The Gnomes of Jekyll Island: A “Short” Story
Gnomes made it to the New World hiding in hulls of ships when the British came. Several British military and cargo vessels brought these little woodland people to the New World unknowingly. The Southern coast was a destination for the English due to the amount of British forts that sprang up along the edge of the Atlantic. This created a population boom of gnomes on the barrier islands of the Southeastern United States.
As several islands were used for large rice and tobacco plantations, this drove more Gnomes to Jekyll Island. When Sherman marched to the sea, the death and destruction sent gnome masses south of the Altamaha River to the Island. Over the years the gnomes flourished in the ancient maritime forests of Jekyll. The early gnomes brought deer from the mainland to use as a mode of transportation to traverse the island.
In the early 1900’s the rich and powerful made the Island their playground. The Millionaire’s Village was the central hub of human activity on the Island. This left a large amount of the Island for the gnomes to live without much of the human world encroaching on their way of life or even becoming noticed by humans. As time went on, Jekyll became a tourist destination and residents moving to the island began to limit the freedom of the gnomes. Have you ever seen a gnome riding a deer on Jekyll...yeah, my point exactly. In time the development of Brunswick to the West and St.Simons Island to the North cut off any location for the gnomes to retreat. Just when the gnomes thought things couldn’t get any worse it did: Enter Geocaching.
Yes geocaching, the innocent game we all know and love. Well, almost loved by everyone, because the gnomes down right hate it. To them the only thing worse than trying to avoid people in golf carts and bikes is some dude on his cell phone trying to locate a pill bottle up in a tree. I mean think about it...you can’t really live your life in peace when you got JohnnyCache78 on his $400 GPS device walking through the brush as you’re making #2 under a saw palmetto.
Gnomes also have treasure, like all other “makebelieve“ tiny people...they are loaded. It’s hard for them to hide their cash when some geodork is looking for his cache. Once again...think about it. So the next time you’re on Jekyll Island and you think a cache has been muggled or just got broken by the elements, force of nature, etc…I have one word for you: GNOMES!!!
This multi-cache is along Crane Rd. (This road is closed to vehicles.) This is the bike trail that starts by the gas station/fast food and runs north and west past the very scenic wetlands area of Jekyll island. You start your journey at the posted coordinates, this is the site of stage #1. Each stage you get to will have the coordinates posted at its location for the following stage.
There are four stages to this cache. The total distance is 1.7 miles with walk in and walk out. Most people will probably do this cache on foot in which it was designed. If you choose to do it by way of bike that’s fine too, although you will have to walk your bike at certain points.
A few requests-
When reaching a stage please don’t pick up or handle the props. This will help improve the longevity of the cache. Any coordinates and information are visible on the props so they don’t have to be handled. Upon finding the cache at at the last stage please pick the cache up by the sides, not by the decorations on the top.
Keep in mind that this is a popular area with a lot of people walking and biking. When headed to or from a stage try not to expose your route to any nearby muggles. When posting on the online log please avoid posting any spoiler picks of the cache or props. This will keep it from spoiling it for anyone else that may be interested in doing this cache.
As always keep an eye out for wildlife.