Visiting The Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island, GA

September 3, 2025

On Friday (August 29), the weather was rainy, which prevented us from completing any outdoor tasks on my father-in-law’s list. I suggested that we take advantage of the rainy weather and visit the Georgia Sea Turtle Center to see the turtles.

Bruce agreed to the idea and he drove us to the turtle center. Nox stayed with my father-in-law.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center is housed in a historic 1903 power plant building in the Historic District on Jekyll Island. In 2007, the revamped building was opened as the Georgia Sea Turtle Center to promote education, safety, and health of sea turtles. The building is now a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center and veterinary clinic for sea turtles. The exhibit galleries provide interactive information about sea turtles and other turtle species native to Georgia.

The rain let up a bit as we got to the center.

As you walk into the building, you enter the gift shop. You can purchase turtle-related gifts without touring the center.

After we paid for entry, we headed to the exhibits.

The center does a lot of work with the Diamond Back turtle, as well as sea turtles. There was a tank with Diamond Back hatchlings in the exhibit area.

The surgery is viewable from the exhibit room.

They weren’t performing any surgeries, but they were cleaning some turtles.

We headed from the exhibit room to the Sea Turtle Hospital. We walked outside along the path and around to the pavilion and turtle hospital. We stopped at an outdoor exhibit with a box turtle.

We went inside the protected pavilion and got to view several sea turtles, as well as some other turtles.

They had a gopher tortoise in a pen outside recovering, but it was hiding.

We walked back through the gift shop and stopped to purchase a gift for a friend. While we took a quick look at the t-shirts, we decided we didn’t need any more t-shirts.

As Bruce drove us back to my father-in-law’s, the rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour.