BirdsEyeViews: Heavenly Hilton Head

It was a great getaway for several days this month to head down the coast to Hilton Head Island. It was our 35th wedding anniversary so pandemic or not we planned a special trip. A Caribbean island would have been nice but with so many travel concerns, Hilton Head made sense being in state and not too far away plus it is a world-class resort with beautiful beaches and excellent restaurants.

Monday, July 13- the dawn of a new day. Special one for us as it was our 35th wedding anniversary. The next ones I took Tuesday morning.

We stayed at the Hilton Head Marriott Resort & Spa. Alesia was able to get an upgrade to a seventh-floor oceanfront room. Wonderful! We could go out on the balcony just before 6:30 a.m. to watch gorgeous sunrises like these.

Quite a few people were on the beach to also bear witness to another magical daybreak.

Front view of our hotel

PARADE OF PELICANS

Late in the afternoon, I noticed lots of pelican activity. Squadrons of Brown Pelicans flew over the beach and water. And they would sometimes soar pretty lo, below our seventh-floor room even. So it became an opportunity for me, always the shutterbug, to try for some shots from our balcony of these big birds. Here are some of the best ones.

During this time of face masks, social distancing and other COVID-19 fears and precautions it was refreshing to see people here so relaxed and enjoying themselves just like in the past. Sitting on the beach or up on our balcony that’s what I was drawn to photograph: people enjoying the beach (or hotel swimming pool) and each other.

BEACH SCENES

Low tide on Hilton Head means a wide spacious beach. Plenty of room to roam and keep your social distancing too. That’s our Marriott Hotel in the center. Very nice place to stay!

Things would get a little tighter when the tide came in, but it was never overly crowded when we were there.

GOPRO- OH NO!

I brought my GoPro Hero 4 camera to the beach. I hadn’t used it for a while. After testing it at home and then in our hotel room, I took it into the water mounted to my wrist in a waterproof encasement. Here are some of the still shots I took. I took video too in the ocean, including under the water.

So far so good. Nice images right? But on the second beach day after taking the GoPro in the water, it would not turn on for the second swim. Long story short, it’s broken. Ruined. The waterproof casing wasn’t so (my bad I guess- not sure what happened!) and enough water or moisture got in to damage the tiny camera. Once back home I called GoPro technical support and there wasn’t anything that could be done. I was offered 25 percent off on a new camera so maybe I’ll do that. This was the only trip bummer!

OSPREYS

Brown Pelicans were not the only bird I photographed. Quite a few Osprey were patrolling and dive-bombing for fish in the surf. Also known as Fish Hawks, the Osprey is one of the most beautiful birds in the sky.

FINE DINING

Each of the three evenings on Hilton Head Island we enjoyed an excellent restaurant meal. We wore our masks into each establishment and each had masked servers and tables spread out to conform to social distancing. Our dining choices were Alexander’s Restaurant and Wine Bar (in the Palmetto Dunes resort), Michael Anthony’s Cucina Italiana for our anniversary dinner, and Old Fort Pub (with its beautiful views of Skull Creek) on our last night.