Sunday, December 20, 2015

Spittin' in the Wind

Sometimes you just have to go see for yourself.

To be on the beach at 9:49 this Sunday morning—temperature a little below 50 degrees, light wind from the north—was to have the space pretty much to myself. This particular stretch, which is a flat ribbon of sand immensely popular with locals and visitors, is Beachwalker County Park, located nearly at the end of Kiawah Island in South Carolina.

As I turned southward from the park’s boardwalk to hike along the ocean side of what is known as Captain Sam’s Spit, a few walkers, a few bike riders, and two distinctive sounds were part of the 15-minute stroll. The waves—and the sea was calm today, my friends—which once again surprised me with how loud water could be by gently curling itself into the sand, and a moan—a bit of a whistle too, but really the wheezing of an offshore buoy marking the channel into the North Edisto.

During the mile-long jaunt, I kept my path about 20’ from the first dune line that was rarely more than 4’ high. I also glanced over the dunes to measure the rise and fall of the spit’s terrain, a scalloped landscape sometimes exposed and sometimes covered in grasses or gorse—which it may not be actually, but when should I ever again have the chance to use the word gorse.

None of the sand mounds of the spit, I reckoned, reached more than 12’ above the high tide mark, but of course this survey was by eye and not a laser level.

At the lower end, the Kiawah River gently wraps itself around the back side of the island and joins the Atlantic. To look northward where the parking lot and boardwalk are is too see a thick stand of pines that is a natural visual border between the rest of the island and the spit.


Where the park’s boardwalk and walking mats end, a sandy roadway of sorts veers off to the left and then curves around on the river’s bluff to the parking lot. I thought it a better path for taking a longer view along the disjointed spine of the spit.

In the sand were recent deer tracks and tire marks, and when I stepped up onto a berm a few feet off the road, I could see a construction stake with plastic ribbon flickering out in the middle of what is perhaps 250’ from the dune line to the high water mark of the Kiawah River. Again, my estimates of distance are crude, but close enough to address the larger point.

I gave the landscape a long look. The ocean to my left, the river to my right. My attentiveness spoke to the real why of this trip out to this stretch of sand. Not that a visit to the beach needed to be any great quest, but in the last week of November, the SC Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, voting unanimously, stripped language from a bill that would prevent Kiawah Development Partners II from building 50 houses on Captain Sam’s Spit.

Now the path across dunes, forbidden to beachgoers under threat of severe penalties, may be paved—and that is the crux of the matter, a road that would be a necessary lifeline. And, too, then the encroaching infrastructure of water and sewer lines and utilities. For 50 houses.


How many dollars are up for grabs? Well, the developers have been after this land for 10 years. Over $100 million, less than $200 million? $300 million?

Yes, yes, I know, some local jobs and an expanded tax base.

A mile of sand and gorse and what my grandfather would have called scrub pine. Or coastal forest, more properly. Home to deer and bobcats and birds, and dolphins that beach their catch on the Kiawah’s banks.

And, oh, what a view. Oh, but others might proclaim, “What a cul-de-sac”.

A mile. A mile of the 187 gross miles that are South Carolina’s coast. A mile of 12,500 miles of US coastline.

A year ago, the state Supreme Court ruled against a nearly 40-foot wide, 2700-foot long seawall that developers wanted to erect to stabilize the spit along the river. Last month, the Court reversed its stand.

Well, no great insight that developers and legislators and the judiciary make for interesting dance partners. So, surely, do wind and tide.

I looked down the length of Captain Sam’s Spit and in my mind conjured up images of a 15-foot storm surge and the inlet gouged out of Pawley’s Island during Hugo. Turns out that more than 50 feet of the spit’s neck have been washed away in the last decade by the river. Nature may churn at what we consider a leisurely pace, but Nature decides much.


My only hope is that these 135 acres of shifting sand rising just above the high tide mark remain as they are, a public space. And a little laboratory of how wind and water may shape some small piece of shoreline.

A stroll, a jog, a bike ride. Fishing. Sitting. A breathing in and out, a staring off into the wide expanse that is the sea without being in the shadows of row houses.

Some mourn, and rightfully so, the loss of wild spaces, but I think great wild spaces aplenty exist so hostile to our modern existence that they will remain clear of humanity forever. Rather, for me, the little nooks and crannies where Nature resides among us are the spaces we must remember to treasure.

Like Captain Sam’s Spit. Go see for yourself.















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