'TYBEE'

One of Tybee Island's most familiar landmarks

             It’s the middle of January, and the temp outside is a balmy 30-somethin’. So, here I sit in front of my warm heater, thinkin’ ‘bout what else?? Summertime and the beach, of course! But, not just any beach, have you. Having grown up with our family vacationin’ down along the Gulf coast, primarily at Gulf Shores or Panama City Beach, I have, in the past decade, become quite partial to Tybee Island, the northernmost of Georgia’s famed Golden Isles. No, the beaches on Tybee don’t offer sugar-white sands (although they are still so very beautiful), nor do the waters of the Atlantic come close to comparin’ to the blue of those of the Gulf of Mexico, but the historical romance and natural beauty of the Georgia coast more than make up for all of that.

            Close enough to Savannah for one to enjoy that beautiful old city, yet far enough away that there’s actually a small-town atmosphere about the island. Tybee is one of those rare places that makes one daydream about someday movin’ there and livin’ happily ever after. There’s no place else like it that I’ve yet to find.

Little Tybee's pristine beaches stretch for miles

            From the salt marshes that extend as far as the eye can see, at times seemingly barren, laced with empty, muddy creek beds devoid of any visible life, at other times absolutely beautiful with twisting, turning waterways rippling under the bright sunshine and teeming with fish and birds of every kind; to the island nature preserve of Little Tybee, an area that can only be accessed by boat, offerin’ empty expanses of pristine beach that stretch unbroken into the distance.

One of the boardwalks along the North Beach

            Boardwalks bleached gray from the weather; sea oats swayin’ in the breeze; the taste of salt on the wind as the surf rolls up onto the beach, leavin’  bits and pieces of seashells of every shape and size upon the sand as it goes back out again; dolphins breaking the surface in lazy arcs as they frolic just off shore; pelicans flyin’ in formation, then droppin’ out of the sky like Navy dive-bombers, plungin’ headfirst into schools of fish; and the hundreds of gulls and terns, ever-present with their incessant chatter.

            Historical landmarks, such as an old military installation, Fort Screven, in use through the Second World War; the oldest and the tallest lighthouse in Georgia, distinctly marked with none other like it in the U.S.; and a giant anchor, salvaged from a sunken wreck of an old wooden sailing ship discovered off of the island’s north shore.

A Tybee Island sunset

            Beach houses, vacation homes, and rental units of every size and style conceivable; there are huge, gnarled oaks, with gray beards of Spanish moss blowin’ in the gentle breeze, tall palmetto trees, prickly yucca plants, and azaleas galore. On Tybee, bicycles outnumber cars, electric golf carts and buggies are legal to drive on the city’s streets, and parking is at a premium.

            Postcards four for a dollar and sunglasses two for ten in the shops along Tybrisa Street, the heart of ‘downtown proper’, and across the street is DOCK’S BAR, where the locals hang out and the ‘weekenders’ are welcome; you can get fried conch with homemade remoulade sauce served dockside at AJ’S, where the sunsets are utterly breathtaking; a pound of fresh shrimp on the patio at STINGRAY’S, amid the thump-thump of a live band; or a huge platter of Low Country Boil under light-draped oaks out’n amongst the marshes, at THE CRAB SHACK.

Sunrise on Tybee

            A soft, linen shirt, with khaki shorts and barefoot; a frozen concoction of the sort that Jimmy Buffet sings about, in-hand; strollin’ along the beach late of an evenin’ with the tide washin’ the sand from around my feet as it rolls back out to sea washin’ my cares away.

                 A familiar island sayin’ warns visitors that once they get Tybee sand ‘tween their toes, they’ll forever have an urge to return. Well, it's the truth... for I'm ready to be there now, myself.