.
However , if you are a paddler, you are close to paradise.
The Waccamaw River near North Myrtle is a beautiful little stream.
As you go south from there , it is joined by several creeks and the Pee Dee River to become the ICW.
The area behind Pawley’s Island is maritime forest laced with creeks and canals. With just a little paddling, you can feel like you have gone way back in time.
You are surrounded by forest with no dry spots to be found.
If you are lucky, you may see an alligator, a snake or 2 , and rarely , a bobcat.
There are Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, owls that are sometimes heard but seldom seen, and many songbirds. A swallow tail kite sometimes makes an appearance .
On the ocean side of the island , there are acres of salt water marsh with even more things to see.
Don’t forget the sunscreen and Deet.
Huntington Beach State Park encompasses much of this area and has beautiful beach front.
Can’t bring a kayak? Black River Outfitters does tours of all this and are nice people.
I am not associated with them at all except to say hi in passing. A few years ago, unknown to me, I was talking to one of their guides while standing on the dock at the Wacca Weeki public ramp. She was the only person I had ever met who knew what a rainbow snake is. I wouldn’t know except I stepped on ones head in the Edisto .
A great place to visit, or live if you can afford it.
Thanks String! I may have to check it out on one of my ventures northward. Rookie, of course it’s hot and humid, but only in the summer! Personally, I like the lizard life.
Yesterday was a little over 100° and sweat would not evaporate . A tall cold iced tea and a fan were little help. Today was in the high 80s. Felt great.
@tjalmy said:
Thanks String! I may have to check it out on one of my ventures northward. Rookie, of course it’s hot and humid, but only in the summer! Personally, I like the lizard life.
In the winter it’s cold and humid. I prefer the heat.
After a week in that heat , I’m ready for northern somewhere. It was 93 when we got home to northern SC. My brother asked me why we weren’t in the mountains.
Hard to know where to go in August to escape heat and humidity any more with the wacky weather patterns.
In August two years ago (2016) I headed up to Quebec to kayak the mountainous Saguenay Fjord on the Ste. Lawrence, expecting that latitude (48 degrees, slightly more northerly than the tip of Maine) to be relatively mild and pleasant. Wrong. It was oppressively hot and horribly rainy all week. Literally would start pouring with thunder and lightning every evening around 6 PM and go all night until dawn. Was told to expect the fjord to be 40 degrees but the top layers of water were closer to 80 and I was in short sleeves and wearing a Buff to keep the sweat from blinding me most days. Dry suit never left the duffel. Definitely not crowded – high winds blew most of the kayakers off the fjord and we had to hug the shoreline cliffs to make any headway.
Then last August (2017), I was at Greenland Kayak Camp on the west coast of lower Michigan (44 degrees N) and it was cool enough that we were paddling in drysuits and neoprene and wearing fleece around camp after dark. Go figger.
@willowleaf said:
… would start pouring with thunder and lightning every evening around 6 PM and go all night until dawn…
Typical Great Lakes weather. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little… but the afternoon/evening T-storm is a very common thing across Southern Ontario and into Quebec. Someone correct me if I’m mistaken, but I suspect it’s the summer equivalent of lake effect snow.
It used to be that at Myrtle Beach in winter the people swimming are from Canada.
Seems like we used to get some good oysters and shrimp at Merrels (sp) Inlet. Fish house with hole in center of table for shells. Are they still around?
Yes, the Fish House is still there and many new places. I had oysters on the half shell at Flo’s which has been there as long as I can remember. They weren’t local but were still good.
I cook Frogmore Stew for our whole crowd for one meal.
I would not consider Saguenay to be in the sphere of the Great Lakes. Maybe “lake effect” from Hudson Bay or air masses moving south from the Laurentian Plateau hitting those coming off the Atlantic, but weather patterns from the Great Lakes trend southeast, not due east or northeast, so they affect western New York State, Ohio and Western PA (where I live). We’ve had a record run of rain here in SW PA this Spring – most coming from the Great Lakes and upper Midwest. Seems to be continuing into Summer. Today was supposed to be the third rare day in a row that was dry but I woke up to steady rain again. Have been trying to finish staining a massive wooden deck for a month and it has not dried out enough to attempt it.
Sweetgrass basket collects beads of falling sweat,
packed-in tourists unlike mosquitoes won’t bite,
Gullah gal watches their SUV’s creep,
some braking for discount Top-Flites,
and blazing promises of cheapest fireworks,
inky skies tonight will have chromatic bursts,
“So glad to be out of our *#@$! city hassle,”
Ed from Akron tells his Ann with a curse,
but somewhere behind a veil of pitch pines,
slimy ditches and kudzu curtain walls,
somewhere out past those chem-greened fairways,
through ancient verdure something moves in crawl,
and it’s much slower than this highway stagnation,
a summer weekend’s rental rollover crush,
swamp on land and air flows quietly through eon’s stare,
pileated screams…the water splashes…then there’s hush.