Power to the turtles. They’re in luck if they land at Jekyll Island, where a Sea Turtle Center opened last year to care for the sick and injured.

You might just bump into a loggerhead wearing a satellite transmitter when you’re out swimming, because this rehabilitation center helped her heal after she was washed ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. They released her as a high-tech swimmer so her travels can be tracked by the experts and by the rest of us on the Center’s Web site; follow the Patient Update link.

The loggerhead named Golden Boy lost his transmitter early on but Bevelyn, named for a late sea turtle conservationist from Georgia, is easy to find in the Gulf of Mexico, says Senior Educator Alicia Marin at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

The marine epoxy used to glue the red transmitter and antenna to her hard shell must be sticking.

Visitors can watch procedures in the veterinary portion of the complex, learning about various treatments through interactive video exhibits.

If surgery makes you squeamish, just stick with the displays that teach turtle facts, like temperatures in the nest determine whether the baby is male or female.

"Here’s what we like to teach: girls are hot and boys are cool," Marin says.

Cutting-edge veterinary care and related research are the driving force of the center, located in the Island’s historic district.

Fitting since these turtles have been around 250 million years, even though only one in 4,000 make it to adulthood.

"Humans are the turtle’s biggest predator. It’s tough being a sea turtle," Marin says.

Humans look rather calm in the Jekyll Island Historic District, playing croquet on the lawn – that they call the greensward -- in front of the hotel founded in 1886 or riding bikes on the paved pathways.

In fact, calm seems to be the whole point in the National Historic Landmark District and around the marshes, woodlands and shoreline, and underneath the Spanish moss. Even the six-mile causeway lined with marshes – the only way in unless you fly or sail – is a quiet ride, decompressing after leaving Interstate 95, which connects New York with Florida.

You can keep the ride around the Island quiet too because electric touring cars are available to rent by the hour or the day for up to six passengers.

Red bugs they’re called because the first cars on Jekyll in 1914 had that nickname, chosen by the millionaires from the north who liked to winter here. Properly named Smith Flyers by the A. O. Smith manufacturing company in Milwaukee, those originals are visible in a historic photo display at Jekyll’s airport.

Today’s version can be rented by the hour or the day, and plugged in to a special socket in front of your hotel. Top out at 25 mph, the maximum state law allows, according to Red Bug co-owner Rick Van Iderstyne.