Saturday, March 6, 2010 - Tybee Island, Georgia

Today we were staying in the Tybee Island area. We had 3 sites we wanted to visit. The Tybee Island Lighthouse, Ft. Screven across the street from the lighthouse and Ft. Pulaski. We slept in just a bit this day, did not have breakfast and headed for the lighthouse first. Tybee Island is really about the 3rd island outside of Savannah. They are located right beside each other and connected by bridges. Tybee is a Euchee Indian word that means salt. It is believed the native Americans would come to Tybee Island to process sea water for salt. Highway 80 is the main road onto and through to the end of Tybee Island. This island reminded us somewhat of Ocean City, Maryland. However, it is not nearly as commercialized. The hotel we stayed in was the largest and has 205 guest rooms. There is a tiny downtown area that is a long block long. It has shops and restaurants. But there are other restaurants and cafes spread over the island. There is a big YMCA with a nice park in about the center of the island. Every parking space has a meter in front of it. Between the hours of 8am - 8pm each day these meters are monitored. There was only one fast food restaurant on the island, an Arby's. Even it had no parking spaces, only ones with meters. So if you go to this island, take a bunch of quarters. Our hotel parking lot did not have meters. The funds from these meters are used to provide and care for the amenities on the island. It is a very clean place to visit. We headed for Tybee Island Lighthouse first. There is a parking lot by the lighthouse that does not charge for parking. There is a small fee for touring the lighthouse and your visit to Ft. Screven is included in this cost. We paid our entrance fee, got the brochure and then headed for the lighthouse. There are 178 steps to the top of the lighthouse. This is the latest of many versions of this lighthouse. The 1st two versions were built closer to the water and were destroyed in storms. The 3rd version was built more on the spot of the current lighthouse. General Lee was concerned the Union Army would use the lighthouse against the Confederacy so he burned the wooden stairs on the inside. Eventually that lighthouse burned down and the current structure was built. It is painted with black at the bottom, white in the middle and black at the top. There is some significance in this painting. My thought is that a ship at sea could see the colors painted on the lighthouse and know for sure where they were landing. Claude and I climbed all the stairs to the top. The lighthouse has landings as you climb so you can climb a set of steps and there will be a landing inside the lighthouse with a window. I think we counted the bottom, 5 landings and the top. When we got to the top and I walked around the catwalk and took pictures every few steps. It was a wonderful way to see the island and the ocean and the Savannah River. Below is a picture of the Tybee Lighthouse and the lighthouse keepers home.

The picture on the left is a view out of one of the windows on one of the top landings. The picture on the right is a view of the Savannah River from the catwalk around the top of the lighthouse.

Eventually they changed to an electric light bulb inside of the glass to make the light. The picture on the right is of the light portion of the lighthouse taken from the catwalk just under the light. The picture on the right is of the first lightbulb. Claude put his hand on the left of the case so you can see how big this light bulb was. The way the glass around it is formed makes the light from this one bulb shine brighter and farther.

Claude and I felt that climbing down the lighthouse was harder than climbing up. You're looking down and really aware of what a fall might do to you. Makes those knees a little wobbly.

At the bottom there are some museum pieces about the history of the lighthouse. Then you head outside to the support buildings that were a part of the lighthouse. These buildings are all being restored and opened to the public. At one point the lighthousekeeper had to have two assistants to be able to keep the lighthouse functional. After electricity was installed in the lighthouse, this many people were not needed. Today there are 3 homes at the base of the Tybee Lighthouse. One for the lighthouse keeper (this is furnished and you can walk through it), and one for the 1st assistant (this has the video about Tybee Lighthouse history) and one for the 2nd assistant (this is the office for the staff there now). The summer kitchen building has been restored. The fuel storage building is also restored and I believe that was the visitor center where we purchased our tickets. They are working on another building that will serve as a gathering place to begin your tours in the future.

Claude and I went to the home with the video next. When we left this home we were going to tour the lighthouse keepers home. A man came out of the office and held out his hand. A crow immediately landed on his hand and began to eat. The man told us the crow was named 'Edgar Allen Crow'. He is fed Friskies Ocean Blend dogfood daily. He is quite tame. In fact, this dogfood has several colored pieces. Edgar Allen Crow has 2 favorite colors and those he picks out and eats. The remaining colors he leaves for the other crows. The man came to me and gave me some of the dog food. Then he instructed me to hold my hand higher than my head. I did that and Edgar Allen Crow flew over to the new hand with his favorite colors of food. Claude was given food and this picture is of him feeding Edgar Allen Crow. This was an unexpected and quite fun experience. Claude asked the man what kind of food he was using. After he told Claude, I just looked at Claude and said, "We are NOT feeding those crows in our backyard." End of discussion.

