Quick Tour of Sapelo Island

While staying at Hostel in the Forest, near Georgia’s Atlantic Coast, Chip is invited to join an aquatic expedition to Sapelo Island, one of Georgia’s numerous “barrier islands” that separate the state’s rich, historic marshland from the sea.

He is totally on board for the daylong event with three other Hostel members Lori, Tai and Ben. There is no bridge from the McIntosh County mainland to the historic island, so Chip is pleased to join his new friends in an outboard motorboat which Ben has brought to the Hostel for just such a trip.

They push off from Blue ‘n Hull boat dock after a brief visit to the Sapelo Island Visitors Center part of the Sapelo Island Estuarine Research Reserve. Here they learn that the University of Georgia also has a large contingent of researchers on Sapelo Island. Soon they are motoring at high tide down the Carnigan River into Doboy Sound filled with pelicans, snowy egrets and porpoises spouting and diving along their route.

It’s not recommended to tour Sapelo Island without a guide. In fact unguided tours are not allowed. And pictures of homes and residents are strongly discouraged in deference to local privacy. Chip and his three new friends are reminded of this as soon as they land at the Ferry Dock. Still they strike out on foot using a creased marine map, online digital images and blind luck.

They leave the boat pier where many vehicles are parked. Almost all are battered and rusty. One particularly wearhered pickup sports a huge deer rack protruding from the front grill. Most of the vehicles are tagless. It costs $100 to get a vehicle to the island by barge and the the same to ferry it back to the mainland. At that rate nearly every truck, van and car stays here. So who needs a license plate?

Sapelo is the site of the historic Hog Hammock, attributed to be one of the last intact island-based Gullah-Geechee communities in America. These communities are comprised of descendents of enslaved Africans brought from west and central Africa and forced to work on coastal plantations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.

The visitors hike down a combination of well- groomed asphalt two lane roads called “hard roads” and unmarked sandy ones. After about a mile of uncertain progress a golf cart pulls up and greets the strangers. Two riders inside are from the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Institute and assure the hikers that they are heading the right way and are only about two miles from Hog Hammock.

They arrive sweaty and sandy but are welcomed by great pools of shade beneath massive live oaks. They catch their breath, take a few pictures, and speak in hushed tones. Along the way they see comfortable homes, a public library, open areas with picnic tables and open air stoves for crab boils and barbecues. But they see nearly no one.

In the distance coming their way, a vintage pickup truck, windows rolled down, tools in the bed, pauses as it begins to make a turn on the dirt road.

“Need a ride?”

In no time the wayward, Mainland wanderers climb in. Tai sits in front. Ben, Lori and Chip climb in the back. Richard, the driver, takes them on a tour whi h now legitimizes the spontaneous visit. He shows them a shady restaurant called “Lylas,” which is quiet now even though it’s lunchtime.

“You gotta make reservations first,” Richard explains. “But it’s worth it.”

Richard pulls up beside the handsome St Luke Baptist Church (organized 1884) which holds services on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, alternating with the First African Baptist Church also in Hog Hammock which convenes on the other Sundays.

The visitors pile back into the pickup, which soon turns back out on road.

“Now… How ’bout something cold to drink?” Richard yells back to his passengers in the bed.

“Let’s do it.”

“Sounds good.”

The steamy passengers find their first crowd in Hog Hammock at the Sapelo Country Store filled with midday essentials: ice, ice cream, beverages and more. For the first time all day they must wait their turn. Here each takes a tiny sip of the “Spirit of Sapelo Island.” After all it is past noon.

Soon it’s time to head back and yet there’s still so much to see: the R. J. Reynolds Wildlife Management Area, the UGA Marine Institute, Sapelo Lighthouse & Beach, Cabretta Beach & Raccoon Bluff, Chocolate Plantation and the native American site called the Shell Ring. But these will be saved for another day.

As the boat pier comes once again into sight, the Hostel travelers agree “next time” to play by the rules and engage a local resident to guide them to other historic sites including homes built over 200 years ago by owners named Spaulding, Coffin and Reynolds.

For a truly informative, legitimate tour of Sapelo contact J. R. Grovenor at 912-506-6463. Or if you prefer to buck the approved system the way these folks did, find your way to the Hog Hammock Public Library and pick up the paperback “Sapelo Island: A Self-Guided Tour,” the way we did. You can be sure your $5 contribution is going to the right cause.