Adventures on a small island...

[foxtrot_xray]

So, for part of this weekend I was living on a small Georgia island called "Tybee Island". (In the past, used to be "TIBY", but, I digress. Of course, I needed an excuse NOT to spend time with the GF's family and in-laws. Most - not all - of my escaped time was benchmarking, of course! And of that, most of my time was WITH the GF. (She's not as a big fan of her family as I'm not, it seems..)

 

So, first stop was Fort Pulaski, and its RM1 and RM2. The marks were easy to find, but RM2 was worn down and blended in well with the rust pit-marks. It was almost like deja-vu walking around the place after finding the marks and finding a good shot of the flag pole. It *IS* the same flagpole from 1968, a replica made to look like the one back when the fort was built. The flagpole was restored in 1961, according to the park attendant I talked to. On the way out I called my dad, and found out that he took me and my bro there back in '85. So, then, on our way out (as as they were firing cannons in the fort) we stopped by D 394, placed AFTER my last visit there. It took a little longer than expected, since I seemed to have had a problem with directions this trip. On the way out, we stopped for a tidal station. This station eluded us, and finally after doing some more mapping, I realized why. Having scaled coordinates, I looked at a map BEFORE reading the directions, and was looking on the wrong side of the road. You see, the road that they're referencing runs WNW - ESE, and the mark is "West" of the road, so.. that threw me off. (More direction problems on my part..)

 

Oh! And from the fort ledge, I spotted the old Cockspur Light. Had I more time, I would have gone out to it. I love lighthouses, and I could have spent a day looking and poking around it.

 

Since it was still early in the day - too early to go to where we were staying - I decided to head to the South End of the island, and find it along with its RM4, RM5, and RM6. RM4 and RM5 and the station were found pretty easily. RM6 was a picker, tho, since all the beach parking put cars over where it was supposed to be. I never did find it - in the location of where it was supposed to be was a base for a new electronic parking meter. If my measurements were off, I couldn't check because cars kept parking over and around that area. RM5 was found, and despite it not having a "station description", it was found pretty easily. I submitted a recovery for it anyways, seeing it it will help.

 

So the next marks I went after were the lighthouse ones. For some odd reason, a Power Squad guy by the name of "OK" marked many items around the island "Not Found", and then had one of his buddies make a follow-up report of "Found/Good" and put, simply, "The report of April 3 is correct". For example, one of Georgia's "BV" marks. Save for three marks that I couldn't find, all the other marks that he reported 'not found' were recovered fine. Including the Lighthouse, which has been standing for well over 150 years.

 

Ah, the Lighhouse. 5 stations in total, including the Lighthouse itself, was was an 'easy find'. The tidal station was also easy to find. It survived the 1999 restoration of the lighthouse and got a new coat of paint. The railroad spike was still gone, however, and for that one I'll be submitting a destroyed report. The two ECC marks - ECC and ECC 2 were not recovered. I had really expected to find these. However, I learned that the "public" catwalk was added in the 1960's sometime. I searched and searched - not too fond of heights - and couldn't find them. So, either they were sanded down and/or sections replaced in the 1999 restoration which took them out, OR, they're on the upper catwalk, which has high-security needed from the Coast Guard to access. (Or, so I was told.)

 

And, lastly, among other, less impressive finds, I did not recover the mark with the wrong description. We searched around the beach and sandunes with no luck. It reports that it's set in a "light structure", which could be a cement post. No such luck there, unfortunately.

 

And, that was about it for the "vacation". All in all, it wasn't /complete/ success, but it was enjoyable.