We are adopted – temporarily

Thursday November 29, 2012
Site 81  Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina

 

We’re hoping to see the strong pre sunrise colors so we’re out on the beach 30 minutes before sunrise.

 

 

  This morning’s sunrise has a low horizon line of dark gray clouds.  The color appears on top of it.

The colors mute as the flaming ball gets closer and closer to rising out of the water.

 

We don’t see it rise out of the water, only out of the clouds.  But still mighty fine.

 

After some breakfast, we decide to go down to the old Cabin road and see if there are any remnants of the old cabins.  You can’t walk down the old cabin road any more.  There is no road.  The sea took it.  You have to walk down the beach front now. 

We set out from the Nature Center and as we pass by one of the houses adjoining the parking lot, a hitchhiker picks us up.
I think she will only follow a short ways and turn back.

 

 

 

We’re getting pretty far down the road toward the bridge.  We tell her to “go on home now”.

 

She pauses, thinks……looks back at me………

 

 

But she comes right along.

 

We see the sign for the road to the cabins which is no longer blacktop and see that it is now sand and goes about 12 feet and ends.  So we walk out on the beach front.

Hunting Island has lost 11 of its 12  cabins since 2008 because of changes in local currents and sand supply to the beach.    Regional and Local shoreline changes and global sea-level rise are said to be the cause along with unusually high tides. 

A cabin rented in 2008 was lost to the sea before rental season of 2009.

The houses on the sea side of cabin road are all gone except for one which is now all alone on the bare sand at low tide and out in the ocean at high. How it keeps standing there is a  wonder.  

 

 

 

Remnants of the road and the utilities remain

 

 

 

On down the beach

 

we find the cabin we had seen in 2010 and thought was in a lovely spot as the last one on the South End.

 

 

 

As we near the end of the beach our hitchhiker spies something unusual.

 

 

 

I love the Pooh and consider him a Tao Master.  Should I leave him here to meditate on the beach erosion situation?  Or rescue him?

 

 

We reach the end of the island and can see back down to the bridge we have taken from the visitor’s center.

 

 

We turn around and start back down the beach

 

At this point our hitchhiker decides she’d rather ride

 

 

 

David starts back up the beach giving her a ride but after a bit she decides better of it and launches herself down to the ground.

 

 

 

We pass the houses again and I take a few more shots of the devastation.  We hadn’t thought there would be so little left since our November 2010 visit.

 

 

 

 

 

As we go back across the bridge we notice how low the tide is.  We’ve never seen the sandbars in the lagoon before.

 

 

 

We also see another Dolphin. But getting a picture is nearly impossible.  He is out there if you look closely.   I wouldn’t have expected one at low tide but then I’m not a dolphin, so what do I know.

 

 

 

As we walk the last section of the path before returning to the parking lot, we discuss what to do about our hitchhiker.  She’s a sweetheart and is wearing a collar though no tags.  She must be someone’s pet.

 

 

But luckily, when we walk by what we hope is her house she says so long and lays down under a bush in the yard.  Guess she just wanted some folks to go on a hike with. 

We once had a hiking cat named Puddentaine who wandered the trails we’d put on our property with us and our two beagles.  I miss them and her so it was great fun to have our feline hitchhiker along today.
Guess we haven’t been adopted after all only borrowed temporarily.