Then we walked through the lighthouse keepers home. The last lighthouse keeper's family donated the furniture they used in the house. This gives you a really good feel of life on the island as a lighthouse keeper. They were very remote from the rest of humanity. They had to be self-sustaining. A lot of their food was from the see and streams. The house is really nice. We entered from the back porch into the kitchen, at the end of that hall was the bathroom. There was a claw-foot bathtub. Claude and another man walking through the house commented on how tiny that tub was. The next room was the master bedroom it opened into the hall from the front door to the stairway. We walked across this hall into the living room. There was a door there which I'm sure would have taken us back to the hall and the kitchen. But the door was closed and not to be opened. We went back up the the stairs to the boys bedroom and the girls bedrooms. Our next stop was across the street to Ft. Screven. This fort is a series of batteries around the end of the island. The battery is used today for a museum about Ft. Screven and Tybee Island. It also houses the Masonic Lodge for Tybee Island.

The museum has a periscope from World War II. In the museum we learned that pirates were a part of Tybee Island's history. There is a very old deep sea diving suit. One of the cubicles has a video about Tybee Island history. You can walk through this underground portion of the Fort and then climb to the top. From the top we had another good view of the ocean, the rest of the fort, and there is even a little cafe that was closed for the season between the fort and the ocean. The picture on the right below is a marker to measure a hurricane storm surge elevvation. The boards on this measure the hurricane as a level 1 at the bottom to level 5 at the top board.

After the Tybee Lighthouse and Ft. Screven we headed back onto Tybee Island to the little downtown district. We walked the long block and found a pizza place for lunch. They made a really good pizza. The people sitting behind us were from Canada. The lady at the table next to us was from Paris.

Now it was off to Ft. Pulaski. The fort sits at the mouth of the Savannah on Cockspur Island. It was part of an extensive chain of coastal forts built to protect the United States from foreign invasion. It survives as one of the nation's best preserved fortifications. On April 10-11, 1862, Union forces of Tybee Island bombarded the fort for 30 hours using rifled cannon and forced the surrender of the Conferate garrison. After this battle, it became evident that these types of forts were no longer an effective means of defense with the newer weapons. Claude and I found it amazing that all these forts were built along the Atlantic Ocean and not long after they were finished, they were not effective. Imagine all the man hours and dollars to build them and then they are not of value. Claude told me a quote by Patton, "Fixed fortifications are a monument to man's stupidity."

Claude loves history. This was a fun place to visit for him from that perspective. I immediately fell in love with all the angles and way the light played on things. It was going to be a fun place to take pictures. We walked around the visitors center to the walkway to the fort. There was a traingular piece of land that is a part of the fort and is called the demilune. This piece and the fort itself are all surrounded by a moat. The moat is 6 - 8 feet deep. The park ranger told me they have found alligators in the moat, one was 10 feet long. The picture on the left is the demilune viewed from the visitor's center and the moat around it. This is really mounds of dirt built up over storage sheds for dry powder. You can walk through the underground halls and see the storage sheds. The path from the visitor's center goes down the side of the demilune to a bridge across the moat. We crossed the bridge and walked the path from that bridge, through the lower portion of the demilune to the drawbridge for the fort. The picture on the right is the moat around the actual fort taken from the drawbridge to the main fort entrance.

The fort's main (really only) entrance opens up to a covered walkway along that side of the fort. The supply store, officer quarters, infirmery, a cistern for fresh water, enlisted men's quarters are all located on this wall where the drawbridge entrance is located. At either end of this wall were magazines to store dry powder. Below are the enlisted men's quarters on the left and the officer quarters on the right.

We walked the covered walk to the northwest bastion. In the basement level of this corner was a powder magazine (see below). In the ground level corner was a room full of placements for cannon. There are openings in the brick wall to point the cannon through. On the wooden floor was an arc-shaped metal runner used to move the cannon to another direction. There were several openings for other cannon and grooves in the wooden floor for their metal runners. I took some pictures of the opening in the wall for the cannon. It was interesting to see what they could see. Claude, who pays much more attention to the history of these places, learned that after they built this fort one of the drawbacks of it was these openings didn't allow enough ability for cannon to really move to another target. They were too small for that. This really limited their ability to defend themselves.

