Category Archives: #hiltonheadisland

Water Therapy

#hiltonheadisland, Hilton Head Island, therapy, water, poetry, fathoming,

For the past almost month, I’ve been in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina staying with my sister due to family health issues. We are not originally from coastal South Carolina, it’s just where she, her husband, and my mom all retired to after spending vacations there. So, we’ve been visiting for years.

I have mixed feelings about Hilton Head. I like the water – beautiful beaches and a series of scenic sounds, lagoons, and other waterways great for kayaking. I like the temperature, lots warmer than the Frozen Northern Mid-Atlantic this time of year. Not so crazy about the politics, the use of the word “Plantation” in the name of the developments, and a few other things. (Oh, and I have to say that having had my mom in the hospital here twice in the last month, the health care leaves a lot to be desired as well but that’s another story.)

Last year when we rented our own “villa” here for the month of January, I found out you could join the “kayak club” here at Palmetto Dunes Plantation’s Hilton Head Outfitters for a reasonable calendar year price. Palmetto Dunes has 11 miles of kayakable lagoons, and their kayak launch makes it really easy for a “senior kayaker” like me to get in and out quickly and relatively painlessly.

Throughout January, and during visits in April and October, and in the last month, I have more than paid for my kayak club membership in paddles around the lagoons. Eleven miles sounds like a lot, but I have been around the whole of them at least twice or three times now. Different seasons bring different colors and birds and just things you didn’t see the first time, though, so it’s all good.

Being on the water, under your own power, is definitely therapeutic for me. Quiet, just your paddle dipping in and out of the water, watching the sometimes obscenely opulent homes arranged along the lagoon slide by, looking for alligators (I’ve only ever seen one this whole time) and trying to sneak up on the herons to take photos… all good. I can forget everything else for an hour or two. How sad it is that my brother in law passed away a week after Thanksgiving. How hard it is to see my mom so frail and mostly confined to bed. How much I miss my own home and friends back in the DC area.

Here are some snaps of my watery adventures. I hope you all have a peaceful and happy holiday and get to indulge in visiting some of your own personal favorite places and activities. May 2022 bring all good (or at least better) things for us all.

Shifting colors, moving water, amusing boat names.
Even though this is a highly populated area, with homes lining the lagoons, in some parts of the system you can get the illusion of being “in the wild.”
The wildlife is pretty tame. It’s easy to get close to a great blue heron until it catches on to you.
Look carefully as Mr. (or Ms.) alligator is pretty well camouflaged here. And really, very small as alligators go. The lagoons are brackish so not so conducive to these shy critters.
Lots of “happy places” that your mind can return to (even if they are in someone else’s backyard, but you can image sitting out there on a nice day yourself.
Strange (and timely?) dock art.

Peaceful Paddling

#palmettodunes, travel,

January seems like a dream now, one where I was paddling serenely through the placid waterways of the Palmetto Dunes home/condo/golf course/hotel/tennis court/etc complex. [NOTE: They call these “plantations” down there. Nuff said.]

I discovered that for a not too bad price, one can join the “kayak club” at Palmetto Dunes outfitting store/rental area and get unlimited access to kayaks whenever one wishes for a whole calendar year. So you know, frugal person I am, I had to challenge myself to get out there as often as possible.

My goal was to hit all 11 miles of water trails in the “lagoon system,” and I am somewhat proud to say I reached the goal, even did a couple of parts more than once in my seven trips out. In case you are picturing a tropical paradise, it was somewhere between the high 40s and low 60s most of the days I was out there, but you work up some warmth paddling and if the wind is not hitting you face-on, it’s not so bad.

Kayaking around Palmetto Dunes is interesting as a lot of the views are of the waterfront “back yards” of some very swanky homes and golf courses that come right to the water’s edge. Still, there are also a few wilder areas with just trees (lots of pines and live oaks with overhanging Spanish moss), and plenty of birds: the ducks and cormorants who fly straight at you and then veer away at the last minute; the pelicans who dive beak-first at great speed; the herons who stalk the shores waiting for that unsuspecting prey; the ospreys who swoop gracefully overhead, sometimes carrying a big fish in their beaks. No gators or other wildlife in evidence this time of year.

The air is fresh and pine scented and when you get away from the roads and the sounds of construction (seemed like a lot of roof repairs going on for one thing), you hear only the swish of your own paddles slicing through the water. I rarely saw any other paddlers, even though lots of those waterfront houses had kayaks piled up near their docks.

Those folks don’t know what they’re missing.

