Hunting Island, SC

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Here are a couple of beach photos from South Carolina's Hunting Island State Park, a barrier island on the coast about 15 miles from the town of Beaufort. The island's dense palmetto-filled forest comes right up to the beach, like something you'd see in a movie about remote South Pacific islands. I would have liked to have better photos of the forest, and the rest of the park, but I only have these two photos. I think I may have run out of film after this pair of photos, come to think of it. I also had a crappy camera at the time, and (more importantly) I had no idea what I was doing. I realize I keep trotting that out as an excuse when I post old photos, but it's true. I ran across a forum thread with some great photos, if you want a better look at the area.

I wish I'd still had some film left when we ran across an alligator, asleep and sunning itself at an inland pond. Not an enclosure, not an exhibit, just a pond with a wild alligator. At the time, we lived a couple of hours north and inland, and while alligators were known to exist in our area, there were far more rumors than sightings. And of course coming from the Northwest we weren't used to even that degree of alligator-ness. So stumbling across one here, out of the blue, was kind of a big deal. Any locals who saw us gawking and pointing must have found it hilarious. It probably wasn't even that big of an alligator, thinking back. Still, I could have walked over and touched it if I'd wanted to, which I didn't. Nobody else seemed to want to pet the gator either.