Georgia Natural Wonder #40 - Skidaway Island. 1,030

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Georgia Natural Wonder #40 - Skidaway Island

At one point this was a two part post with yesterday's Thunderbolt , Isle of Hope, and Wormsloe leading up to Skidaway Island (Part 1). We decided to separate the Wonders with so much involved before we even get to the Island. So today is all Skidaway.



Skidaway Island is an exclusive island in Chatham County, Georgia, United States. The population was 8,341 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is one of the most affluent communities in the United States. Skidaway Island, an interior barrier island fronted by Wassaw Island, is home to Skidaway Island State Park, the world-renowned Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the University of Georgia's Marine Extension Center. It also has the largest coastal residential development in the Savannah area called The Landings. Though extensively developed by the Union Camp Corporation, the island today has one of the best state parks in Georgia, with two breathtakingly beautiful nature trails and a full complement of facilities. The Marine Extension Center has one of the best aquariums in the Savannah area and an excellent nature trail that follows Skidaway Narrows.



Skidaway Island History

Skidaway, with its rich marsh filled with oysters, mussels, clams, and whelks, had long been a hunting and ceremonial ground for Timucua Indians that lived in the area. Archaeologists have found 56 sites on the island with evidence that Indians used the island at least 4,000 years before General Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River. Three ceremonial shell rings, dating back to 1750 b.c., have been found on the island. These rings are a type of New World pyramid and fewer than 20 of them have been discovered, all in the southeastern United States except for one in Ecuador. The shell rings are perfectly symmetrical and uniform in height and thickness of wall. The interior centers of the rings were kept very clean and any debris found in them were left behind by later groups. The Timucua were targets of mission activities by the Spanish in the 1630s, and became extinct by the 1760s from European plagues and English-sponsored slaving. Paleontologists have also found on the island the fossils of Georgia's megafauna, such as mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths, and native horses, which became extinct five to ten thousand years ago for reasons unclear today.



Oglethorpe assigned five families and six single men to Skidaway Island, and they built a small fort at the northern end of the island (later a fort would be built at the southern end of the island as well). The fort commanded the river, with one carriage gun and four swivel guns. Methodist founder John Wesley visited the area in 1736. Despite attempts to gain a foothold, by 1740, the island was abandoned when the pioneers were unsuccessful in farming the infertile soil.


Wesley Statue Savannah.

The next period of settlement was from 1754 to 1771, when 29 grants of land on Skidaway were issued to settlers who were to be more successful. An early grantee was John Milledge, who established the plantation Modena, which is believed to be named for the Italian town that was the seat of the silk culture, an early industry on the Georgia coast.



His son, John Jr., became a U.S. representative and senator, governor of Georgia, and founder of the University of Georgia, then called Franklin College. Modena Plantation survived until the mid-1800s, and today is the site of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and University of Georgia's Marine Extension Center.



During the Revolutionary War, Skidaway saw a small skirmish when Patriots attacked and drove off a forage party of British Marines. Between the War for Independence and the Civil War, the area saw relative prosperity, with approximately 2,000 inhabitants and plantations producing cotton, indigo, corn, cattle, and hogs. During the Civil War, earthen batteries were established on the island to defend the southerners from northern attacks and the 4th Georgia Battery was posted here. (A battery can be toured on the Big Ferry Interpretive Trail at Skidaway Island State Park). With the success of the Union blockade in 1862, Skidaway was abandoned, and when the South lost the war and slavery was abolished, the plantations fell into ruin.



Black freedmen were the next to try their luck on Skidaway. These former slaves were assisted by the Freedman's Bureau and Benedictine monks, the latter who established a monastery and school for black children near Priest's Landing on the eastern side of the island. (Priest's Landing is located at the end of Osca Road off of McWhorter Road.) A tidal wave in 1889 ruined the freshwater supply and farming failed from infertile soil and Skidaway was abandoned again. During Prohibition of the early 1900s, Skidaway became a prime bootlegging site because of its isolation. An abandoned still from this era is founded at Skidaway State Park on the Big Ferry Interpretive Trail.



In the war-torn, defeated rebel states, southerners had only their property and natural resources to climb out of poverty. The industrialized North had the financial and political advantage over its impoverished southern neighbors and used it across the South. Skidaway was no exception, and various northern interests gained control of the island in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The largest of these, Union Camp (then called Union Bag and Paper Corporation) consolidated its holdings and used Skidaway for pulpwood production in the 1940s.



