Great Article by Amy Reynolds-Waterside News of the trip to Daufuskie Island

Coastal Discovery Series: Daufuskie Island Waterside is pleased to bring you a new monthly series spotlighting coastal communities. First up this month is Daufuskie Island, S.C., just a short boat ride from Savannah. Daufuskie Island: History, wildlife, regular folks, and good times. By Amy Reynolds I set out with my friend Jodi Arledge on a beautiful sunny spring morning, destination: Daufuskie. The island is only accessible by boat, and Bubba Strickland was kind enough to give us a lift to the county docks. Our starting point was Marshside Mama’s, at the top of the docks, which served as our home base for the day. Owner Beth Shipman gave us phone numbers, directions, loaned us a golf cart, and sent us on our way with a promise of lunch when we got hungry. Jodi took the wheel so I could take pictures, and as we pulled away from Marshside Mama’s, Beth’s black lab, Cornbread, hopped on the back to serve as our guide dog. Our first stop was a local art gallery, The Iron Fish, owned by Daufuskie resident, blacksmith and artist, Chase Allen. The gallery was set up on the front porch of his small island home and filled with his metal creations. Colorful mermaids, fish, water plants, and crabs decorated the walls and rails and surrounding flower beds, while a metal gator stood guard in the front yard. A sign was posted, saying that if the artist wasn’t in, purchases could be made on the honor system. That says a lot about the way of life on this island! We continued on down the sandy road and came to a sign for Island T-Shirts. Sylvia Wampler welcomed us in and told us about her life on the island. She and her husband John are originally from Michigan. Their intention was to sail to the Bahamas, but they realized they needed to make a little money, so they stopped in Hilton Head, where John worked as a captain. They visited Daufuskie and fell in love with the island. “That was 24 years ago, and we still love it!” Sylvia said. They did make it to the Bahamas, eventually; they spend a few months each winter aboard their sailboat there and reopen their t-shirt shop when they return in the spring. From there, we went on to Mary Dunn Cemetery, back in the woods, down a path off Prospect Road. The cemetery serves as the final resting place for several plantation families, with graves dating back to the late 1700s. A Revolutionary War soldier, Captain Martinangele, is entombed in a brick crypt in the shade of an old oak. We continued down Prospect Road to Pappy’s Landing and ventured into Bloody Point, so named after an Indian massacre in the early 1700s. We wound through the golf course that now blankets the land, and came across an alligator sunning itself on the opposite bank of a small pond. We stopped to take pictures, and Cornbread gave us a scare by bounding into the water with the apparent intention of catching a gator for his lunch. After much calling, whistling and hand clapping, we finally got him out of the pond and back onto the cart, dripping water and grinning at us. Realizing we wouldn’t get much in the way of wildlife photos with our current guide, we decided it was time to take Cornbread back home and to have some of his owner’s good cooking for lunch before continuing our exploration. Back at Marshside’s, Beth and Tyler were unloading supplies for a busy weekend in the restaurant, but Beth took time out and made us a delicious lunch of blackened shrimp tacos and steaming bowls of fresh mushroom soup. The soup had finely diced bits of onion, scallions, fresh herbs and fresh mushrooms in a creamy broth, and although I was hesitant (I tolerate mushrooms rather than enjoy them), it turned out to be probably the best soup I’ve ever eaten. The shrimp tacos were served on flour tortillas with coleslaw and melted cheese, with sour cream and salsa on the side. Just the right amount of spice and of course, made with wild-caught, not imported, shrimp. I’m pretty much convinced now that Beth is one of my favorite cooks anywhere. After lunch, Beth loaned us a truck so we could venture further. Time was running short and we still had a lot to see and do. We headed up the island to Freeport Marina, where visitors arrive by ferry from Hilton Head. Colorful cabins are available for overnight guests and the Old Daufuskie Crab Company provides onsite dining, while a general store offers gifts and groceries. From there we took a drive through Melrose, a small golf course community on the beach side of the island. Jodi was disappointed at not getting an alligator picture, and I remembered from my trip to the island last year that there were several ponds in Melrose where gators sunned themselves. We followed the winding road around and stopped to take pictures at the stables where a variety of horses, including paints, Clydesdales and quarter horses, were munching on hay. On the bank of the pond opposite, we saw a baby alligator that couldn’t have been three feet long. We continued on to the beach side where rental cottages face the water, and stopped a moment to watch windsurfers off Hilton Head taking advantage of the breeze. To the south we saw Tybee Light in the distance. Heading back, we finally came across a good-sized gator sunning himself on the bank of a pretty pond. Jodi made me a little nervous as she edged closer and closer to the huge beast to get his picture, but I finally got her back in