Edisto Island

[peejman]

We're headed to Edisto Island shortly.  Never been there before, but have been around the Charleston area several times.  We love good seafood, any suggestions on where to find some?  Bear in mind that we have 2 "very active" young'uns who aren't known for their ability to sit still long enough to endure a meal at a 4-star type restaurant.  Any other suggestions of things to do or places to go (or not do/go) are appreciated. 

[MacGyver]

Best crab cake I've ever eaten came from J Paul'z in Mount Pleasant. 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Got to be plenty of great seafood. Most
seafood restaurants in the area will be
well known and all you should have to do
is ask a native. As far as kids go, the kind
of restaurants that serve the best seafood
are like going to any family oriented one
you like here. Less on the trappings and
much more on the food.

[peejman]

Best crab cake I've ever eaten came from J Paul'z in Mount Pleasant. 

 

Been there, yep.

[peejman]

So we went while the kiddies were on fall break.  We'd never been there before, heard good things about it, and the price was reasonable so we gave it a shot. 

 

In a nutshell... a nice little beach island.  If you're looking for go karts, bungie jumping, and night life.... this is not the place for you.  In reality, there's very little on the island but it's all you need.  The nearest Walmart is 30 miles away, but the local Piggly Wiggly (great beer selection!) and hardware store had everything we needed.  :)

If you like seafood (we do!), the restaurants on the island were very good.  But there's only a handful.  We asked one server what it's like during the peak season and she said it's a mad house... 2-3 hr waits are typical.  Thankfully we only had to wait a few minutes, if at all.  

We went with my parents and this was the first time any of us can remember actually staying right on the beach.  The high tide line was about 50 ft from the house.  The ocean is loud.  You don't notice it much when you're playing in the surf or building sand castles, but when the kids are asleep and it's otherwise quiet in the evenings, the ocean is loud.  It wasn't a problem, just unexpected.  

Speaking of building sand castles.... if that's your thing, this isn't the beach for you.  The "sand" on the beach has a significant percentage of crushed shells.  It doesn't pack very well and doesn't make for good sand castles.  Not that my kids cared...

The beach itself is fairly narrow and steep.  The line where the waves typically break has lots of broken shells and isn't real nice to bare feet.  Get out a little further and its fine, but the water gets deep pretty quick.  It's not like some beaches where you can go 200 yds into the water and still only be waist deep.  













The older boy had a big time playing in the surf.  There was storm off shore for a couple days that really kicked up the waves.  There were a few moments of panic when the undertow started sucking him out, but we didn't have to charter a boat to go get him.
































His little brother is still a bit intimidated by the power of the waves and would rather dig in the sand.  Which is fine with me as keeping track of big brother is a full time job by itself.

 

[peejman]

Tuesday dawned overcast and rainy so we decided to head into Charleston for the day.  We visited the SC Aquarium which was a tad underwhelming.  Having grown accustomed to the TN Aquarium (Dad volunteers there, sister worked there for 15 years), this one seemed kinda small.  Its nice and they have good exhibits, but we just weren't real impressed.  The fact that the kids were pretty cranky because they were hungry didn't exactly help.  














Dory!







It's not easy being green...






After the aquarium, we got some lunch and headed over to Patriot's Point.  :usa:

 

With full tummies, we all were a little happier.  While we would've really liked to take the kids to see Ft. Sumter, due to the morons we elected, it was closed.  :(

 

The kids had fun time running around the Yorktown, even if the wind was blowing 30 mph. They've got quite a collection of aircraft on display.  The tours that are set up through the ship are also really cool.  Lots of pictures and stories of all manner of things through the history of the ships.  



 


 

 

 

Goose, it's time to buzz the tower...





One of Dad's former USAF buddies was killed in a crash of this type aircraft many years ago (EA-6B Skywarrior).  
 

 

There's also some nice stuff on Charleston Harbor and the work that went on there.  Dad worked there when I was born.  He's never really talked about it much and I've never known what he did there.  I saw him looking at some submarines and asked about it.  Turns out he worked on a re-fit and re-fueling of the USS Ray (SSN-653) which was a Sturgeon class nuclear powered fast attack submarine. 

While there's no mention of it in the wiki page, Dad said the Ray was unique in that it's reactor was actually refueled.  Most nuclear powered ships are designed such that the reactor's lifetime is also the lifetime of the ship.  Dad talked a little about what specifically he did.  He said while the boat was in dry dock, they basically cut about a 10 ft diameter hole in the top of the boat, pulled the reactor core out, and installed a new one of improved design.  