Union Bag's lack of its own kraft pulp mill, or the southern pine reserves to supply it, placed the company at a competitive disadvantage, causing it to lose market share and suffer deficits in the late 1920s. Alexander Calder, chosen president in 1931, became convinced that the company's long-term health required a move to the South. In 1935 he broke ground on a new mill near Savannah, which afforded access to water transportation and a plentiful supply of southern pine. By 1937 there were four paper machines and a bag plant, which turned out 1,100 tons of paper products per day. Another bag plant was added in 1943, another paper machine and box plant in 1947, and a sixth paper machine in 1952. A huge, integrated manufacturing complex was the result.



Robert C. Roebling, philanthropist, prize cattle breeder and the great grandson of John A. Roebling, the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, was one of the last owners of property. Locals still call the area Modena.


World-famous composer Johnny Mercer (far left) visits with Robert Roebling(seated with pipe) and Dorothy Roebling in the Roebling House.

Tangent on Robert C. Roebling:

Mr. Roebling was a great-grandson of John A. Roebling, an engineer, who emigrated from Germany in 1832 and established the little town of Saxonburg in western Pennsylvania. His original intention of becoming a farmer soon gave way to his first love, bridge building. It culminated with his design and construction of a number of aqueducts and bridges, including the Niagara Suspension Bridge (the first to carry steam trains), the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge, and his crowning masterpiece, the Brooklyn Bridge. There is an old superstition that every bridge takes a life, and unfortunately, the Brooklyn Bridge took John A. Roebling’s life at the outset. The work remained to be completed by his son, Col. Washington Roebling. It almost claimed his life as well. Working in the pressurized caissons foundations for the bridge towers, he developed the bends. He eventually recovered but it was a long painful process. From his apartment in Brooklyn, he monitored the work on the bridge, relaying his instructions to the bridge crew through his beloved wife, Emily.



She handled this with flair, diplomacy, and understanding. It would later be said of her that when the bridge was finished, she had the equivalent of a degree in engineering.



John’s spectacular success in bridge building stemmed in measure from the wire cable business he founded, the John A. Roebling’s & Sons Co. which formed the basis for the family fortune. Beginning with a hand-operated rope walk in Saxonburg, which was quickly outgrown, operations were moved to Trenton, NJ, where the family settled.

Racing Days

In addition to the cable business, the Roeblings were also partners in the Mercer Automobile Company at the turn of the century. Washington Roebling II raced their cars in “The Great Savannah Auto Races of 1908-1910-1911” and Bob was a life-long supporter of the Sports Car Club of America. He built the Savannah-Effingham County Raceway and gave it to the city. Through the Savannah Foundation, he established “Roebling Road” in Effingham County for races and driver training.



The Great Savannah Auto Races


1908 race.


1909 race.


1910 race.


1911 race.


1911 finish.

Robert Roebling’s father Karl, president of the company, died in 1921, when Robert was still in high school, but it was during these formative years that Robert developed a love of the sea.


Dorothy “Dickie” and Robert Roebling

Four years after they were married, in 1925, Bob and Dorothy, or “Dickie,” as they were known, built their home, “Landfall,” on an 18-acre estate on the Trenton – Princeton Road. The following year their 170’ three-masted schooner, the Black Douglas, was launched at the Bath Iron Works in Maine. They sailed her around South America but the country they returned to was a far different one from the one they had left 10 months before.


The Black Douglas, renamed Aquarius, in 1999.

The Depression was in, Prohibition was out, and the gangsters who had run the speakeasies turned to kidnapping as a new source of easy money. Because of its notoriety, one tends to think of the Lindbergh kidnapping, which occurred a few miles from “Landfall,” as unique, but actually such acts were widespread. Shortly after the Lindbergh tragedy, the Roebling’s governess came into the children’s second floor nursery one night to find an intruder coming through the window. She got there just in time, but after this scare Bob and Dickie gave serious thought to moving. The Roebling Co. could manage without him. Business had tapered off, as it had everywhere, but contracts for the George Washington and Golden Gate Bridges sustained them. Some members of the family had already moved: Bob’s cousin, Donald Roebling, inventor of the famous World War II Alligator Amphibious Tank, had moved to Clearwater, Florida, in 1929.



As conditions in the industrial North worsened, the South seemed to offer some respite from the chaotic situation developing there.

