5 nights in the Isle of Palms in SC was pretty relaxing. Out of the 4 full days, we played in the surf 3 of them. The other, we treked into Cha'lston to check it out. We had a house directly across the street from the beach access point, so it takes just a a minute or 2 to reach the ocean. We really lucked out, as we booked just a month out.
Growing up, we visited Cape San Blas and St. Geo. Island off the panhandle of FLA. That was the local beach for us, just over an hour away. I remember always being able to find sanddollars that were whole, live little crabs crawling across the beach, and just a great variety of shells. I've always been bothered by all the stores selling bucketsfull of shells. I hope they are reproductions, but probably are not. This trip, I've seen lots of people walking down the shore with plastic buckets filled with shells. I hate that people collect so many shells. What are they going to do with these? I know they are free, I know that in most cases there are no animals left in the shells, but still, why do you need a whole bucket? I like to collect shells with the rest of them and I sure save everything, but if you put all the shells I've ever collected in a box, it wouldn't be much larger than a shoe box. And that is saying a lot for someone who saves as much stuff as me.
We're bringing about 8 small shells home from this trip.
On our last full day (Friday), we had packed everything up and were getting a final rinse/dip in the ocean before heading back to the house, when a police/medical golf cart vehicle approached us on the beach. Turns out there had been a shark attack about a mile up the beach from us. A surfer had a limb bitten, but was apparently okay. I spent 2 hours that night reading up on shark attacks and it actually made me feel better until tonight. I googled Isle of Palms and Sharks and found that last year the beach was closed in August after a man and a 9 year old were bitten within hours of each other and that on Jun 28 of this year a man body surfing--not even using a board--was bitten by a shark.
I love going to the beach, but the 2 things that I hate about the beach are seeing people collect more shells than they need and the potential for sharks and other ocean dwellers attacking. Somehow I manage to enjoy my time at the ocean, all the while worrying about everyone in the ocean.
It was a great beach with a super shallow (couple inches deep) area for the kids to play that seemed to go on forever. G'ma wants to return to the same place and I am quite tempted, but I'm also wondering a little if we should wait until this shark(s) decides to find another area.
I was waiting to post with pictures, but am having some difficulty uploading those...so stand by...
1 comment:
I do believe that sharks also have a right to be in the ocean. However, I agree that my prefernce is for them to be in water we are not going to be swimming in at the same time.
Grandma Ohio
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