The Beauty of Sapelo Island

As a steward of the Sea Islands’ deep-rooted Gullah Geechee culture, Bailey, bears the tourch of Sapelo Island ancestors she can trace clear back to West Africa.

Sapelo’s Cabretta Beach.

Two of the Sapelo Island Birdhouse Cottages.

The island’s sour oranges are ideal for marmalade.

At eleven miles long with 16,500 protected acres, Sapelo is Georgia’s fourth largest island.

Dr. Bill Thomas with a stalk of sugarcane.

This year surgarcane—a plant no one has grown commercially here in a hundred years—will join heirloom Sapelo red peas on the land Bailey’s forebearers worked long ago.

Dolls made by a local artist.

Spanish moss shades Sapelo’s old country store.

Sapelo’s primordial landscape.

Traditional Sapelo Island red peas.

Bailey holds Sapelo red peas.

Cornelia Bailey near her home in Hog Hammock.

A bench on the porch of Bailey’s guesthouse, the Wallow.

Located on Sapelo, St. Luke Baptist Church will observe its 131st anniversary this year.

Sapelo Island is separated from the mainland by the nine-foot tides and big water of Sapelo and Doboy Sounds.

Island oranges.

Nearly every coastal animal species in the South lives on Sapelo, including many varieties of shore birds.