Dining Places Slideshow

	As reported at: Sapelo Island, GA (31327) | Condition: Fair Current Temperature: 59ºF | Feels like: 59ºF

The island is named for Edward Teach, the high seas pirate better known as Blackbeard. The name Blackbeard appears on the 1760 survey map of Sapelo Island by William DeBrahm and Henry Yonge. Many legends were associated with the infamous Teach. One accounting reputes the wearing of slow-burning, smoldering pieces of rope in his thick, unkept beard, lending authenticity to his ferocious reputation. Teach and his band of pirates preyed on merchant shipping along the south Atlantic coast in the early 18th century. Sailing aboard the 40-gun Queen Anne's Revenge, one of the strongest vessels afloat outside of Britains' Royal Navy, the pirates wreaked havoc. British authorities finally caught up with Blackbeard in 1718. Blackbeard met his end in combat against Lieutenant Robert Maynard during a battle off the coast of North Carolina, but the legend lives!

Blackbeard, then as now, was endowed with a dense live oak forest. Many of the trunks and boughs of the old gnarled oaks had become, over the millennia, bent by the ceaseless action of the ocean winds blowing off the Atlantic which constantly swept over the exposed little island. The oaks were thus bent into shapes that particularly suited them for use in the knees and bends necessary for the construction of the hulls of wooden ships of war. This explains the acquisition of Blackbeard Island by the federal government for utilization as a naval timber reserve.

Attesting to the strength and durability of Georgia coast live oak timber, is the frigate Constitution which became a legend with her nickname "Old Ironsides". Enemy cannonballs were said to literally bounce off her sides during an August 1812 engagement in which she defeated the British frigate Guerriere.

Blackbeard Island Wilderness Area
Altamaha Coastal Tours