This is one of the highest end “single family homes” in Palmetto Dunes I encountered on my paddles. Though a lot of times these get rented out for destination weddings and stuff I think.
Yeah, good advice. Though I think the gators kind of hibernate in the winter.
Shot off the bow. It wasn’t always this calm, I was fighting a chilly wind on some occasions. But the effort keeps you warm!

Summing up Summer

#hiltonheadisland, beach, memories, museums, summer, travel, vacations, , , ,

Wow, here it is the end of summer already.  How did that happen?  After our Bengali visitors left, it seems the rest of the season just flew by.  And now its a soggy and humid Labor Day weekend.

So, that’s my excuse for not blogging more the end of the summer.  That, and the fact that my phone was in the shop for a week.  It is my primary camera now, for better or worse.  (And the dog ate my homework.)

There were some highlights – a bit of time on the Hilton Head beach despite most of the time helping my sister work out plans to transition our mom into assisted living.  A trip to California for Museum Camp at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and visit to the daughter in San Francisco.  A couple weekends at the cabin.  The lovely wedding of a good friend.  A bounty of green beans and tomatoes from the garden.  Some time around outdoor pools.

Here’s a few highly random photos highlighting those activities.

And so, fall looms on the horizon bringing (eventually) crisp weather and that “new school year” new beginnings vibe.  A sort of reset button for “normal life” after the time out of time of summer schedules and activities.

So, as summer 2018 fades into the sunset, no more excuses.

 

Spring By the Sea

#hiltonheadisland, beach, poetry, ,

I have always loved the ocean, which I am sure I have mentioned before.  My mother retired to Hilton Head Island many years ago, within easy walking distance of one of the white, sandy expanses of beach on Hilton Head Island, SC.  She’s 92 and hasn’t walked there since her knees gave out.  I try to make it for sunrise but usually end up sleeping too late.

When I visited this time, I walked down on a cool April afternoon.  A few brave souls were in the water, but mostly there was just a scattering of people.  The sun was bright but the wind did not carry any warmth.  I was inspired to write a poem, while huddled against a wooden box that holds beach rental items, with fine white sand sifting into my sandals.  Here goes:

Gray brown waves/Riled by breeze/Sizzling the sand

Wayfarers in neon green, purple, blue/Constricting nature into backdrop

Weathered wooden chairs/With no warmth/Awaiting summer occupants

Solitary seagull/Feathers ruffling/Scavenging scraps

Tiny seashells/Silent, testifying/To ocean depths

Soon, spring shall yield/To summer, hot, frenzied/Smelling of cocoanut

No longer fresh.

 

Water Features, Holiday Edition

#hiltonheadisland, beach,

Since my sister, brother-in-law and mostly-immobile 91-year old mother live in Hilton Head, South Carolina, we are the ones who have made the trek southward for the holidays in the past five, six, seven (who’s keeping track?) years.  This year, my husband and I took a circuitous route through Charlotte and Asheville, North Carolina and Charleston, SC on our way to our Low Country Christmas.  We arrived a week early to help my mother with her preparations – the tree, the gift shopping, the laying-in of a huge supply of foodstuffs, the baking and of course the annual Cookie Decorating Extravaganza.

To keep sanity around all this hyperactive holiday hubbub, I seek the water.  Not a problem down there – it’s water, water everywhere.  The first documented water feature of the trip was in Charleston. We strolled with our friends Bob and Carolyn along the waterfront and visited the Pineapple Fountain, an impressive mass of stone in the shape of the traditional Southern hospitality symbol.

After arriving at Hilton Head, I sought out early morning or late afternoon water features to bookend the busy days.  Palmetto Dunes, the “plantation” in which my relatives reside abounds in water features (not a real plantation, but that’s what they call multi-use developments there – it sounds so much more Southern and gentile, no?).  Lagoons, canals, creeks, and other waterways criss-cross the resident clusters, golf courses and clubhouses.  One evening, my daughter snapped some photos of a couple of local birds, a cormorant and a blue heron, perching stealthily in the trees at sunset along one of these waterways not far from my mother’s condo.

Palmetto Dunes also boasts its own beachfront, a fine lengthy stretch of uninterrupted sand which is a perfect place to watch the sun rise.  If you can get yourself out of bed early enough, which I finally did the very last day we were there, the day after Christmas.  After the bustle and over-stimulation of Christmas, a tranquil moment on the beach was the best present of all.

Goodbye, ocean, you king of all water features.  I know that, despite everything, you will always be there for me as a touchstone, whether in the SC low country or elsewhere around the world.

Happy 2018.  Enjoy the water features in your own lives in the new year.