Hunting Island State Park Collage

by Lisa Wooten

Title

Hunting Island State Park Collage

Artist

Lisa Wooten

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

Purchased: 2020, 2021x2, 2022, 2023

Featured: The Road To Self Promotions 2/3/2021

Featured: Southern Pride Photography 4/23/2020

Little Blue Hunting Island Lighthouse Hunting Island Driftwood
Hunting Island is a 5,000-acre (20 km2) secluded semitropical barrier island located 15 miles (24 km) east of Beaufort, South Carolina, United States. Since 1935, it has been classified as a state park. It is the most-visited state park facility in South Carolina and is a part of the ACE Basin estuarine reserve area. Renowned for its natural beauty, the island remains one of the few remaining undeveloped Sea Islands in the Lowcountry. The park is known for its 19th century lighthouse which bears its name. The park's unique beach has been featured in several travel publications and was listed in 2013 as a Top 25 beach in the United States by TripAdvisor.[3]
Hunting Island retains its colonial designation of the "Hunting Islands," which served as hunting preserves for Lowcountry planters and elite in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hunting Island light was constructed in the 1850s and soon thereafter destroyed by Confederate forces in the early days of the Civil War. Ten years after the Civil War ended the lighthouse was rebuilt, and later relocated to its current position. The 1893 Sea Islands hurricane swept Hunting Island and other nearby Sea Islands clean, but the lighthouse survived.
In the 1930s, the island was developed into a state park by the Civilian Conservation Corps as bridges were constructed to connect the outer Sea Islands with Beaufort. Thanks to limited human development, the island remains a preserve for its abundant wildlife. Visitors enjoy more than 4 miles (6.4 km) of beach, a dense maritime forest in the interior areas, and an extensive saltwater marsh on the western side. The most notable attraction is the 19th-century lighthouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While not operational, the lighthouse tower currently features a rotating light in the tower that is turned on at night.
The southern terminus of U.S. Route 21 has been on Hunting Island since 1953. US 21 extended to the south end of the island until about 1980, when erosion destroyed a portion of the highway, forcing the state to create a new entrance to the park and a set of one-lane roads through the palmetto forest. US 21 now ends at the point where it formerly veered east toward the lighthouse.
Since 1980, Hunting Island has suffered major beach erosion as a result of heavy tides from the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and Saint Helena Sound, and is expected to shrink in size by ten per cent over the next forty years. At times there is ride-able surf on the island, which is best three hours before high tide due to the large continental shelf effect on incoming waves.
In 1993, most of the Vietnam scenes in Forrest Gump were filmed on Hunting Island and neighboring Fripp Island.
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack.
In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and food for birds, fish and other aquatic species as it floats in the ocean. Gribbles, shipworms and bacteria decompose the wood and gradually turn it into nutrients that are reintroduced to the food web. Sometimes, the partially decomposed wood washes ashore, where it also shelters birds, plants, and other species. Driftwood can become the foundation for sand dunes.
Most driftwood is the remains of trees, in whole or part, that have been washed into the ocean, due to flooding, high winds, or other natural occurrences, or as the result of logging. There is also a subset of driftwood known as drift lumber. Drift lumber includes the remains of man-made wooden objects, such as, buildings and their contents washed into the sea during storms, wooden objects discarded into the water from shore, dropped dunnage or lost cargo from ships (jetsam), and the remains of shipwrecked wooden ships and boats (flotsam). Erosion and wave action may make it difficult or impossible to determine the origin of a particular piece of driftwood.
Driftwood can be used as part of decorative furniture or other art forms, and is a popular element in the scenery of fish tanks. Wikipedia

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April 18th, 2020

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