Crab

We spent most of the morning letting the kids play in the pool. They would stay in the pool all day if we let them. I don't even think that Emily would realize she was hungry.

We drug them out for a little lunch, and then drove over to the nature center on Hunting Island for a kids class. We learned more about Hunting Island, and its inhabitants. We learned about the history of lighthouses which was very interesting. We made our own lighthouse "daymark." Brian's daymark was camo colored, Emily had a rainbow of colors, and Danielle's was scribble scrabble as the kids would describe it. I am still looking for them, but I am not sure they made it home. We went on a scavenger hunt, and then kids got to get up close with some of the nature center's residents.

Brian and Danielle enjoyed touching some of the reptiles.

The view of Fripp Island from the other side of the bridge.



The kids went on a nature scavenger hunt. Brian impressed everyone by remembering some of the names of the vegetation from yesterdays marsh walk.

One of the things that was on the scavenger hunt list was a cloud that looked like an animal. Our guide Natalie and I both saw the same animals in the clouds. Do you see the whale and the duck?

Give these kids a little sand, a paintbush and some buried shells, and you've got hours of entertainment. Seriously we couldn't drag them away from this exhibit.

There were many different species of birds that I have never encountered before, here in the grass you can see some white ones, I didn't get a good picture.

We needed a few things in town, and we learned that blue crab was in short supply so I settled for lump crab.

Danielle likes corn on the cob, but only if it is on the cob and she can do it herself.

We ended our day with our ritual golf cart tour, this time we followed the main road out to the end of the island, which was a perfect spot for sunset pictures over the water.

All loaded up and ready to roll, now who has the keys?

The Marsh

Today we decided it would be a great day to head to the beach. We packed up, and loaded the golf cart to head down there, and it started raining. The kids were already in their swimsuits, so we let them go out to the pool. It actually only sprinkled for a few moments, and so we headed to the beach. It was pretty windy, but we had a fun time, building sandcastles, collecting seashells, and playing in the water.

Eddie made a little spider sand art.

It started raining again, and it was way past lunchtime, so we headed back to the condo. We had lunch, and then I thought it would be interesting to check out the The Marsh Walk. The guide told us about the vegetation, and creatures in the marsh. We learned about the fiddler crab, found out the alligators don't hang out in the marsh because they don't like salt water, and we could go crabbing in the channel at the end of the marsh walk. I did find a suitable crab trap at the condo, so we went to the bait shop and got some crab bait.

These are the Fiddler crabs, the males have one large yellow claw, which they wave around to attract female crabs.









The Marsh Walk

The baby fell asleep in the car on the way back, so my mom stayed and watched her, while we took the big kids to check out the crabbing spot on the island. We caught a couple of baby crabs, but they were too little to keep, and they wouldn't been worth trying to get the little bit of meat they had off. It was a little smelly there, as we had come during low tide, and the pier was in oyster bed. We did have fun trying, and Eddie found it relaxing, just like fishing.

Here is the little crab we caught

Deer Everywhere

Today was a busy day. After breakfast we took a tour of the island on our golf cart. I think that so far Brian's favorite part of the trip is driving the golf cart around the island. We saw an alligator, played at the park and checked out the scenery.

Can you spot the alligator?

This was a fun park, the slide was designed like a lighthouse.

When we returned the kids played in the pool for several hours, we stopped for a lunch break out by the pool.

This was the view of the beach outside our condo.

The kids had fun flying their mini kites, just their size

Daddy tickles Danielle

Fun at the pool

Later that afternoon, we took a little drive to check out crabbing supplies. We found a bait shop, but we didn't have a trap. We drove into town and checked out the marina. We found information about a dolphin cruise, and a place to buy crab. The backup plan to our own crab hunting. The kids fell asleep, and took a much needed nap. We tried to "look around" Hunting Island State Park, but they charge at the gate and wouldn't let us in. We did get to see the camping sites. We definitely want to go back and climb the lighthouse later this week, and perhaps do some of the kid friendly activities.

We made french dip sandwiches for dinner, and then hurried off to try to capture the sunset. As we drove around the island, there were deer everywhere. It is against the law to feed them, but people must, because they are not scared at all. If you stop and get off the golf cart, they will actually come closer. There were too many clouds to get a nice sunset picture, but we did get some cool shots.

Do you see Bambi by the tree?