Saying Goodbye to Tybee till next Tyme

We enjoyed a quick January get away to Paws & Paddles over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The Sunny weather was welcome. Temperatures here in January this week have been warm enough for us to enjoy walking, biking and beachcombing. We have been wearing jackets most days but the local folks are often in short sleeves, shorts, and flip flops. 

You never know what you will see on Tybee especially on our early morning walks.

That water is only 50 degrees by the way...one hardy model! She was out there for an extended time. I just snuggled in my jacket a bit more...lol. We see many photo shoots, weddings, you name it. Often the SCAD students will be working on creative photos. Fun to watch! 

We found lots of shells this week. Not sure if that is due to the beach nourishment project that added tons and tons of new sand this fall or perhaps due to the season and winter storms. I am selective on the shells we collect. My favorite are the heavy Olive Shells. I love how they are often still so shiny that the sunlight glints off of them. I have a good eye for spotting them at a distance. The Moon Shells are also a favorite as are all sizes of the whelks. 

We got in lots of walking this week. We enjoy walking to the Lighthouse and North Beach for the morning sunrise and we made a circle most mornings this week and came back down the beach to the unpaved Solomon Avenue which made a quiet and pretty walk. We have been trying to get 10,000 steps in each day and it has been so easy to do here. At home and work it is so much harder. I have to get to the gym at 5:30 a.m. before work and do 2 miles on the Tread Mill to get a head start each day or I can't get to 10,000 steps with all the sitting at work. Tybee is so small we just walk pretty much everywhere we need to go so our feet or our bikes are our primary means of transportation.

Today we took the bikes up to the bike trail near Fort Pulaski. Six miles up and Six back. It was a perfect sunny afternoon for a ride by the water. We have not been biking in the last couple of months. We both did well but Twelve miles was plenty! It is fun having the water and marsh on both sides of the trail.  As we were pedaling along we looked up and noticed we had company.

The trail is right next to the channel heading in to the Port of Savannah. These are BIG ships. It looks so strange to see them glide out from behind land. It always surprises me.

The sun rise this morning was beautiful. In a cloud less blue sky it poked up as a perfectly round orb on the horizon.  

I love to look at all the interesting beach houses and usually manage to find a favorite or two along the beach.

This house has a foot path right to the ocean. Tons of large windows to enjoy the view. I love the driftwood trees on the beach. 

I tried to catch an interesting photo of the fencing to manage the dunes. The light was beautiful from the early morning sun.  The photo didn't quite capture it as I had hoped.

These fences went as far as you could see. The early light made them look a reddish pink color. In reality they were just an unpainted wood color. 

We managed to enjoy an outdoor lunch at one of our favorite spots. North Beach Grill did not disappoint. Great food as always.

It looks and felt tropical! By the time we left it was standing room only. We arrived at just the right time. 

We enjoy bird watching and walk up to the end of our street frequentlly at sun down to see what birds we can find roosting. We caught a number of egrets by the water.

Across the water we saw over 40 Egrets and Wood Storks roosting for the evening as Mike watched the sun setting.

We hope to eventually spend our winter months here after retirement. We have been able to enjoy the outdoors here even in January. We both think we would enjoy being here during the winter months. It can get really cold here but it seems to bounce back quickly. The marjority of the days are sunnier and warmer than in Virginia. Getting outdoors for some exercise and fun makes these January days sped by faster. That is a Good Thing! 

 

Looking for the SUN...

January has been a dreary gray cold wet month in Roanoke Virginia at the W. So we escaped for a few days on a mission to find a bit of sun. This is the long Martin Luther King bank holiday so we took advantage of the situation and fled to Tybee Island. It rained all the way down but we found our sun today.  We spent a good part of the day outside. It warmed up slowly and by 11 we were out walking the beach. The high just exceeded 60 here 63 in Savannah. Jacket weather but sunny and nice.