Modena Plantation

A neighbor of the Roeblings, Ralph Isham, owned a hunting preserve, Modena Plantation, on the northern end of Skidaway Island and he invited Bob down for a hunting trip. Bob fell in love with it immediately and bought it.


Roebling home was built right next to ruins of Modena.

The water was deep enough for the Black Douglas. They put the house in Princeton up for sale, and by the spring of 1936 the family was living aboard the ship tied to what is now SkIO’s north pier.


Robert and Dickie Roebling at Modena Plantation. Date unknown, but probably late 1930s.

Over the years, Modena Plantation was restored to a working farm with barns, buildings, and farm dwellings, all powered by the generators on the ship. As war clouds gathered, however, plans were made to move the family ashore. The white stucco powerhouse / pump building, next to the SkIO shop facilities, was built in 1940 to take over the generating task of the ship. The island ran on 110-volt DC current augmented by large banks of batteries for periods when the plant was shut down. The house next to the swimming pool was constructed with high ceilings to be used for a gym but eventually became the Roebling home when the Black Douglas was sold in September of 1941 to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


Roebling home.

The boat was to serve as a fur-seal research vessel in Alaska but she got only as far as San Diego when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Savannah Morning News reported she was fired upon by a Japanese sub, but she made it safely to Seattle, and the Navy was waiting for her when she arrived. Her beautiful Douglas fir masts were trimmed off and, armed as a patrol vessel, she spent the War years doing picket duty off Cape Flattery at Neah Bay, WA.


Roebling was pretty big in defense contracting.

Following the War she fulfilled her fur-seal mission, then was assigned to Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Southwest Fisheries in San Diego until 1966 when she was sold to a treasure hunter in the Caribbean. Later, the Flint School acquired her, restored her as a schooner, and used her as a floating school ship, plying Atlantic and European waters until 1982. At this time, she was purchased by foreign interests and rebuilt at Abeking and Rasmussen as the Aquarius.



In 1948 Bob Roebling built a house on the east side of Skidaway for his mother, Mrs. Arthur O’Brien (she had married Arthur O’Brien, a corporation lawyer, after Bob’s father died). Having lived in Washington, D.C., and Seattle most of her life, she found the island setting lonely and after a few years decided to move to St. Simon’s. The Roeblings occupied her house thereafter.

Cattle Calls

The University System of Georgia was a key player in the development of the farm from its inception. Starting with Hampshire hogs and Aberdeen Angus cattle, The University of Georgia provided guidance and encouragement throughout the farm’s existence. In large measure the farm was self-sufficient in the production of foodstuffs. The improvement of breeding stock was always a primary goal. At the time Roebling was finishing his mother’s house he also completed a large seven-sided steel and concrete production and show barn to house his cattle operation. Today it has been enclosed and is used for laboratory and storage space by SkIO researchers.


Robert Roebling with his prize bull, Blackcapmere.

In 1950 the Roebling’s elder daughter, Ellin, married Donnell Watkins, a resident of Kentucky. Their wedding reception was held in the barn.


Barn in 1940.


Barn today.

Dinner tables were put in the stalls, with iced champagne in the feed troughs and flowers in the water buckets. An orchestra played, a buffet was located on the ground floor, and the wedding party occupied a table on the second level.



The wedding was reported in the Stars and Stripes (Watkins served under Gen. Patton during WW II) and Town and Country magazine.


Ellin, flanked by Donnell Watkins and her father.

If you visit the barn, note the compass rose mosaic in the center of the building, directly under the skylight. Roebling attended Harvard and was an engineer. He figured the exact latitude and longitude of the spot, the elevation above mean sea level, and included a metal “needle” pointing to true North in the design.



Dickie passed away in 1976 and Bob followed her in 1983, at Candler General Hospital in Savannah, Ga. He was 78 years old. Mr. Roebling helped organize the Savannah Symphony Society, the Kicklighter School for Retarded Children and the Historical Foundation of Savannah. They both ended up missing the return of their beloved Black Douglas, which came back to her original dock at Skidaway in 1996, to take part in the opening ceremonies of the Yachting Events portion of the 1996 Olympics.

The Black Douglas Returns to Skidaway Institute

On June 6th, decked out in signal flags, she celebrated the 66th birthday of her Maine launching at Skidaway with a crowd of well-wishers, Navy Veterans, U.S. Fish and Wildlife personnel, and Flint School alumni who had served aboard her. She was the one who started it all and she is the reason for Skidaway Institute of Oceanography being located on Skidaway Island today.



