Tracing the Cape Romain Archipelago

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PROLOGUE

February 17, 2006

The skies are sunny on this Friday morning at the landing by channel marker #68 along the Intracoastal Waterway. This day is the climax of a warming trend and is enlivened at 10:30 a.m. by a steady southwest wind. I am alone at the landing, and the quietness is etched with the rustling of palmetto fronds and the cries of oystercatchers. The falling tide beckons the launching of the trusty Kingfisher for the familiar passage to Bull Island. Kingfisher is soon rigged and closehauled, and two tacks put us outward bound in Anderson Creek. A kingfisher on a bamboo stake flies off as we pass on the way to the bay. On the starboard tack and with daggerboard full down, Kingfisher is easily accommodated by the high tide on the crossing of Shortcut Shoal into the mouth of Bull Creek. Tacking off and on along the marsh to avoid the outgoing tide, we beat up in the steady light breeze to an easy landing at the public dock on Bull Island. I speak to Wayne Tucker, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff member, before securing Kingfisher and stepping off the dock onto land. The warm southern flow means shorts are in order for this annual celebration of my birthday on the island. Throughout this day, as in many recent moments, my thoughts drift with the southwest breeze toward the north—to the many islands and waterways I plan to explore in the next several years.

After a loop to the Summerhouse dike and past the island cemetery, I peek into the Dominick House and am impressed with the long overdue restoration of this building. Floor sanding is underway, and large bags of pine dust sit on the porch. The newly installed and painted cedar exterior transforms this building from eyesore to attraction. The plan is for several rooms to be open to the public as an interpretative visitor center. I talk briefly with workers inside, and my alligator agenda comes up. After some gator talk, I head north with my thoughts on the Old Fort Road, cutting through to Sheep Head Ridge Road and then east on Alligator Alley. Alligators small and medium are present; I do not stop long but head for the address of the alpha alligator of Bull Island, now infamously known as Alligatorzilla, a name penned in a Post and Courier news article. Though I have passed his location many times in the past, I only recently learned of his presence. I still must head up Lighthouse Road until I reach the large berm on the left before the next split in the road. Chris Crolley of Coastal Expeditions oriented me to this alligator’s lair, and he encouraged me to obtain photos if I am fortunate enough to see him. He recently placed a four-foot stake on the alligator’s usual sunning spot as a means to a measurement of this reptile, with estimates of its length ranging between thirteen and twenty feet. I did decline Chris’s suggestion that I also take along a tape measure.

I climb a worn path up the steep left side of the berm, and directly across a small pond is a huge alligator, perhaps forty yards away. Yet I am mistaken, for as I look to the right I undoubtedly see Alligatorzilla, of a breathtaking size, virtually unimaginable. The four-foot stake has been pushed over to about a forty-five-degree angle. After several photos with my camera, I consider a closer look. I see that the right side of this finger of Jacks Creek has a small island almost connected to the land where I stand and note that a downed cedar tree has bridged the gap of about ten feet. Selecting a recently cut eight-foot-long wax myrtle stave for both balance and defense, I cross the cedar bridge to the island. I am no longer on a high berm but right next to the dark-colored water. I approach the still unmoving animal. Its slowed metabolism has it soaking up the solar warmth and allowing my distant approach (over thirty yards) for some closer photos. Mission accomplished, I return to the top of the berm to sit for lunch in the warm sun. A coughing spasm brought on by an ill-swallowed bite of sandwich has Alligatorzilla and its neighbor moving and in the water—whether due to feeling threatened or stimulated by the sound of wounded prey, I don’t know. But as I recover, I watch this magnificent reptile slowly climb back out of the water with its black and glistening torso, its long tail never quite leaving the water.

It is a short walk to the Boneyard and a transition from one magical world of wildlife to another. The white birds putting on a show with their terrific dives for fish are northern gannets. An eagle cruises by as I pick my way through the skeleton forest around the point to the north, soon encountering the array of deposits on the beach, including cockles, whelks, sand dollars, pieces of brick (most likely pieces of the lighthouse foundation) and a fossilized whale vertebrae. But away to the north, and hidden from my vision but assembled in my consciousness, is an archipelago of islands I have just begun to visit. On very clear days on the Northeast Point of Bull Island, I have picked out the low-lying islands stretched out to the east and accented by two lighthouses. The previous month I stood on one of these islands, and from the vantage point of Raccoon Key, I discerned the much higher profile of Bull Island to the south.

Alligatorzilla, notable bull alligator on Bull Island.

After skipping across the shallow inlet, I cross to the Jacks Creek dike, ever closer to the approaching Atlantic, and continue my walk around the impoundment. Arcing around Jacks Creek to the southwest, I observe a raft of white pelicans take off with my approach. Soon past the Old Fort and into the maritime forest, a dead water moccasin, turkey tracks and sightings of fox tail squirrels mark the passage along the road. Seeing Alligatorzilla today is just one of several new discoveries for me in the past year on Bull Island. These finds included a significant shell midden (piles of shells deposited by Native Americans) and a brick cistern of the house of Clarence Magwood on the southern end of the island, shown to me by his son, Andrew. I also made a passage at high tide from Back Creek to Bull Narrows near Price Inlet. Though I have far from exhausted the wonders of Bull Island, I still have my sights set on the islands to the north.

