only saw a couple of people on this beach.

Hannah was the first to get off her horse, so she was able to get a picture of me on Rebel.

We enjoyed our time horseback riding. James thought it was pretty fun. Hannah LOVED it, of course. I'm good now for another 15 years!

Biking on Jekyll Island

Jekyll Island is only 7 1/2 miles long. There are more than 20 miles of bike paths the cover the island. Many of the paths go through the moss covered woods. The trails are nice & flat.

We don't own a bike rack, so there really was no easy way to bring our own bikes with us, so we rented some for the day from the hotel. 

They provided us with a map of all the bikes trails, so we had to consult it now & then. 

James is taking a water break. 

My own bike broke beyond repair 4 or 5 years ago, so it had been a while since I had ridden a bike. 

We rode past lots of marshes.

We bought the kids each their own pair of binoculars before we came on our trip. They used them to get a closer look at some of the wildlife. 

We rode past some beautiful cottages in the historic district.

 

We stopped at some of the little shops.

Most of the biking was in shaded areas, thankfully! We estimated that we had biked for 10-12 miles when we were finished. I was a bit sore after our ride!