The beautiful coastline of South Carolina is a great destination.  Big beaches, uncrowded, and by just going a few miles the thing you find change as well.  The first night we went to Sullivan’s Island.  Largely private homes, it was a beautiful way to kick off our South Carolina beach experience!

Now known as Sullivan’s Island, the original name was O’Sullivans Island named after a Irish light house keeper who cared for the light house.  The island was also a port where many slaves were brought over to the US. 

Now, it is filled with breathtaking vacation homes on large grassy lots.  This beach was fun for the kids because it had a shoal of water they could play in.  We walked a lot too!

Sullivans Island had lots of these reed things on the beach, underneath of them are some amazing creatures.  Audrey found this little fiddler crab under some reeds.  He was crabby to be brought out, and inspite of being held at a high altitude he had quite an attitude!

The sad thing we found was a dead baby sea turtle.  We couldn’t really tell what had caused it’s demise, but it was interesting to touch it and hold him.

After a full day touring downtown, we went for an evening beach outing to Isle of Palms.  We should have known something was coming up, because it was cloudy and cold...See Aunt Kathy?  She’d NEVER wear a towel over herself at the beach!!  But, the kids didn’t seem to mind.  With the tides rolling in, they built a sand castle, and got a lesson in how the Earth is an ever changing place, and how nothing we put here, will last forever.

Step One:  Build it, the central castle complete with moat and oversized castle walls.

Step Two:  Reinforce the walls as the tides come up

Step three:  Enlist the help of your brother to deepen the moat, and form a channel to move the water away from the castle itself.  Which, I found to be pretty clever of them!  They must be homeschooled.

Step Four:  Accept that when it comes to sand and water, mother nature usually wins.