Low Country Surprises

Pictures: The view from Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine, walking across back to the city, with Flagler building towers in the distance; Heidi and her third and last brother to visit us, Jon; Ken with BBQ and bloody mary in Charleston at one of the after-parties for a big road race, the Bridge Run; Tiger Lily and her grandma goofing off; the only picture I dared to take at Apollo Beach and one of the easiest nature photos -- a crab; we passed under these trams today in the ICW near Myrtle Beach, carrying golfers back and forth.

We have been out of Florida for ten days, quickly passing through Georgia and slowing down a little for South Carolina. The weather continues to hold in a good pattern, usually in the low 80s and sunny, although we have had two scorcher days that got up to 89 degrees in the boat and neither day had much of a breeze. The fishing could have been better – we put a big push on to catch SOMETHING before our bait went bad and the result was one lonely catfish and one feisty crab! I think we’ve given up on catching and will concentrate on ordering fish when we dine out or when we find a fish market.

Ironically we are in the most fished area on the east coast, it would seem. We have seen surfcasters, shallow water trollers, boats propelled by poles in the flats, canoe and kayak fisherpeople, large charter boat fishing crews, people fishing from wharves,  and every other type in between. Right now as we travel north we are not seeing many other cruisers but the fishing boats are everywhere.

Before we left Florida we were visited in Fernandina Beach (the last town in Florida) by Heidi’s brother Jon and his wife Debbie. They were on their way to Orlando for a vacation.  Then we got to see another person from home, a young man who is in medical school in Charleston, SC. Tom Ross is half-way through his 4 year program there and joined us for an evening as we caught up on our family and his family news. We spent the past few days in the company of another boat, RACHEL, whose crew right now is Julie, Mark and granddaughter Tiger Lily. It was fun to have an eight-year-old around. RACHEL is a Tayana like the one we used to have, and we met her first three years ago coming back from the Bahamas.

Our first surprise was actually back in Florida. We visited Apollo Beach, part of the Canaveral National Seashore. It is in a remote spot but was near our anchorage.  Its remoteness must account for the fact that once you walk on the beach 30 yards past the parking lot none of the bathers were wearing any clothes! Nor were they dressed in the other direction; we tried.

The next special event took place in the evening, in Tom’s Point Creek, just before Charleston. We were the only boat anchored there, and there were only two houses we could see, both quite a way from our place in the creek. Another isolated spot. We were trying to avoid the large number of no-see-ums that had invaded our cabin and were sitting in the dark cockpit listening to the night sounds. The baying of hounds started a way off, then got closer and then Ken spotted flashlights that gradually moved up toward where we were anchored. We never saw any people or dogs but exactly even with our boat the lights stopped moving and were now shining up in the trees and the barking increased. We were watching a coon hunt. It did end with the coon being shot, so I guess it was successful for the dogs’ owners but a little disappointing from our prospective. Then all the noise died down and the show was over.

Yesterday we stopped at Thoroughfare Creek about 25 miles south of Myrtle Beach, SC thanks to a tip from RACHEL. They were also stopping there and said if we got there first to anchor by the dunes! We have not seen any river bank dunes on this part of the trip; almost everywhere in Georgia and South Carolina our constant companions have been mud banks, oyster-shell banks, marshes or tall pines. Although this creek is about 20 miles from the nearest inlet out to the ocean and 5 miles as the crow flies, the dunes were big and led to a fresh water pond after a run down the backside. You could see dunes in all directions, partly covered with vegetation. We swan in fresh water, a treat, and found out the island – Sandy Island – is the only undeveloped island left in South Carolina. It has been inhabited by generations of slaves’ descendants (left there after Emancipation caused plantations to close), there is no bridge connecting it to the mainland, and it is one of the “Gullah” communities of the Lowcountry.  Down here Gullah means there has been a separate culture and language maintained throughout the years due to the isolation of the community. We did not meet any of the residents but after we were back from swimming and exploring we watched a single black man walking around on the dune and then sitting in the sand for a while looking out toward our boats and the other bank of the creek.

That’s about it except for mentioning all the wildlife in this stretch. Eagles, stingrays, freshwater turtles, wood storks, ospreys nesting, and porpoises. We are still going barefoot a lot of the time.  And we are looking forward to the North Carolina stretch of the ICW starting tomorrow.