Tieing A Knot...: The Lowcountry and the OOO's

Early morning sunrise, I thought this was going to show itself to be a beautiful.

The way the other half lives.....Charleston Yachties

We are now in what is called "the Lowcountry" of South Carolina. Originally dependent of plantation agriculture, indigo, rice, cotton, tourism is now the big money making gun here. It is a land of smells, salt air, pluff mud ( a unique smell which is at once pleasant and unpleasant and is totally a "low country thing" let's just say 'it grows on you' ), very friendly people and a slower southern pace.

Coosaw, Ashepoo, Wapoo, and my favorite Toogoodoo are just a few of the creeks and rivers where you can anchor in South Carolina. I called them the OOO's.

We are trying to kill some time so are holding to our trip plan of anchoring in different places, it has paid off. We have seen so much more than rushing through and not exploring.

Ashepoo Creek where we dinghied to B&B Seafood and got some fresh shrimp for $8.00 a pound. They had a small "convenience store" section and we asked if they had milk....after a few minutes she came back with "yes we do, but it's frozen"! We politely declined, but the shrimp was great!! I made shrimp scampi with half of it and froze the rest for another 'treat'.

Late afternoon on Ashepoo Creek

B&B Seafood in Green Pond South Carolina. The population of 1200 (must be inland because all we saw were a very few modest homes )

A happy fisherman who we watched reel in a nice sized Spot Tail
off the dock at B&B Seafood, he was ........Happy!!

And the very happy shrimp cleaners....they were having such a great time together laughing while doing what must be a monotonous job. They were cleaning about 500 pounds of shrimp that had come in on the boats late the night before. So we were getting it "hot off the presses".

My favorite anchorage was Toogoodoo. It was BEAUTIFUL....right up there with Leadenham in Maryland. Of course it didn't hurt that it was a gorgeous fall day. Just a little breeze, 75 degrees and a sky that was so blue it hurt your eyes!! We saw more birds here than anywhere else this trip. A Great Blue Heron and quite a few Great White Herons, a Green Heron, and not one but THREE Bald Eagles! The Live Oaks were dripping with Spanish Moss,

Beautiful creek for vegetation, the live oaks were spectacular.

I did some research (love the internet) on Toogoodoo Creek and what a history. The surrounding land was settled in the 1600's because of its deep water and high land in the low country of South Carolina. It is about 30 minutes from Charleston or 'Charles Towne' as it was originally called in the 1600's. There were many large plantations in the lands surrounding Charleston. We stopped at a dock and talked to a man to find out a little about the area. This house was a plantation that once owned thousands of acres of surrounding land.

This is a log cabin that is over 200 years old and it is part of 'Toogoodoo Bluff' (this is the south and they name their property here) this is what I found on the internet about it: http://www.vrbo.com/175121 .

This wood barge was the find of the day. I have been trying to find out about it but nothing specific comes up except the fact that this creek was part of a huge plantation and wood barges were used by plantations to move goods and people. Wish we would have seen this before we talked to our "informant", we might have found out some of it's history.