Tybee Island Beach and Fort Pulaski
Apr. 7th, 2025 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerGeorgia Travelog #5
Talahi Island, GA - Monday, 7 Apr 2025, 3:30pm
Today we continued touring in/near Savannah, Georgia with my sister, B. Her husband and daughter didn't join us as they were busy with work and school, respectively. Whereas yesterday we toured in downtown Savannah today we went out to the coast east of town. Our first stop— well, second if I count stopping for lunch along the way— was at Tybee Island.
There are miles of public beaches on Tybee Island. We drove to near the southern end of the island, where there's a pavilion and pier and a cluster of hotels and shops. I'm not sure why we did that; we didn't need or even particularly want any of the touristy stuff. Though after walking around in the sand for an hour it was satisfying to get ice cream at an ice cream stand a block back from the beach.
The weather wasn't the greatest for having a beach day so we didn't make a day of it. The water was cold and the wind was gusting hard as a storm front moved into the area (it would hit later in the day). In the photo above you can see our hats flapping in the strong wind. Our lanyards were necessary to keep them from flying off our heads every 20 seconds.
After the beach we drove back inland a bit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.
Fort Pulaski is a Civil War-era military fort downriver from Savannah. It was seized by the Confederates prior to the declaration of war in 1861 and then captured by the Union in 1862. It has an interesting bit of significance in military history. Its capture by the Union army in 1862 demonstrated the power of rifled canons.
Smooth bore canons were considered incapable of breaching the masonry walls of a fort such as this, especially from the distance of 1.0 - 1.5 miles away where the Union placed its canons. But rifled bore canons changed the equations. They could fire heavier projectiles farther, with greater velocity, and with higher accuracy. When the Union opened fire on Fort Pulaski they breached the walls on the second day of battle. The commander of the fort surrendered 2 hours later. The Union held the fort through the remainder of the war. It was decommissioned about 10 years later as the standardization of rifled canons made it obsolete.
Talahi Island, GA - Monday, 7 Apr 2025, 3:30pm
Today we continued touring in/near Savannah, Georgia with my sister, B. Her husband and daughter didn't join us as they were busy with work and school, respectively. Whereas yesterday we toured in downtown Savannah today we went out to the coast east of town. Our first stop— well, second if I count stopping for lunch along the way— was at Tybee Island.
There are miles of public beaches on Tybee Island. We drove to near the southern end of the island, where there's a pavilion and pier and a cluster of hotels and shops. I'm not sure why we did that; we didn't need or even particularly want any of the touristy stuff. Though after walking around in the sand for an hour it was satisfying to get ice cream at an ice cream stand a block back from the beach.
The weather wasn't the greatest for having a beach day so we didn't make a day of it. The water was cold and the wind was gusting hard as a storm front moved into the area (it would hit later in the day). In the photo above you can see our hats flapping in the strong wind. Our lanyards were necessary to keep them from flying off our heads every 20 seconds.
After the beach we drove back inland a bit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.
Fort Pulaski is a Civil War-era military fort downriver from Savannah. It was seized by the Confederates prior to the declaration of war in 1861 and then captured by the Union in 1862. It has an interesting bit of significance in military history. Its capture by the Union army in 1862 demonstrated the power of rifled canons.
Smooth bore canons were considered incapable of breaching the masonry walls of a fort such as this, especially from the distance of 1.0 - 1.5 miles away where the Union placed its canons. But rifled bore canons changed the equations. They could fire heavier projectiles farther, with greater velocity, and with higher accuracy. When the Union opened fire on Fort Pulaski they breached the walls on the second day of battle. The commander of the fort surrendered 2 hours later. The Union held the fort through the remainder of the war. It was decommissioned about 10 years later as the standardization of rifled canons made it obsolete.
