Hunting Island Sunshine

The storms that rolled through while we were on Hunting Island thankfully didn’t last more than a couple of days. A couple of rainy days gave us time to get some mundane tasks done, like laundry, which feels less like a wasted day when it’s raining anyway.

Fortunately for us once we’d done a little laundry the weather warmed up and we managed to get a little beach time in. It wasn’t exactly warm, but the kids and I went swimming a couple times. It is an odd thing to be walking down the shoreline in a bathing suit when everyone else is bundled up in puffy jackets, but honestly, it didn’t feel that cold. I sometimes worry people think we’re nuts, but if they do they at least don’t say it.

One day we decided to ride our bikes up the beach. The wind was blowing pretty good and a wise fellow cyclist urged up to ride upwind first, which was good advice. We made it up to the lighthouse, though it was a slog. We didn’t go up in the lighthouse because they wouldn’t let Elliott in (not tall enough) and we weren’t going without him. As I told the kids, going up in a lighthouse is counter to its purpose. The whole point of a lighthouse is to stay away from it, not go in it.

We went swimming instead. And then we rode home with the wind at our backs, our bodies like tiny sails propelling us back down the beach with hardly pedaling at all.

With nicer weather we spent more time out on the beach adjacent the campground, especially in the evening. With the sunset out of view behind the island, twilight on the beach turned into soft oranges and pinks and blues. It was usually just us and a sky full of colors.

It’s strange how different your experience of a place can be just based on the campsite you’re in. When we were here in March of 2020 we weren’t really fans. Sure, there was the pandemic, which was just starting and there was lots of uncertainty, but really we just had a not so great campsite. We felt crowded in and somewhat on display. The front loop of sites are cramped together and there’s almost no vegetation between sites, and the bus is really one big wraparound window. There isn’t a lot of privacy when we’re in campsites without some separation.

This time we were in the back loop campsites, further from the beach, but with denser tree cover, palmetto and oaks, to provide a barrier between campsites. They’re also more spread out, which gave us more room for the kids to play and set up the hammock and have a good time. We were also backed right up against the favorite watering hole of a small group of deer that would stop by for a visit every day, including one that seemed fascinated by Elliott.

The beach near the campground was nice enough, and the long tidal flats that extended back into the marsh made for good birding, but there was something about the dead trees that made me want to go back to what the locals call the boneyard. It used to be a lot bigger, but the state park tore a bunch of it out to shore up the beach, and, the assumption is, because they were worried about being sued should someone get hurt climbing on the trees.

Clearing out most of the boneyard was not a popular move in these parts, and they did it all sneakily without applying for a permit because they knew they wouldn’t get it. It’s a good reminder that just because an area is protected, doesn’t, unfortunately, mean it’s protected from the interests that need to make money off it, in this case, Hunting Island State Park. You’d think they’d have enough money with what they charge for firewood, but apparently not. Gotta have those white sand beaches right in front of the lighthouse.

Fortunately, as we’d already accidentally discovered, there’s more to the boneyard, you just have to walk a bit to get to it. One sunny afternoon I decided to go back and see what it looked like in the sunlight, and see if maybe there was a way across the channel to the rest of the trees.

We watched the birds to see where the shallows were and eventually we found a place to cross. The water only came up to my knees, but it was a surprisingly strong current. Squeeze an outgoing tide through a narrow enough channel and you can get a strong river. I ended up carrying Elliott, not that there was anywhere to go really should you be swept away, but the wind made the prospect of being soaking wet very unappealing.

The man who’d originally pointed out the trail to us mentioned that he used to have a house out here, which, judging by the ruins of a road we found, wasn’t as long ago as I’d assumed. Or the ocean is slower to reclaim asphalt than I thought. Whatever the case, there was plenty of road left, some power lines even still hanging limp from telephone poles.

I’m not a believer in the apocalyptic fantasies so popular these days (history shows that civilizations don’t collapse, they decline), but it was odd to wander around what amounted to ruins of our civilization. A good moment for the kids to connect back to some of the ruins we’ve seen of other civilizations. Everything ends eventually, best to enjoy it while you can.