Robert and Dorothy Roebling’s children were Ellin, Karl, Wainwright, Clara, and Henry. A memorial service for Ellin, who passed away in July of 1999, was held on the Skidaway campus, not far from the dock where the Black Douglas was moored during her childhood.


Sun sets on Roebling history Skidaway Island.

By 1964, Union Camp had designs to develop residential property on the island, but Skidaway lacked a bridge that would provide easy access for cars. Union Camp offered to donate 500 acres to the state if Georgia would build a bridge to the island. Nothing came of this offer until 1967, when Union Camp donated 500 acres that became the site of Skidaway Island State Park. The bridge was built in 1971, and Union Camp subsequently developed the gated, residential golf community called The Landings, which today features six 18-hole golf courses.



The Landings

Skidaway Island is well known for its waterfront properties and golf courses within The Landings, one of the largest gated communities in the country. In 1969, the Union Camp Corporation owned what is now know as the Marshwood, Oakridge, and Deer Creek sections of The Landings. Union Camp had purchased the Braniger Organization, a land developer with headquarters in Chicago and, through Braniger, a team of planners and engineers were brought together. Having a great appreciation for the natural beauty of the island, the planning team began to develop a master plan for “The Landings” that would protect as many trees as possible and protect the natural marsh and stream edges of the island. The plan would not allow private docks or any other encroachment on the marsh or streams. Access to the rivers and streams was through planned marinas only.



A walking/bike trail system to connect all parts of The Landings was planned. One commercial center, outside the gates, now The Village on Skidaway, was set aside and properly zoned to eliminate future problems of locating commercial establishments. Golf courses, tennis courts, swimming facilities were carefully planned. A number of natural “open space” areas were included in the plan for the enjoyment of the residents. The Marshwood section was the first to be developed. The plan established major collector streets with many minor “side” streets with little or no through traffic possible. Access to residences was from the minor streets only and those rights-of-way were made more narrow to save as many trees as possible. “On street” parking was discouraged by requiring at least two “off street” parking spaces, in addition to garages, for each home.



A lagoon system was designed as the overall drainage system, that also serves as an important amenity for The Landings. In 1972, the covenant documents for The Landings were established to control the building types and land use in The Landings as actual development moved forward. In the 1970s, the section of the Landings now known as “Plantation” and “Midpoint” were being developed by a different developer. During the financial problems of the late ‘70s, that development went into bankruptcy and Braniger/Union Camp purchased the land from the former owners. Through careful planning, Plantation and Midpoint were added to The Landings master plan.


Palmetto Course.

Braniger was very conscious of the environment. From the beginning Braniger had calculated on using treated waste water for watering the golf courses. But the State of Georgia put a moratorium on using reclaimed water. In spite of that, Braniger dedicated wooded areas for spray fields and five years ago shallow wells were installed and they are now being used. As much rain water as is practical is stored in lagoons, they are the backbone of the storm drainage system. And they are another of Braniger’s good amenities, with the dirt used in borrow pits and golf course construction. Some lagoons, especially the fresh water ones on Oakridge and Deer Creek are pumped to golf courses.


Landing lagoons.

University of Georgia Marine Extension Center

This site on Skidaway consists of two parts: the open-to-the-public University of Georgia Marine Extension Center and the open-to-the-public-with-reservations Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, both of which share a 691-acre campus dedicated to providing an understanding of Georgia's ecologically valuable coast. The Marine Extension Center, located on a bluff overlooking Skidaway Narrows, is open to the public and well worth your time. The best public saltwater aquarium in the state is housed in the center, along with educational exhibits, an educational sales shop, and public restrooms. Outside the building is a nature trail that winds through a maritime forest that overlooks the water. Picnic tables are found here and the public is allowed to stop, eat a lunch, and take in the marsh views.



Inside the red brick building, 14 aquariums holding almost 10,000 gallons of brackish water feature species native to the Georgia coast and are a good starting place to learn some of the creatures one may encounter in nearby waters.



In fact, most of the fish have been caught in local waterways, many aboard the University of Georgia trawler Bull Dog. Some of the more popular species are a loggerhead turtle, longnose gar, nurse shark, lookdown fish, and spiny lobster.


Do not adjust your color.

Also on display are many impressive fossils, including mammoths and extinct whales. Shark teeth fascinate impressionable youngsters.