the truck and safely away! At about eight feet, he was way too big for the two of us to tangle with! We headed back to home base and took Beth’s golf cart again to go visit the island’s oldest full-time native resident, Mrs. Brooks, at her home on the New River, part of the ICW. Mrs. Brooks (her name is Amy as well) welcomed us into her lovely home and showed us to the huge back porch that runs the length of the house and overlooks the river. Her daughter, Cathy, and Jodi have been friends for years, and they caught up while Mrs. Brooks and I talked. Her father worked on the Savannah River dredge and in 1925, bought 54 acres on the island, mostly waterfront, for $1700. Amy Ward came into the world on Daufuskie in November of 1926 and has called it home ever since. She reminisced about growing up on the island when oil lamps were used for light, a wood stove for heat in the winter, and she attended school at the little white schoolhouse. Groceries were purchased at a general store off Bay Street in Savannah, and of course, the family fished and crabbed as well. Cathy added, “She can catch fish all day long!” During prohibition, many island families had stills set up in the woods. They usually knew when the revenuers were due to visit, but one time, Mrs. Brooks recalled, they were caught off guard. “We only had the one jug, but Daddy told my brother to take it out of the house and hide it in the woods. It was early and there was still dew on the grass. The revenuers saw the boy’s footprints in the dew and found them.” Her father was taken to jail in Savannah but was back home before dinner. Her mother asked what had happened and her father said, “They drank all the evidence!” Mrs. Brooks laughed. “If they’d just left it in the closet, no one would have been the wiser, but the dew gave ’em away!” Living on the water has been a way of life for the Ward and Brooks families for decades. Mrs. Brooks told of another adventure she had with her husband some years ago. They were out in their boat and came across a dolphin caught in the line of a crab trap. He was barely able to make it to the surface for air and was clearly struggling. All her husband had aboard was a rusty old knife, and he worried he’d hurt the dolphin trying to cut the line away. Mrs. Brooks told him, “She’s going to die anyway if you don’t.” So she helped hold the dolphin up and talked softly to it while her husband cut away the line leaving only a small scratch on the dolphin. “She swam away a few feet, then came back and looked at us, then swam away a few feet and came and looked at us again. She did that a few times.” It seemed as if the dolphin were thanking them. “I told her, ‘If I were you, I’d go find my mate and tell him you’re gonna’ beat the hell out of him if he ever lets this happen to you again!’” Although I could have sat and talked with Mrs. Brooks for the rest of the evening (“it’s the cocktail hour, you know,” she informed us), as we sat there, we saw our transport motoring up the river and realized it was time to head back. We thanked our hostesses and were invited back to visit any time, and I hope to be able to take them up on that in the near future. Jodi and I made our way back to Marshside Mama’s, where Buddy Lee and Chris Tanner were waiting to take us back to Savannah. As we rode along we discussed how much we’d enjoyed the island: the places we’d visited, the miles of moss-draped dirt roads alongside a medley of modern and older homes and private compounds, the wildlife, peaceful, quiet forests and beaches, and the people – down to earth, friendly, quirky, welcoming, and fun. Six hours simply isn’t enough time to get the full experience of Daufuskie Island. Back at Marshside Mama’s, cold beer was in order while I spoke with Beth and we talked about the island before our time came to an end. It was disappointing to miss the great live music at Marshside’s that night. As we prepared to leave, the band was just arriving and setting up. Spare Parts, a favorite of Marshside regulars, was to play all weekend. But live music is a standard and another good reason to visit again. An overnight trip on our sailboat is definitely in our future, and I look forward to exploring this amazing island again! Must See on Daufuskie: Marshside Mama’s The Iron Fish Island T-Shirt Silver Dew Pottery Silver Dew Winery Freeport Marina & General Store Old Daufuskie Crab Company Restaurant Gullah Cultural Center & Jane Hamilton School Mount Carmel Baptist Church & Billie Burn Museum Three Mile Beach Haig Point Lighthouse Historical Points of Interest: Jolly Shores – home to island legend Billie Burn, who ran a restaurant, served as the island historian, was postmistress for a time, and wrote the book An Island Named Daufuskie. The Mary Field School – a two-room schoolhouse built in 1933, where Pat Conroy taught and on which he based his novel, The Water is Wide. The Undertaker’s House – where Mose Ficklin, the local undertaker, and his wife Sarah Grant, the midwife, lived (it’s said she brought them into the world in one room, and he sent them on to the next in another room of the small house). Mary Dunn Cemetery – deeded to plantation families by plantation owner Mary Dunn with graves dating to late 1700s. The White School – in use from 1912 through 1962, originally built for the white children of the island. First Union African American Baptist Church – built in 1886 and restored in 1998, still in use today.