I set sail at 4:15 p.m., about dead low tide, for the sail home via the ferry passage. Men gather oysters on the bank of Bull Creek as I tack up the waterway, making the turns through the creeks in low water. I ignore the navigational rule red right returning to explore a substantial creek curving back to the main passage, passing a hunched-over oysterman in waders. In the last section curving to the southwest before the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), a barge is hard aground. The cargo includes a load of treated lumber and pilings and a large orange excavator brought along to move earth in a major project to change water flow on Bull Island. The unusual vessel doing the pushing is the small trawler Mermaid Adventure, hailing from Bennett’s Point, South Carolina. A dog on this vessel barks and growls at me as I tack by in the slowly flooding tide. As Kingfisher makes the ICW, we bear off. With a gentle wind and increasing following tidal flow, this last short leg of the sail north is simple and barely requires my presence to steer.

On passing, I exchange greetings with some fisherman casting from their boat on the east side of the waterway, and one comments on how peaceful my passage appears. I concur, but shortly the calm is shattered by a resounding bang! Kingfisher’s bow is the blast’s epicenter; I have struck head-on the piling of channel marker #69. Violently jarred from my meditation, I jump up as Kingfisher slides to port of the marker. The boom and sail are fixed to the piling as the tide and wind continue to press us tighter. I give a vigorous yank to disengage my boom, sail and sheet from the piling, but the friction both rains exposed barnacles onto the deck and slices the sail near the boom with some resulting peepholes. The need for a window in this old sail is embarrassingly apparent.

So, humbled again on the water, I finish my sail by dragging into the pluff mud at the landing. I am relieved to find no hole in the bow. Repair of the holes in the sail, and completion of a laundry list of other needs for Kingfisher and gear, are in order in preparation for a series of voyages to the archipelago of Cape Romain and the Santee Delta. I have made initial trips into these waters to the north already this past year, both on Kingfisher and with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service loggerhead turtle conservation program. As I plan adventures in the archipelago, I anticipate the experiences waiting to unfold.

RACCOON KEY

Raccoon Key is a sliver of a barrier island, with the majority of the acreage composed of salt marsh. It is bound by the Atlantic Ocean to the south, Five Fathom Creek to the west, Key Creek to the north and Raccoon Creek to the east. Like other islands immediately south and west of the Carolina capes, it is oriented almost east/west, similar to Oak Island (Cape Fear), Shackleford Banks (Cape Lookout) and Ocracoke Island (Cape Hatteras). Unlike these other islands, there is little high ground on Raccoon Key. No maritime forest and virtually no upland exist, merely a narrow strand of beach and sand dunes, though the dunes are even missing in places.

The current Raccoon Key is a shadow of its former self; indeed, the early maps label it The Raccoon Keys. The former Raccoon Keys were divided by a small tidal creek and stretched from Sandy Point in the west to the current east end of Lighthouse Island. The former island is divided up into four separate islands, with the remains of Sandy Point wearing away rapidly. The extension of Key Inlet creates a deep waterway separating Raccoon Key from Lighthouse Island. Raccoon Creek, a narrower but deep waterway, separates the main section of Raccoon Key from the eastern section. Bob Baldwin, a commercial fisherman working the local waters for years, described to me how much he has observed Raccoon Key eroding away. He noted that the creek entering in the middle of the southern side of the eastern key is really the extension of Raccoon Creek, which curled around about 180 degrees in former times. The location of the former creek bend is now out beyond the surf.

The eroding of Raccoon Key has been apparent not only to commercial fisherman like Bob Baldwin but also to coastal geologists. Raccoon Key is classified as a transgressive or landward migrating barrier island. Sandy Point was the westernmost end of Raccoon Key and a natural landing. Its erosion and movement landward were certainly accelerated, in part, by a man-made event: the damming of the Santee River and the resultant reduction of sediments supplied to the ocean and nearby barrier islands. A natural disaster, Hurricane Hugo, also had a significant impact on this end of Raccoon Key. The movement toward land was measured in this event as several tens of feet, as observed via the distance traveled by a wash-over terrace across the island’s marsh. Seaward from the beach was an exposed layer of backbarrier marsh sediments, along with tidal flat sediments with old oyster beds. The movement was not just toward land but also toward a deep tidal channel, Five Fathom Creek, lying behind the island, and this interaction created a new inlet through Raccoon Key. This inlet is now the access for deep-water craft like shrimp trawlers to reach the ocean. The severed end of Raccoon Key, still known as Sandy Point, which consisted mainly of shell and sediments, has been washing away steadily since Hurricane Hugo and will probably disappear underneath the waters completely (by late 2009, some project).