The Jay Wolf Nature Trail is approximately 1 mile long if one hikes the long loop and half that length if one takes the short trail. It begins behind the aquarium and follows along the Skidaway River before turning back and finishing at the parking lot. The forest is not a true climax maritime forest, due to the disturbance the land experienced when the area consisted of plantations. Notice barbwire used to fence in cattle and hogs that were raised in the area. However, the trail is marked well and helps the novice learn major floral species, including laurel cherry (Prunus caroliniana), sugarberry (Celtis laevigata), live oak (Quercus virginiana), cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto), laurel oak (Quercus laurifolia), and sweetgum (Liguidambar styraciflua). Other species noted are Spanish bayonet or yucca, red mulberry, beautyberry, muscadine, and saw palmetto. Oyster middens, deposited by Indians who hunted and fished on Skidaway, are also evident. More modern structures built by early colonists are also found on the property.



Southern red cedar is an alkaline-loving coastal relative of the Eastern red cedar, so it is found growing where oyster middens are part of the soil. When oyster shells break down, they release lime into the normally acid soil, lowering the pH and creating the necessary chemistry for the red cedar.



Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

Skidaway Island is home to the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, a research institution operated by the University of Georgia and used by scholars and researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Savannah State University and College of Coastal Georgia. In 1966 the Georgia Science and Technology Commission proposed the creation of an oceanographic research center "of major proportions" on Skidaway Island for "its close proximity to an important metropolitan center, its sheltered location on natural deep water channels, its convenient access to the open sea, its strong aesthetic appeal, and its virtually virgin state." The newly formed Ocean Sciences Center of the Atlantic, created by the Georgia General Assembly in 1967, was responsible for the creation of the facility. The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography came into existence in the late 1960s due to a donation of 680 acres of land from Robert Roebling, the Union Camp Corporation, and the strong interest from scientists at the University of Georgia in creating an educational arm to study the natural processes of the coast and ocean.



It was opened in 1968, when the Ocean Sciences Center appointed its first director, hired staff, and converted the Roebling's plantation buildings into offices and laboratories. In 1971 the Ocean Sciences Center was dissolved, and the institute was transferred to the University System to serve as a base of operations and central facility for marine interests. In 2013 the Institute merged with UGA. Institute faculty members are part of UGA's Department of Marine Sciences.


GNW UGA Marine Science gal of day.

As of 2017, the 700-acre campus houses fourteen full-time faculty and emeritus faculty members, as well as nearly seventy technicians, students, and support personnel who work indoors in laboratories or outside in marine environments adjoining the campus and around the world. Funding from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Energy, as well as its pristine and accessible location, has enabled the institute to grow into an internationally recognized center of research, education, and service in marine science.



Skidaway is a multidisciplinary institute, working in collaboration with oceanographers from all over the world to decipher the secrets of the global ocean. Research interests include zooplankton ecology, trace-metal geochemistry, carbon cycling, and ocean currents. Scientists have access to a fleet of sea vessels for research, none more impressive than the ninety-two-foot R/V Savannah, which is ideal for oceanographic work in estuarine and continental-shelf waters throughout the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts.


Our 2nd GNW UGA gal for today.

Skidaway Institute does not itself grant degrees, but it offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students from UGA and other institutions. Visitors to the Skidaway campus stay in ten small apartments and cottages and have access to the largest marine sciences library collection in Georgia.



Perhaps Skidaway Institute's most important work is educating the citizens of Georgia on the preservation of the marine ecosystem. Scientists and staff from the institute work with the University of Georgia Marine Education Center and Aquarium, also located on Skidaway Island, to conduct hands-on programs in trawling and dredging, as well field trips to other islands. The Marine Education Center and Aquarium accommodates around 8,500 scheduled visitors per year, as well as 14,000 walk-ins to the aquarium, now an independent affiliate of the Georgia Museum of Natural History. The marine center's distance education reaches schools (K-12, as well as college students) in Georgia and twelve other states. It is hoped that these efforts will create citizens who are inclined to appreciate and sustain their coastal natural environments, while capitalizing on coastal economic opportunities.



Skidaway Institute has solidified its future as an internationally recognized research institution, and its work will be vital in managing Georgia's future population, projected to become fourth in the nation over the next few decades. Planners must make careful decisions informed by a clear understanding of Georgia's rivers, estuaries, and nearshore regions in order to preserve the quality and quantity of water sources. New understanding of the mechanisms of life in the oceans influences efforts to manage and harvest the ocean's living resources. Researchers from the institute will also continue to develop answers for critical societal problems, including commercial, military, and recreational maritime operations, and the improvement of security along U.S. coastal borders.



