Kiawah Island, South Carolina

Cristin and I spent over a week in April 2013 at her parents vacation town home on Kiawah Island, which is about 20 miles from Charleston.  We enjoyed our days relaxing on the beach, beach combing on bikes, and viewing nature in the extensive ponds, marshes, and floodplain forests of the island. We went on a guided, sunset, kayak tour in the marsh. We spent an afternoon in Charleston touring Ft. Sumter.

Jim and Truman

     Cristin's parents Jim and Sandi joined us about midway through our stay, along with her 4-legged brother Truman, everyone's favorite. We really enjoyed seeing and visiting with them.  We all went to Charleston one day.  Cristin and her mom went to the aquarium while her dad and I went to Patriots Point and toured the USS Yorktown, a WWII era aircraft carrier, as well as destroyer and a submarine.  We had dinner at a great place in downtown Charleston on the harbor in downtown. On our last full day, we all played tennis and enjoyed the friendly competition.

Please see the companion blog Historic Charleston  for more on our time spent there.  We also spent an afternoon in Savannah, GA., and filed this brief blog post here (coming soon).


Kiawah Island is home to many alligators!  We saw many of them, including one that was partially on the bike trail.  It was exciting moment for me whenever we spotted one of these apex predators.

Renting bikes on Kiawah is very convenient and economical.  The rental place dropped off the bikes at our place and picked them up at the end of the week.  Two bikes cost us only $55 for the whole week.   The bikes are simple one-speed bikes but that's all you need here.  The island is about 3-4 miles from one end to the other and is very flat.   We used the bikes to beach comb, to get to marsh viewing areas, and just to get around the island.  It's amazing all the cool things, living and dead, you can see on the island when using a bike.




Biking is a family activity on Kiawah
 From top to bottom: Sandi,  Jim, Truman, and Cristin.



Above, clockwise from upper left:
 pelican; a whelk shell; snake; osprey and nest; oyster catcher. 

Above, clockwise from upper left:
 Little blue heron (?); cormorants and egret;  blue crabs;  SHARKS! (can you see the fins protruding from the water)

 

Above, end of the line at the beach.  Clockwise from upper left:
Cristin investigates a horseshoe crab; a ray; island beach patrol and dolphin corpse; jelly fish.

We learned that when a dead marine mammal, such as the dolphin shown above, washes up on shore, local authorities are required to secure the remains and notify biologists at NOAA who autopsy the remains.  Based on the visible wounds, this dolphin likely was mortally wounded by a ship's propeller. 

We didn't just hangout on the beach. We also took the opportunity to kayak.

Paddling on the on the Kiawah River, a salt-water, tidal river that flows thru an extensive marsh complex.

A toast from the local residents: "here's to the warm, sunny weather". 



We made several trips to nearby Freshfields, a newer and attractive faux town square featuring restaurants and bars, an ice cream shop, girly boutiques, gift shops, and a very nice grocery store, Newton Farms (a high-end Piggly Wiggly). It had an excellent and extensive beer selection and even had a growler filling service in which 8-10 beers were on tap.  We also enjoyed relaxing at the townhouse, where a screened porch looks out over a pond and provides relaxing views and more wildlife viewing. 

Our beach combing haul from a single afternoon.

The view from the porch. Do you see the alligator?

Cristin found the time to finish a book she started 4 years ago. 

Our last day on Kiawah.