Choose Charleston

As we see the oil continue to spill all over the beaches of our gulf area, I wonder to myself, would people like the idea of drilling off of Charleston S.C. if it was viable?

I was reading the article online here  and I see the comments and stand that Ted Turner presented.  If we had a oil spill close to Charleston and God forbid the oil made it to our shores, our tourism would take a HUGE hit.  Heck, even Florida has taking a beating with tourism and they have not even got the tip of the iceberg yet!

Would you be all for saving a few dimes on a gallon of gas if offshore drilling was used closed to Charleston.  Closed enough if they were a spill, the wildlife here in Charleston could be ruined?

What do you think guys?  Yay or nay?

A great event for a great cause will be going on March 8th, The 2nd Annual Sailing For The Future Benefit Regatta.  This gives opportunity to our Charleston youth to get involved in a great local event.  The harbor start will be at 1:00 pm but feel free to come early and get to know some of the local Charleston sailors!  The race will be followed by a reception that features a cash bar and light food and then awards.  Registration fee is $100 and will need to be completed by March 7th.  What a great event this will be!  Come out and show support everyone! 

For more information, go to CharlestonCommunitySailing.org

     Maybe you are considering visiting Charleston for a vacation?  Or you’re coming in for a business trip?  Whatever the reason, Charleston offers an exciting night life atmosphere! 

     So do you drive around Charleston (maybe you should take a taxi?) and take a guess at which bar or club looks like it is right for you?  Relax, we have you covered!  

     I recently discovered two sites that provide helpful reviews of Charleston bars and clubs.  CharlestonBars.com provides a detailed list of bars in the area, along with forums, pictures, videos and much more!  If you are looking to have an elegant night out with your someone special, then hop over to CharlestonCocktail.com.  The site features reviews of restaurants and bars in the Charleston area.  They even have pictures and a “Charleston Calendar of Events” to keep you local guys well informed!  So if you’re going out on the town anytime soon, check these two sites out first.  Don’t forget the most important thing, have fun and be safe!

In the rainy seasons, flooding is never far from the minds of ladies and gentlemen of the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Because, of course, Lowcountry means low country, and coastal low country to boot.

Every a heavy day of rain, you can watch cars and trucks bravely attempting to slip through hood-high waters in especially low-lying areas of the peninsula. Quite often, they fail in the attempt and sit, steaming and in need of towing, in the slow rolling wake of other vehicles.

Sandbags in the storeroom. Stocking up on gallon jugs of fresh water, flashlights, batteries, and emergency food items.

All part of living in the potential path of tropical storms.

The South Carolina Aquarium does a fine job of portraying the natural diversity of the Palmetto State, all the way from the Blue Ridge escarpment upstate to the estuaries, beaches, and ocean way down here in the Lowcountry.

Through August, the aquarium might be your best bet for schlepping around to see some brownwater swamp. The building is air conditioned and harbors far fewer mosquitoes than the great outdoors, after all.

Of course, there being nothing like the real thing, the miles and miles of beaches between the Lowcountry and the Grand Strand are active as all get out as of late.

For beating the heat, beaches, barrier islands to kayak toward, and boating excursions all do the job well.

This Saturday and Sunday, August 4-5, the Washout on Folly Beach will once again host the South Carolina Governor’s Cup of Surfing.

That’s two whole days of competition featuring the best of the class from all the way up and down the Easten seaboard. Wahines wade in from the Outer Banks and Menehunes migrate from Myrtle Beach to show their stuff at this top wave event.

Arrive early to catch a good parking spot.

Keep in mind that South Carolina is one of only two states with an official Governor’s Cup dedicated to the sport of surfing (the other is California). Governor Mark Sanford, well known as a champion of coastal and environmental causes, is himself an avid surfer.

So the Governor’s Cup is a point of pride for Sandlappers.

Speaking of which, the summer 2007 issue of Sandlapper: The Magazine of South Carolina features a cool article on the Governor’s Cup and the Folly Beach surf crowd, if you’re interested in some background research before you show up on the beach.

