Hunting Island State Park

Decided I needed some beach time, so got the weekend free. The original plan was to go to Charleston, but then started thinking about a state park near Beaufort, SC that I used to visit when I lived there. So I headed off to Hunting Island State Park. Got in around 8 or so and set up camp. I loved the spot I got, down a little trail and over a little rise which separated me from the rest of the campground. Here are a couple of pictures of my camp.




Those pictures are from the next morning, I set up camp in the dark. Which would not have been bad, except I had orginially planned on taking the motorcycle down and had packed everything there. I moved everything to the car since it was supposed to rain all weekend, but forgot to grab one thing from my motorcycle bag, my flashlights! Luckily I had a headlight for my bicycle with me so I was able to muddle through.

So I headed into town to grab dinner and got downtown around 9:15. Beaufort actually has a decent downtown these days but being a small town, every kitchen closed at 9pm! So I ended up eating at Outback, which is always decent food, but I really dislike eating at chain restaurants when I am traveling. Really, what's the point?

I thought about heading downtown, but while looking for food I had scouted around but really didn't see a crowd I wanted to hang out with (either too young or two old). So I figured I would head back out to Hunting Island and get some sleep, but on the way back I passed a little dive bar called Weezie's that looked like it was hopping so I turned around and pulled in. A decent bar band was having a CD release party, and it ended up being a lot of fun. They even had Sierra Nevada on tap! Couldn't have asked for anything more.

Got out kayaking the next morning when I finally woke up. Stopped off at a sand bar and got some decent pictures there and traveled up the lagoon.













Headed up the lagoon, I got a few more pictures but mostly just kicked back and enjoyed being out on the water.



The next two are of the biggest egret by far I had seen. You can see in the second picture how much bigger he was than the typical egrets.





Tragically, that was the end of the pictures using that camera. When I got back, there was an incident involving a dock, a strong tidal current, and a little stupidity on my part which meant I went swimming and my camera got a little wet. I blame it on my lack of sleep the night before.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, took a bike ride, a little nap, dinner at Steamers on Lady's Island and a quiet evening.