The University of Georgia's Marine Sciences Program was established in 1976 and designated a school in 1992. The Marine Sciences Program is responsible for the coordination and management of the Marine Institute, the Marine Extension Service, the Georgia Sea Grant College Program, and the Department of Marine Sciences. The Marine Institute, located on Sapelo Island, was established in 1953 at the invitation of R.J. Reynolds, the multimillionaire owner of Reynolds Tobacco Company, who owned Sapelo Island from 1933 until his death in 1965. Research on Sapelo has centered mainly on basic marsh ecology, examining the factors regulating the metabolism of the salt marsh ecosystem and providing an understanding of energy flow and cycling of minerals and nutrients though the marshes and nearby ocean.



The Marine Extension Service helps to solve problems related to the state's marine resources. The Marine Resources Center on Skidaway is the major marine education facility for schools and colleges in the state. The educational center's facilities include laboratories, touch tanks, a teaching aquarium, a museum, a dormitory, a cafeteria, a library, an audio-visual room, and a distance-learning classroom. The educational staff provides programs for school groups from elementary to college level, as well as adults, teachers, and other groups that have an interest in learning about the coast. Scheduled groups can use one of the University of Georgia's research vessels to tour the marsh, or study on the grounds that serve as an outdoor classroom or laboratory with nearly 700 acres of coastal forest, along with 1,000 acres of salt marsh and 18 acres of freshwater ponds. Visits range from an hour or two to a full-week program for a complete unit on marine science. Programs range from historical studies to trips to Wassaw Island. The programs are popular so reservations must be made well in advance.


Not a suitable GNW gal as too young and has crabs?

An additional extension station is found in Brunswick, where specialists monitor and support commercial fishing and seafood processing industries.



The Georgia Sea Grant College Program, established in 1971, is part of the National Sea Grant College Program. Sea Grant promotes the wise use of marine resources through a coordinated program of research, education, and advisory services. Because of excellence in these areas, the University of Georgia earned Sea Grant College status in 1980, becoming only the 15th educational institution in the country to attain that rank.



Geography / Geology

Skidaway Island has a total area of 17.9 square miles, of which 16.4 square miles is land and 1.5 square miles(8.45%) is water. The 6,300-acre Pleistocene island is defined by the Wilmington River to the north, Skidaway Narrows to the west, the Vernon River to the south, and Romerly Marsh and Wassaw Island to the east. High ground on the island is roughly 8 miles long by 3 miles wide. Skidaway has had many different spellings throughout history. Some believe Oglethorpe named Skidaway in honor of his Indian friend Tomochichi's wife, who was called Scenawki.


Tomochichi and son with pet War Eagle.

Older than Wassaw, Skidaway is one link in Georgia's Pleistocene barrier island chain that would have been oceanfront property at some stage approximately 40,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. With the melting of the glacial ice and the rise in sea level, Skidaway's younger sister Wassaw came into being approximately 5,000 years ago. The older, Pleistocene islands like Skidaway tend to be flatter with well-developed soils, whereas the younger, Holocene islands like Wassaw have many dune ridges and poor soils.

Skidaway Island State Park

This state park has it all, including a swimming pool. But more important are the natural communities that grace the 533-acre tract, best viewed by hiking or biking the 1-mile Sandpiper Nature Trail or the 3-mile Big Ferry Interpretive Trail. The park, along with the 500 acres that the University of Georgia's Marine Institute of Oceanography sits on, was given to the state by Union Camp Corporation, which owned much of the island and wanted a bridge built to the island so it could develop The Landings. The property was transferred in 1967, the bridge was built in 1971, and Skidaway Island State Park was officially opened in 1975. Today, it is one of the finest parks in the state system. The park is on the Colonial Coast Birding Trail established by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.



The park borders Skidaway Narrows, which once was a narrow, shallow tidal creek. In 1905, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first dredged the channel and eventually made it part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The park consists of maritime forests, tidal creeks, freshwater sloughs, and salt marsh. Trees you will find here are old Live Oaks with tremendous growths of Spanish moss, cabbage palms, longleaf pines, magnolias, red bays, and other species. The salt marshes consist of Spartina species and needlerush, with fiddler crabs and marsh snails in abundance.