We saw these 4 gentlemen sailing in on the back river side of North Beach. The picture doesn't do the sailboat justice. It was a beautiful shiny navy blue and it was huge. Plenty of room on deck for the four large fellows. They motored in about 20 minutes before sundown. Note the pink tones in the sky behind them. They had just enough time to set the anchor before the sun dropped in front of them and us.

Just stunning.  The camera couldn't capture the huge glowing sun as it slid quite quickly into the water. We had biked over and spread out a blanket an enjoyed a couple of hours of warm sun. We were soaking it in like syrup over hot pancakes. We packed up after the sun deserted us and biked back to the cottage. Biking back we enjoyed the smell of wood smoke and pluff mud along with the salt in the air. Nothing like it. Wood smoke usually makes me hungry. Thinking brick ovens I guess. Today it didn't. 

We had already eaten a decadent for us lunch on the water at A.J.s. We even had Wine at lunch!...on Friday! A work day! That made it all the more fun and part of the escape. 

Back now at the Cottage with some hot coffee and chilling. We are both trying to get at least 10,000 steps in a day and I am happy with my 12,000+ today. Here that is so easy. At home on a work day it means I get up at 5:15 to walk to the gym to then walk on the treadmill. Then I have to still really work hard during the work day to get the rest of the 10,000 steps. Here it was so enjoyable and easy to do. 

I almost forgot we also caught a glimpse of another boater racing to get in before that sun dropped. A man in a very nice Kayak slid by and he made it to shore just a few minutes before the sun dropped as we were biking back.

I have to say even in January life on Tybee seems pretty good.

Tybee in early January 2015

We arrived on January 3, 2015 at 1:00 a.m. Unpacked and hit the sack. We woke up refreshed to a Tybee morning. 

Cooler of course here too. A jacket is needed at least for us in the early mornings when the temps are lower. Many of the locals are still wearing shorts and flip flops with short sleeves. We have enjoyed being able to get outside and walk, bike and spend some sunny moments on the beach. We walked up to the end of our street to see if the Wood Storks that winter here were back. We found them!

We biked around and enjoyed seeing some of the Tybee Christmas decorations that were still up.

This house on the way to North Beach was the clear winner for Best Christmas Decorations!

We love the far end of the North Beach and found it to be as quiet and peaceful as usual.

We even found a new Cottage just steps from the beach...

Complete with  Wicker rocker. We loved it! 

We noticed that many fruit trees were full of fruit...

We decided to visit A.J.s on the Back River for Dinner. We were surprised to see an early thick white fog roll in about the time we arrived. It was so thick the river behind the restaurant just disappeared! The fog added to the ambience and made for a cozy dinner.

We had one rainy day and took that opportunity to go see UnBroken. A movie I would highly recommend about personal courage. We opted to pass on dinner at SOHO in Savannah due to the wind and rain and opted to stop by Thunderbolt for an early dinner at Tubbys. More cute Christmas decorations.

Both the wreath and the bow was made of Burlap. A cute rustic look that fit the restaurant well.

After an outdoor lunch at North Beach Grill. We spent the afternoon on the Beach. Then we got Brave! We Cooked Blue Crabs!  A first for us. Beautiful before and after. Amazingly good and messy fun. You have to work for the sweet white meat but what there is of it is wonderful.

This morning we donned our jackets and grabbed a Tervis of hot coffee and headed to the North Beach to catch the sunrise. The first thing we noticed was that the Full Moon was still up and was smiling at us right beside the Tybee light. The sky was a perfect pale pink and the moon huge. The photo doesn't capture the beauty of the moment.

The sun didn't let us down.

We are looking forward to temps of 64 today. Hoping to do some more biking and beach time this afternoon. Temps are plunging tonight when that huge cold front arrives across most of the country. Temps will dip down here as well. We plan to head back to Virginia in the morning. Have to reserve some of the precious vacation days for more future trips. Sniff. We'll be back in a couple of weeks. We are also looking forward in February to attending the Savannah Book and Author Festival again!

So very glad we came. January for us is just fine on Tybee.

Bye till next time...