The remainder of the almost semi-circle that makes up the other walls of the fort is really a series of chambers. They have arched openings to the outside and arched ceilings above each section. The pictures below show a single section from the outside and the way they looked from the inside if you looked down the row of segments. The arched outer opening had a wooden set of doors to close it off.

These were made with lots of thought. The picture on the left shows the wall where the cannon would have been. If you look closely at the top you will see a vent for the smoke from the cannon to escape. At the bottom of there was an opening for water to drain into the moat around the fort. The picture on the right is from the southwest bastion. It was left open and not refurbished so that you can see what the basement structures would have been like to support all the weight of the building above and how it was segmented into rooms.

A portion of this semi-circular set of segmented chambers was used for the jail and had bar doors and bars over the openings where cannons could have been placed. The hoist in the picture below was used to lift those heavy cannons to move them.

A musket demonstration was scheduled in the afternoon. A man dressed in a Union soldiers uniform came out to the middle of the yard in the interior of the fort and fired the musket to get our attention. That worked very well. Then we all gathered under a huge pecan tree in the yard of the fort. He explained to us about the musket and then passed around the musket ball. This one was actually shaped like a bullet. He wore a leather container on his belt and it contained 40 paper bags (or rounds) of powder with a bullet in the bottom of the paper bag. One the front of his belt was another leather container with little round balls used to spark the ammunition. A soldier would have been expected to fire 3 rounds every minute. Imagine that, only 3 rounds in a minute. So different today. A soldier would have taken the small narrow paper bag from one pouch on his belt. He would have torn the bag open with his teeth. If the wind were blowing, it would have been a problem by blowing the powder before it entered the gun barrel. The soldier would have carefully poured the powder into the barrel followed by the ball. Then he would have wadded the paper bag and put it into the barrel of the gun. Next a rod under the barrel of the gun would have been pulled out and used to tap the powder, ball and paper into the barrel of the gun. Then the soldier would open the 2nd pouch on his belt and removed a little round ball. This went into the trigger on the gun. Then the soldier raised the gun, aimed and released the trigger. The trigger hit the little ball causing a spark that ignites the powder, ball and paper and the shot is made. It is quite loud.

After the musket demonstration we headed to the top level of the fort. There were wonderful views up here. We started at the southwest bastion end. I ran into a young boy that was decidedly handicapped. He was having a great time wondering the fort with his father. He struck up a conversation with me. After a bit he told me, "You need to take a picture of me." I assured him that was a great idea. He had a stuffed elephant. I asked him to be sure his elephant was in the picture. He gave me his best smile and I took this picture. He was such a sweetie and a really uplifting addition to my day.

There were some great views from the top of the fort. Below are a few of my favorite photos. The top left is the moat from the southwest bastion along the demilune to the visitor's center. The top right is the Cockspur Island Lighthouse. The lower picture is just a view of the brick wall along the top with a plant growing out of it. In the distance is the Atlantic Ocean.

From the top I took this picture showing a slanted wooden wall on the inside of the fort. This is just a sample of the wall that was built around the entire interior perimeter of this fort when the Confederacy had control of the fort.

On top of the fort were rows of placements for cannons. Some were concrete bases with the metal strip to move the cannon on. Some were grassy with the metal strip to move the cannon around on.

Our touring was now complete. We left Ft. Pulaski and headed back to Tybee Island. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the visitor center so I could get a picture of this turtle. Over the island were turtles painted or decorated. I'm a turtle loving kind of gal. This one is particularly cute. He is dressed like a tourist. The other turtle picture is a turtle eating ice cream. It was by the little place we bought dinner. The directional signs along the highway were also sea turtles. Way cute!!

It was time for a good night's rest. We were driving all the way home on Sunday. That meant an early wakeup to get on the road early. When I woke up Sunday morning the sun was coming up on the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful view to end our trip on Tybee Island with.

We really enjoyed this quick trip. We filled it with new sights, sounds and tastes. We would go back to Savannah in a heart beat. There is so much more there to see and experience. But we really had a great time experiencing this beautiful part of our country.