The park has 88 pull-through campsites with water and electrical hookups. Elevated tent pads with grills and tables are also provided. Picnickers have the choice of five covered shelters on 10 acres. Two restrooms are located here along with playgrounds for children. A group shelter is available for rent, with a capacity of 150 people. It comes with a range, refrigerator, bathrooms, grill, and tables and chairs. An outside oyster-cooking shed is available to rent. A public boat ramp is found on the south side of the Diamond Causeway bridge where it crosses Skidaway Narrows before you reach the park.



Located near historic Savannah, this park borders Skidaway narrows, a part of Georgia’s Intracoastal Waterway. Trails wind through maritime forest and past salt marsh, leading to a boardwalk and observation tower.



Visitors can watch for deer, fiddler crabs, raccoon, egrets and other wildlife. Inside the park’s interpretive center, birders will find binoculars, reference books and a window where they can look for migrating species such as Painted Buntings. Children will especially enjoy seeing the towering, 20-foot giant ground sloth replica and reptile room.



A scenic campground is nestled under live oaks and Spanish moss, and some RV sites have sewer hookups. Leashed pets are allowed. Groups can enjoy privacy in their own pioneer campgrounds. Open-air picnic shelters and an enclosed group shelter are popular spots for parties, reunions and other celebrations. For cooling off during summer, Tybee Island's beaches are less than an hour away.



The park’s camper cabins offer screened porches, air conditioning, a bathroom with shower, kitchen, master bedroom and kids’ sleeping loft. Guests bring their own linens, towels, dishes and cooking utensils. Outside, visitors will find a picnic table, grill and fire ring. Pets are not allowed in camper cabins but are allowed in campsites.



This state park is an island separated from the Atlantic Ocean by salt marsh and Wassaw Island. Skidaway Island State Park is characterized by tidal estuaries, salt marshes, salt flats, tidal rivers and mature maritime forests. Skidaway Island State Park: now offers Site-Specific Camping! As of January 12, 2018, you can book your reservation for a specific campsite. Please remember to pay close attention to which site you are choosing during your reservation booking!

Colonial Coast Birding Trail

Types of Birds: Songbirds, shorebirds, wading birds, waterfowl



Best Birding Seasons: Songbirds (all), shorebirds (all), wading birds (all), waterfowl (winter) Specialties: Osprey, painted bunting, pileated woodpecker, bald eagle


Painted bunting on Skidaway.

Tips: Warbler watching can be spectacular during spring and fall migrations. Look for nesting osprey in spring and summer. Listen and look for marsh wrens and clapper rails in salt marshes. Look for painted buntings during the spring and summer.


There was evidently an Osprey cam at one time on Skidaway.

Hiking trails at Skidaway State Park

Two trails are featured at Skidaway: the 1-mile Sandpiper Nature Trail and the 3-mile Big Ferry Nature Trail. The Sandpiper Nature Trail is for hiking and viewing the marsh ecosystem; the Big Ferry Nature Trail is for learning about maritime forest and Skidaway's human history.

The Sandpiper Nature Trail

The Sandpiper Nature Trail is easily hiked, with a boardwalk that extends out into the marsh. Here during low tide you will see countless fiddler crabs, looking from above like a miniature herd of wildebeests, stampeding through the marsh and salt pan. At least four kinds of small land-preferring crabs are easily found in marsh: sand fiddlers or red-backed crabs (Uca pugilator), mud fiddlers or blue fiddlers (Uca pugnax), brown square-backed crabs (Sesarma cinereum), and purple square-backed crabs (Sesarma reticulatum). Square-backed crabs are also known as wharf crabs.



Fiddler crabs are recognized by their one large claw. This claw is used by the male in defense and attracting a mate. Females lack the large claw. The sand fiddler, as its name suggests, prefers sandy habitat or flats near the marsh where it can strain out bits of food from the detritus. The sand fiddler is identified by its whiter carapace (the mud fiddler carapace is brown) with conspicuous pink and purple patches. Mud fiddlers prefer muddy marshy habitat. Neither lives in the tall streamside marsh grass area: This is the preferred habitat of the square-backed crabs.



These crabs are perhaps the most numerous creatures in the marsh and are an important link in the coastal food chain, consuming diatoms, algae, and decaying Spartina and becoming themselves food for higher level animals such as birds, fish, and mammals. The Sandpiper Nature Trail is a good place to see wading birds in the marsh, such as herons and egrets. The shy clapper rail or marsh hen is also found here. Osprey, or "fish hawks," are often seen cruising the waterway looking for prey. Confederate earthwork fortifications are a feature of the trail.



