Beach Treat: Edisto Island!

Our Plan B gets a grade of A+ on Saturday! Kiawah Island’s county park was the original destination but the traffic off the Highway 17 turn looked bumper-to-bumper and the prospect of an hour plus in that mess lead to us instead driving a little farther in light traffic to the beach at Edisto Island.

Edisto was not too crowded and we were able to park (free!) close to where we would set up our chairs. 

The weather was ideal for catching some rays and the water temperature was perfect for swimming. For photography the clouds were quite picturesque. 

Edisto Beach is known for sharks teeth finds in the sand. I thought this might be one, but after posting  this photo on Instagram I received some responses that it probably isn’t. Someone who seemed knowledgeable said it might be from a broken oyster shell. 

We set up close to this pier which includes a restaurant. I’ve never been but would like to try another time. 

Two years ago Hurricane Matthew hit Edisto hard. Many homes were lost and most here took some damage. The beachfront house that was in this spot was lost and a new one is still under construction.  See the end of this post for pictures I took on Edisto a month after the hurricane. 

A beach shop sells a coffee cup commemorating Hurricane Matthew. I picked up two. They were only $3 at Beach 4 Less on Highway 174. 

We had our hands full with Matthew at our home on 

Oct. 8, 2016, not to the extent folks on Edisto did. I did a YouTube showing our North Charleston perspective that can be viewed here. 

Two years later Edisto Beach looks back to normal. It’s a special, laid-back place so it is nice to see such a successful recovery.

 We saw a few types of beach birds. These are Ruddy Turnstones. Interesting name right? They like to turn over shells, stones and other things that may reveal food.

I worked on my Canon DSLR’s burst feature by shooting squadrons of Brown Pelicans that regularly patrol the beach area.

Edisto Beach was a pleasure to visit today!  And another pleasure was discovered on the drive home. On Yelp Alesia found a restaurant in Hollywood we were not aware of previously. 

The Fillin’ Station Diner has a pretty diverse menu. It’s known for its hamburgers. The one we shared was delicious and the fries with it also very good. For dessert we had- and took home half of it the serving was so big- a big slice of caramel brown sugar pound cake. 

The diner’s decor was old sign filled. 

I posted a photo of this cute sign on the Facebook site South Carolina Picture Project. It was a big hit with hundreds of likes and several dozen shares. 

I look forward to returning to the Fillin’ Station Diner to try more of the offerings and that tasty cake again! 

Getting back to Edisto Island. We visited about a month after Hurricane Matthew struck in October 2016. 

Damage and destruction could still be seen but many residents were well on the way to recovery. 

Piles of debris from hard-hit homes were in some places on and near the beach. 

An air conditioning unit hangs precariously.

Not much to do with this house except remove and rebuild. 

We went on a Sunday and as expected it was pretty quiet around the island. We took our bikes and I had my GoPro camera head mounted!  

Goofy right? Even goofier is that I cannot find the video I shot on this day. I cannot believe I may have committed the cardinal sin of erasing the clips before uploading them to my computer. I'll keep looking and will add to this post if I find something. 

The peacefulness on Edisto this day belied the megastorm nightmare of Oct. 6, 2016- a date of infamy for the islanders here.