Raccoon Key was owned by the Lynch family in the eighteenth century. A survey in 1786 for the Lynch estate indicated that the Big and Little Raccoon Keys contained 5,560 acres. Thomas Lynch was an early pioneer and accumulated lands on the North and Santee Rivers that eventually became very prosperous rice plantations. Thomas Lynch II, only son of his father, inherited most of the estate, including Raccoon Key. After the deaths of Thomas Lynch II in 1776 and his son (the signer of the Declaration of Independence) in 1779, the properties were divided between Thomas Lynch III’s three sisters. Peachtree Plantation went to his sister Sabina, who was married to Scottish native John Bowman. After Bowman’s death, his son John inherited his estate, but only after he changed his name to John Bowman Lynch, an action dictated by the conditions of the inheritance. John spent his summers living on a house built on a flatboat that he moved to Raccoon Key.

Forty acres of the east end of the Raccoon Keys were sold to the federal government for the construction of a lighthouse. On a plat dated October 4, 1890, the Raccoon Keys were still intact, without the separation of Lighthouse Island. However, a creek from the backside of the island across the keys marks the place where the division would be made and the opening up of Key Inlet. This plat also declared, This island was granted in 1788 to Thomas Lynch—now claimed by the State of South Carolina as abandoned.

As with Cape Island just to the north, Raccoon Key has seen its share of shipwrecks. The South Carolina Gazette reported on February 17, 1759: Last Week a loaded coasting Schooner from Santee, belonging to Col. Horry, went ashore upon the Raccoon Keys in a Fog and was lost. In 1815, the British brig Spring, captained by Job Colcock Smith, was bound from Liverpool to Wilmington, North Carolina, and was totally lost on the Raccoon Keys. In 1862, the schooner Chase of Nassau, running from the United States steamer Huron, ran ashore in the middle of Raccoon Keys and was set on fire by her own crew so she would not be captured by the Federal forces.

Historically, Raccoon Key was also a favorite location for loggerhead nesting, only second to Cape Island of the barrier islands along this section of coast. Baldwin and Lofton noted in their study of loggerhead turtles for the United States Biological Survey that Raccoon Key was averaging about two hundred nests per season in 1939. However, with the various changes in configuration of the coast here, Raccoon Key has considerably reduced its size and frontage on the Atlantic Ocean. With Cape Island growing a sand spit several miles to the west, it covered up a portion of Raccoon Key. Much of Raccoon Key’s current profile provides little appropriate nesting habitat for loggerheads; they still come, but in greatly reduced numbers. After the western spur of Cape Island broke off in 1996 as the result of Hurricane Bertha, it has gradually migrated toward and welded onto Lighthouse Island. The loggerhead nests on this section of Cape Island that is now considered part of Lighthouse Island are surveyed and studied as part of the overall loggerhead turtle program in the refuge.

MAY 24, 2006

Low tide 12:35 p.m. Predicted winds SE 10–15 knots; 15 knots in p.m.

We leave Jeremy Creek at 9:10 a.m. in a light wind but a positive outgoing tide. The course is out Five Fathom Creek. Crabbers are working here and there, and farther along, the crew of the blue trawler Foxy Lady has anchored and is working on gear. A few tacks are needed to negotiate the turn to the southeast in Five Fathom Creek. Progress is good, and at 10:20 a.m. we reach the end of Raccoon Key, void of other boats. On the other side of the mouth of Five Fathom Creek is a bank covered with a large gathering of pelicans and cormorants.

The proximity of these two species complements their biological association in the bird world order Pelecaniformes. This order includes pelicans, cormorants, darters, gannets, boobies, frigatebirds and tropicbirds. Unlike other birds, Pelecaniformes are totipalmate: their feet have all four toes webbed. No other bird exudes the South Carolina coastal strand more than the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis). The pelican family goes back forty million years in the fossil record. They have several characteristics that distinguish them from their cormorant cousins. These include the ability to glide and soar, whether just inches above the ocean surface utilizing the updraft from swells or high in the sky on rising thermals. The very large wings and specialized breast muscles enabling the bird to hold the wings rigid account for this gliding ability. The brown pelican possesses another ability lacking in all the other pelican species: fishing through plunge diving. The huge pouched bill comes into play in its explosive drops into the sea, the height of the drop only exceeded locally by the gannets.

Cormorants are a much more ancient family of birds. The cormorants lack not only some of the advances of the pelican but also their charisma. Cormorants do not have the ability to soar like pelicans and must almost exclusively beat their wings to fly. Since they lack a preening gland, they cannot waterproof their feathers and must awkwardly hold their wings out to dry. The prevalent cormorant in South Carolina and North America is the double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus). In times past along the coast they were known locally as niggergeese and were considered unfit for eating. In modern times, despite their decline from when John James Audubon observed probably Millions, some people consider them to be a nuisance, much like Canadian geese. Further, they have been labeled fish stealers, taking away from the living of fishermen. Aquaculture managers have fumed about these birds nabbing their pond-grown fish. In some locations, the taking over of islands for nesting colonies by cormorants has crowded out other more esteemed birds. Their growing numbers in the last thirty years have caused an outcry for