Trail: The 1-mile trail begins and ends near the swimming pool and Visitor Center Park Office.

Big Ferry Nature Trail

This is one of the best trails on the Georgia coast. A 3-mile loop takes hikers through beautiful pine and maritime forest, across freshwater sloughs, past Prohibition-era liquor stills, and to a Civil War mortar battery before looping back past an observation tower to the original Skidaway causeway. You can bike the trail, but only skilled cyclists equipped with a mountain bike should attempt it. Insect repellant is very recommended. The trailhead is marked by a sign located near a gate on the left past the picnic area. Although the natural communities are second growth, the area is well worth your time.



The first part of the trail is the Big Ferry Causeway, which once served as the main road on the island. Where the road terminates at the northern end of the island was the location of a ferry that carried passengers across Skidaway Narrows to Savannah. Man-made freshwater ditches or sloughs on both sides of the road support freshwater vegetation and are an important fresh water source for wildlife on the island. Alligators are frequently found in the slough.



The trail leaves the causeway and crosses a natural freshwater slough. Here you may witness wading birds or hear the splash of shy frogs. As you hike on, notice how the forest changes from older pine to live oak and red cedar. Woodpeckers are found in the pine forest, utilizing the old snags that park managers have left to succumb to natural causes. These old, decaying trees are important feeding and nesting sites for a variety of woodpeckers and other birds, and as the tree dies and falls to the ground, it helps enrich the soil. Found near the trail is the state flower, the Cherokee rose (Rosa laevigata), which is not a native species but nonetheless has managed to become established here. Magnolia and sweetgum are also found in the forest, adding to its diversity. Growing out of the sandy soil is a live oak forest with many stately, beautiful trees draped with Spanish moss. The emerald green resurrection fern (Polypodium polypodioides) grows on the trunks and branches of Live Oaks as well. When the weather is extremely dry, the fern's leaves dry and curl up. After a rain, the ferns earn their name by coming alive with color. The understory is classic maritime forest, with saw palmettos indicating high and dry ground. The saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) gets its name from its toothed stem. White-tailed deer are a frequent sight on the trail.



Farther along the trail, hikers come to the remains of a liquor still. Moonshining was a popular and lucrative activity on the island in the 1910s and 1920s. Operators could easily hide their activities and transport their product to boats hidden in the marsh. Moonshiners would take corn or grain, ferment it, and then heat it up in a boiler, causing alcohol to be vaporized out and into the coils of the receiver. According to park records, moonshining continued in the area up until the 1970s and approximately 30 former still sites are known in the park.



A short distance from the still hikers find shell middens - or deposits - left by Indians who hunted and lived on the island. Harvested with relative ease, the oysters, mussels, crabs, and fish of the marsh provided important sustenance to the Indians. The middens are frequently recognized by the cedar trees found growing on top of them. Cedars like the limey soil created by decaying oyster shells.



At the farthest point on the trail are the earthworks of a Civil War fort believed to be built by slaves. To the right is a mortar battery. The fort was abandoned in March 1862 when officers determined that it was too isolated and incapable of resisting a Union assault.Returning, hikers are refreshed by views of the salt flats, salt marsh, and Skidaway Narrows. An observation platform gives hikers views of the entire area. Hikers return to the trailhead by the old causeway.



Demographics

The median income for a household in the Census Designated Place was $96,395, and the per capita income for the CDP was $63,851 (the highest in the state). About 1.3% of the population was below the poverty line.



Notable people

Bobby Thomson, baseball great, who died at his home there on August 16, 2010.



Dorothea Orem, nursing theorist, who died at her home on Skidaway Island on June 22, 2007.



OK there is not really any beach on this island. From what we have discovered, visits to the bluff at Isle of Hope and Wormsloe State Park are called for. Visits there should be combined with visits to the Skidaway State Park and the Marine Extension Center saltwater aquarium. Sounds like a plan, one that makes this area just south of Savannah well worthy of inclusion this high up in the Natural Wonders of Georgia.



Running out of coast but plenty of mountain wonders as we head back north Monday. That’s right, I said Monday. Taking three days off to Road Warrior our Dawgs in Columbia II. Our 3rd GNW gal today is an actual UGA student researcher. Chicks dig the sea.



Recap of today's GNW Gals.


Marine Science Babes.