Beach Walk, July 26, 2018

Mitchelville Beach (Fish Haul Beach Park), looking left to the west.

Yesterday I waled west from Mitchelville Beach for a mile and a half, until I reached the sea wall in Hilton Head Plantation. As you may or may not know, all beaches on the island are “public”, whereas the property that lies behind them is likely private, so when I do this walk (a regular for me) it ends at the wall. If you would also like to make this trip you will need to plan it to start and end within a couple hours of low tide as there are a few tidal creeks to cross and make sure you wear shoes.

Although I always have my eyes open for interesting critters and treasures to collect, I take this route more for the beauty of the walk itself, and the small boneyard beach found at this eastern end of the sea wall.

Some of the views…(just click on any image to view it larger)

: I love this house overlooking Port Royal Sound. You can also see a turtle nest marker in the center of the photo.

: The first tidal creek you must cross is just before you reach Hilton Head Plantation.

: Whenever I see shells on a tree…

: I feel the need to add some myself 🙂

: Exposed peat beds. Peat is composed of decomposing organic matter and marks were stands of Startina grass once flourished.

: This tidal creek connects the Sound to what had once been a fresh water lagoon before the granite barrier wall gave way a few years ago.

: Almost there, just beyond those trees.

: This large live oak has toppled since this spring.

For the uninitiated, a boneyard beach is where the Atlantic ocean, or in this case Port Royal Sound, is eroding the coastline, washing away the soil and and killing the trees, which are left to bleach in the sun and perhaps topple into the waves.

: We’re there! rThese leaning trees have served as a “gateway” to the boneyard, until they topple anyway.

: The roots of the live oaks, while massive, are fairly shallow, leaving them susceptible to erosion.

: The eastern end of the sea wall built to protect the plantation from the eroding surf.

: I’ll skirt along the front of the wall for a bit, until I run into the pluff mud.

: Until recently residents could come down onto the beach on a small path, but too has eroded away.

: Now to head back from whence we came.

Now for some of he critters…

: A new ID for me. I always see small dark crtitters scurring over the rocks of the wall and have always assumed thet sere small Marsh Squareback or Mud Crabs, allbeit, very fast ones.

: But I actually got some photos this time and found that they were Wharf/Sea Roaches, small crustaceans whose natural habitat is rocks and cliffs in the splash zone just above high water mark where it lives in damp crevices.