As well, the summer issue of Garden & Gun has an article on the local wahines and the July 2007 Charleston Magazine has an article on Folly Beach in its golden age (check out the sailing adventure by the ever adventurous Ida Becker in the same issue).

Every now and again, I run through the local Craigslist just to catch a sense of what folks are buying, selling, or trading. What kinds of gigs are emerging, what openings for talent are on the upswing, and who is scouting out whom?

The method, I’ll grant you, is hardly scientific. Its fundamental limitation is that it only speaks of the segment of the population that chooses to use online posting to announce its hopes and dreams.

Some of it is truly scary. “Surely not in gentle Charleston,” I have whispered many a time while going clickety-click through the ads.

We could simply blame ‘bots for anything too out of character, of course, but it is also true that these are changing times and a changing place. People are moving to the South Carolina Lowcountry at an increasingly rapid rate, each bringing their own individual blend of ideas and expectations into the big old melting pot of Frogmore Stew we call home.

Even old Charleston, South of Broad, has absorbed its share of incoming new money from the North as of late.

We still have our cobblestone and the soft clop-clop of horse hooves from the carriage tours but we also have an emerging digital corridor and a medical district that is soaring skyward like something out of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Strange days may be ahead for this rapidly changing place.

Local is the big buzz-word in food these days, outpacing organic by a long chalk.

The “old” food distribution system (which, of course, is still very much in effect and still moving the vast majority of food) always was a head-scratcher for me, personally.

How exactly is it more economical to ship shrimp from Southeast Asia all the way to South Carolina when we already have had shrimp fishermen aplenty harvesting local waters?

Crazy as it sounds, it is actually the truth of the situation: It’s cheaper to buy product that has been hauled halfway around the globe than to buy from the farmer who lives next door. Please explain the logic.

The simple answer is that the system is just set up that way. It’s all about planes, trains, boats, and big rigs, contracts and warehouses, economics and business as usual; you know - the system.

None of which has stopped a growing number of consumers from trying to draw attention to the fact that, in the United States, small farms and local producers have been slowly going the way of the Dodo for quite some time.

Some shrug it off as “just the way it is.”

Others choose to make it known that they support small farms and local producers. With the launch of the Certified South Carolina effort, there is now a way to at least know which apple is local and which is from far away.

The beginning of a new (well, really, a return to an old) way of thinking about food or a final show of support before the last few traditional family farmers are forced to retire the John Deere and take jobs in middle management like everyone else? We’ll see in time.

Early afternoon thunderstorms drenched the South Carolina Lowcountry on Saturday. It was pouring down so hard at points that visibility dropped on the highways and slowed traffic to a crawl.

It put a bit of a dent in the heat. But with August gearing up right around the corner, these runs of hot, hot, hot are not going away anytime soon. More, once all that rain soaks way down deep in the soil, grass and kudzu are going to spin up toward the sky like magic beans had been planted. Better get the lawnmowers and weed-whackers ready!

And more is on the way. Today and through most of the coming week, cloud cover and a chance of thunderstorms are the watch words.

Wind and water have, over time, washed much of Morris Island away. Once it had been stripped bare of vegetation during the Civil War, the sea island had no defense left against erosion.

If we, as a people, really did learn from the past, there might be a hint and a half for us in that.

Morris Island, as we all know, is where the Battle of Battery Wagner took place on July 18, 1863. The 54th Massachusetts regiment led that assault (this was the famous battle depicted in the 1989 movie Glory starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick).

The memory of the soldiers who fought and died there should be sufficient reason for us to protect and preserve what is left of the island. But between over-ambitious developers and the constant action of the currents, it has been an uphill battle.

The Morris Island Lighthouse in particular is in special need of care. There was a time when a combination of structural damage and lost sand nearly put paid to the 130-plus year old monument.

Just as with anything else that we value, there is no one-time-fix or permanent remedy for Morris Island and its lighthouse. Preserving the past requires the efforts of both the present and the future.

Are we up to the challenge?