Dog Days of Summer Best Spent at the Beach!

 

When it’s the dog days of summer, the beach is the place to be!  This pair of pooches would probably agree. 

Heat indexes have been in the triple digits for several weeks now. Relief and relaxation can be found at the beach.  

Sullivan’s Island at around noon on Sunday, Aug. 9, had lots of open sand for visitors. It was low tide and just perfect conditions, not too crowded, warm, or windy. 

We kept our eye on these dark clouds to the southeast. Fortunately, the rain stayed away. Partly cloudy skies were fine during the three hours we spent near the old Sand Dunes Beach Club. 

Traffic on the water was on the quiet side until the end of our stay when this long red ship steamed out of Charleston Harbor.

Car Carrying Collosuses

 

Eureka! We found an excellent view of an Eukor vessel at Charleston’s Columbus Street terminal a few weeks ago. 

The top floor of the city parking garage near the popular South Carolina Aquarium offers this view and others of the Holy City’s skyline. 

Morning Linda! How are you today? Are you ready for another trans- Atlantic voyage? 

The internet says the ship flies under the flag of Panama, but I see the United States flag over the O in Eukor in the photo below. 

(Update: As of April 29 8 a.m. EST, the Morning Glory is docked in Bremerhaven, Germany, according to marinetraffic.com)

Morning Linda is in the Vehicles Carrier category. These ships are commonly called Ro-Ros, for roll-on, roll-off. Built in 2008, the ship measures 232 meters long and 32 meters wide. Those meters equate to 761 feet long, 105 feet wide. The length is almost 254 yards, or nearly 2.5 football fields. That’s a walk from bow to stern! 

Awaiting their turn to roll on Morning Linda or the next car carrier that calls on this port are hundreds of freshly made BMW SUVs made in the German manufacturer’s Spartanburg, S.C. plant, 215 miles away. 

Happy Birthday Ravenel Bridge!

 

Our visit Sunday, June 22 to the Ravenel Bridge coincided (somewhat) with next month’s 20th anniversary of the 2.5 mile span’s opening. The $632 million structure, with its two distinctive Diamond-shaped towers, opened to car traffic on July 16, 2005. What an asset the bridge is in so many ways. It replaced two outdated spans and includes four lanes for cars plus lanes for walkers and bicyclists. 

Back in 2005 I covered a big event days before the new bridge opened to car traffic. For two days people could walk on the eight-lane span. I produced a multi- media report using still photographs, audio interviews, music and text. I was assisted with the project by my son Joseph and Kristen Van Dyke, who was a College of Charleston student of mine back then. Kristen went on to have a successful career as a meteorologist. She is currently a meteorologist in Salt Lake City with KSLTV. My son Joseph also has a successful career in software engineering and design. Click above to see the report we produced. 

The bridge is named for Arthur Ravenel, Jr. (1927-2023). He was an iconic, impactful and colorful Lowcountry political figure from a prominent French Huguenot family. He was instrumental in securing funding for the massive construction project.

This picture commemorating the Ravenel Bridge opening in 2005 has had a spot in one of our bathrooms for two decades. The Post and Courier newspaper gave it to subscribers. 

The expanded Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park, situated beneath the bridge, opened in recent weeks. I was curious to see it and on this warm early summer Sunday it was busy. 

Green Energy Ship Turns Heads Heading Out to Sea

Most of the large container ships and chemical tankers seen entering or leaving Charleston Harbor don’t wow you with their looks other than their sheer size. 

But on April 30 while at the beach on Sullivan’s Island I witnessed an exception: this stunning vessel steaming toward the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I love this photo for capturing the ship’s bold beauty and because we see St. Philip’s Church in the background, a Holy City landmark (one of 14 downtown churches in my book “Stories from the Underground: The Churchyards of Charleston").

See what I mean about turning heads? This gentleman stopped and stared, as did I. 

Stena Prosperous it says on the bow and on the port side in even larger print is Stena Proman. The former is the ship’s name and the latter the company that owns it.  

More lettering on the side spells IMOIIMeMAX. Let us try to determine what all this means! But first check out this photo of the tanker from Ships Monthly. 

Stena Prosperous is an oil and chemical products tanker built in 2022 at Guangzhou Shipyard in China.  It sails under the flag of Limassol, Cypress.

Stena Proman is a joint venture between Stena Bulk, a leading tanker operator, and Proman, a leader in natural gas-derived products and services. The two companies joined forces to build and operate a fleet of methanol-fueled tankers. 

Keep on Shipping--- Dock Workers Strike is Suspended

 

It was a wistful outing to Sullivan’s Island on Sunday, Sept. 29 amid news that at midnight Tuesday port dockworkers from Maine to Texas would go on strike. 

The strike did happen but the good news as I begin this post Thursday at 7 p.m. is that it was just announced that the strike is suspended and International Longshoremen Association union members will return to work tomorrow morning. The ILA represents 85,000 longshoremen in the U.S., eastern Canada, Puerto Rico and the Bahamans.

So these big container ships will soon again be loading and offloading precious cargo at Charleston’s several ports. 

Hopefully things will quickly settle down at grocery stores where many shoppers have been stocking up on food and supplies, fearing shortages a long strike could cause. Plus people and organizations have been buying water, food and other products to help those suffering from the wrath of Hurricane Helene. 

We were fortunate to only have lots of yard debris caused by Helene's winds in our area.

Right as we arrived on the beach just before noon two APL ships passed in the harbor. The Southampton entered the harbor…

Views from the Ravenel Bridge- Spectacular!

 

A recent walk across the majestic Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge offered a bounty of beautiful photography opportunities for this shutterbug. 

Sunday, Oct. 1 was an ideal combination of nice weather, puffy cloud cover, busy boat and ship activity plus an expansive view of Charleston, its harbor and points beyond in Mt. pleasant and Sullivan’s Island. 

My Canon SX70 lens was drawn to pleasure boats and the long wakes they left speeding toward the bridge.

Charleston- the Holy City- glistened in the distance. 

My book, “Stories from the Underground: The Churchyards of Charleston,” explores the old city’s rich, interesting and diverse history through the prism of its religious burial grounds. 

Check out this book (and my previous ones) at the link above or on my Amazon site. 

Ships and Shorebirds at Sullivan’s Island

I posted a few weeks ago about photographing Sandwich Terns for the first time. That was at Folly Beach. Well, Sunday at Sullivan’s Island I saw some more. 

This type of Tern certainly has two distinctive traits. The partially black head reminds me of a balding man. And the yellow tip on the bill is the mustard on the sandwich. That’s a memorable line I read in a guide somewhere. 

This smaller beach bird is a Sanderling,
a species of Sandpiper. 

Pondering the Ships at Sea

 

Massive cargo ships daily enter and leave Charleston’s harbor near Sullivan’s Island. 

This beach is truly and literally the intersection of commerce and recreation. 

Charleston’s state-of-the-art ports are among the busiest in the nation. 

And tourism, especially the thousands of people who flock to the fine and family-friendly Atlantic Ocean beaches in the area, is another key to the region’s economy. 

Last Day of Spring- Summer is Here!

More beach scenes from the comfort of my chair set firmly in the sand at Station 17 on wonderful Sullivan’s Island, S.C. This was on Saturday, June 19, the last day of spring. Summer began officially the next day. 

More Shipping News

Today was another nice day at the beach! Station 17 at Sullivan's Island has become our go-to spot. It's never crowded and has great views of the channel to Charleston, which today was busy with ships and other vessels coming and going.

This container ship, only partially loaded, was heading out to sea. It is the Japanese ship Meishan Bridge.