I asked about shielding and such from the radiation and he said because everything was so big (and it was the 70's), there was none.  Everyone wore a dosimeter, and when it said you'd reached your limit for the day, you left the area.  He said that only took a few minutes when the fuel rods were exposed.    :eek:

Edited October 17, 2013 by peejman

[peejman]

After that the weather cleared up and we just enjoyed playing on the beach.  My wife when hunting for shells and took some nice pics...



































On friday, we took the boys fishing.  

I bought fishing gear a while back after the older one expressed some interest in fishing, but just haven't found the time to actually take them.  We talked to several people on the island and everyone highly recommended taking them to Botany Bay WMA. 

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/mlands/managedland?p_id=57

Only kids are allowed to fish in the WMA and only on friday - sunday.  You're not allowed to kill/keep anything you catch and an adult helping must have a license.  The ranger/game warden told us to rig for bottom fishing and expect to catch lots of fish.

 

And catch lots of fish, we did.  :up:

 

 

 

We got there and started baiting hooks.  We got the older boy's rod ready first, cast it out, handed it to him, and went back to getting the other rods ready.

 

About 30 seconds later we hear... "Daddy! Daddy! I got one!"


Nope, he got two!  (Atlantic Croaker and Flounder)



 


Then two more! (Sheepshead)





What, only one?  




After experiencing what it was like reeling these things in with 2 fish on (using 4lb line no less), we put the little one's tiny rod away for fear of breaking it. More on that in a minute...






Mom got a few as well....






She also got a crab.  Thankfully the blue kind and not the communicable kind...





Yours truly even got a few in between digging the hooks out of flounder while trying to not kill them or get bit.  

[movie reference] It's got huge pointy teeth! [/movie reference]







So the little one was having fun helping everyone else for a while, but then he started whining about wanting to use his fishing pole. We tried to get him to use one of ours, but no, he wanted to use HIS fishing pole. We were nearly out of bait, so Dad rigged his tiny rod up with a single hook and a bobber hoping to get something small that he could manage.  

 

 

Something small.  Yeah.  :dirty:

 

We cast it a few times and had to reel it back it pretty quickly as the wind was blowing it into the bushes.  I'd put the last shrimp on his hook, cast it out for him, handed him the rod, and started pack up the other stuff.  






I heard him squeal and saw the rod jump out of his hands.  Thankfully the drag was set really low and it got stuck in the grass on the bank, else it would've been gone.

 

It was feeding line out like crazy so I grabbed the rod and frantically cranked in more drag to try to slow down whatever was on the hook.   I got the boy to come back over and very carefully, we tried to reel this fish in without breaking the rod or the line.  The fish got tired pretty quick and we couldn't believe what we saw when we got it to the bank.   :stunned:












Our guess is this was about a 10-12lb redfish.  On 4lb line.  The fish was nearly as long as the rod and about 2/3 the length and half the weight of the boy.  






We caught a bunch of fish and had a great time.    :up:    My only fear is that catching tiny little brim and bluegill at the lake won't seem quite as fun now.  
 

[peejman]

The next day was Saturday and time to pack up and head home.  We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise. 




















As luck would have it....    we conveniently passed by a certain place in Columbia right about lunch time.  :)

To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed.  While they had lots of stuff, what I most wanted was a brick or two of .22, but they had exactly none.  :yuck:

 

I did pick up a few p-mags (they had boxes and boxes of them) and a LPK for my TGO lower.  The boys got pop guns.  I was sorely tempted by the spam cans of 7.62x54R stacked up and more than a few cases of .223 but my credit card got enough abuse in the prior week. 

 

On our way back to the car, my little one got stung by a bee that had crawled up in his shirt.  :(    After digging through all the stuff packed in the van to get at the benadryl and tylenol, he was fine and slept for the next 2 hours.  Good to know he's not allergic to bee stings, though that's not exactly how I wanted to find out.  

In all, it was a good trip.  We probably won't go back there as we kinda like Hilton Head better from a pure beach perspective.  But its certainly a nice quiet place for a beach vacation.  
 

:wave:

[MacGyver]

Sounds like it was a great trip.  That's a nice redfish, too! 

[peejman]

Sounds like it was a great trip.  That's a nice redfish, too! 

 

 

Yep.  Wish we could've kept the redfish (we caught another small one) and flounder... they're yummy. 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

glad to see you had a great time. The Atlantic coast is beautiful, isn't it?