Cruising Into The Past

 

 

 

By Tom Poland

 

Charleston Harbor Has It All: History, Nature, Beauty, & Commerce

I’ve been going to Charleston for many years. Vacations, film assignments, book signings, bridge runs, and a desperately ill father and more took me there. I have memories bitter and sweet and I have been all over the city and its environs, including Mount Pleasant. I must have crossed the old Cooper River Bridge a hundred times. I’ve crossed the Ravenel Bridge many times, too, and I can tell you this. You can’t appreciate the harbor until you’ve seen it from water-skimming pelican level. Once you have, you’ll never view Charleston Harbor the same. Book a cruise with Sandlapper Water Tours and drive the 116 or so miles to Charleston Harbor. Make your way to Highway 176 for a peaceful journey through farm country where you’ll see beautiful Southern homes and old outbuildings rapidly vanishing from the Southland. Steer clear of I-26 and its crush of traffic and construction. Besides, once you’ve traveled one interstate, you’ve traveled them all.

 

Sandlapper Water Tours

 

Once you arrive in Charleston, it’s easy to find Sandlapper Water Tours at 10 Wharfside Street. That’s where the 45-foot The Palmetto, a US Coast Guard-certified catamaran, waits. Your two-hour cruise will fly by as it’s filled with sights of breaching porpoises, diving eastern brown pelicans, and Fort Sumter. You’ll cruise by Castle Pinckney, built in 1810 to protect Charleston Harbor, an outpost that briefly served as a prisoner-of-war camp for 154 Union soldiers captured after the First Battle of Manassas. Like Fort Sumter, it too is a national monument.

 

The naturalist describes the horseshoe crab

 

Keep your eyes peeled and your camera ready. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins are certain to put on a show, and if you get lucky you might see them execute their hunting strategy known as strand feeding, which takes place when they herd fish onto shore and eat them right on the spot. This feeding strategy apparently is limited to the marshes and beaches of South Carolina and Georgia. That makes it a regional and legendary phenomenon.

 

Fort Sumter

 

Fort Sumter artifact. Note the sea creatures

 

As part of the cruise, you and your cruise-mates will take a break to gather shells on Morris Island. (While at Morris Island stay away from the grassy inland areas … rattlers and bobcats populate the island.) You won’t see the Morris Island Lighthouse because it is on the far end of the island, but you may find a brick washed ashore from Fort Sumter—an excellent chance to own a piece of history and a conversation piece like no other. I found one. How many people can say they own a piece of the fort where the Civil War started? As for shells and creatures, a naturalist will identify things you find and if you get lucky you might find a large fossilized shark tooth from the megalodon shark, a 70-foot giant that makes the great white look like a striped bass. According to the cruise naturalist, megaldons once bred in the area where Charleston Harbor is today. One of the cruise highlights is bringing up a crab pot to see what it’s captured. A naturalist identifies the creatures, always a few blue crabs and perhaps a stone crab, and offers interesting natural history information.

 

Fossilized tooth from the megalodon shark

 

Charleston Harbor is a busy place. The nation’s fourth busiest container port, it handles $3 million in cargo every hour. You’ll see massive cargo ships, cruise ships, replica galleons, a great view of the USS Yorktown and the Ravenel Bridge, North America’s longest cable-stayed bridge—great photo opportunities. Seeing the Battery from the Harbor provides a unique experience and it’s easy to see how vulnerable Fort Sumter was to three points of attack: the Battery, Fort Johnson, and Sullivan’s Island.

Depending on the cruise you take, you can learn about shipwrecks, forts, lighthouses, the Battery, and pirates. Yes, the Jolly Roger used to come into the harbor fluttering and flying its message of doom. Pirates aside, you can’t beat a radiant sunset with the Holy City skyline as a backdrop.

Tours run from April to October, Tuesdays through Saturdays. Times vary depending on which cruise you choose. Charleston native Captain Murray pilots The Palmetto and he knows his history. When the cruise is over you’ll have much more appreciation for Charleston Harbor. You’ll have an idea of the scale of things too. Looking down from the Ravenel Bridge is nothing like looking up at it. You’ll see plenty of bird life. Charleston Harbor is a designated wildlife sanctuary. Old forts and feathers make a fine pairing and as Sandlapper Water Tours likes to say, Charleston Harbor’s “where the wild and old things are.”

 

Egret

 

Morris Island Bone Yard

 

 

If You Go …

Reservations recommended. You can also book sunset and Haunted Harbor Ghost tours … call ahead for times. Arrive 30 minutes prior to departure. Free parking and clean restrooms available.

Sandlapper Tours http://www.sandlappertours.com/

843-849-8687

Fort Sumter http://www.nps.gov/fosu/index.htm

Morris Island http://www.sciway.net/city/morrisisland.html

Friends of Charleston Wildlife http://charlestonharborwildlife.com/iwa/chws/

 

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

 

Tom Poland is the author of eleven books and more than 1,000 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press has released his and Robert Clark’s book, Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II. The History Press of Charleston just released his book, Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

 

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