Hilton Head Island: Steve Earley’s two favorite boats

Mine too. GANNET and SPARTINA.  GANNET is the big one.

Photographs by Steve Earley.

Hilton Head Island: fire

Indian Springs, our condo development, consists of four identical three story buildings constructed on a slight incline.  D Building in which we live is lowest and closest to Skull Creek.  Each building above us is higher and farther back from the water.  A Building has thirty or forty yards of grass in front of it.  The building in the center above is B.

The marsh is having a drought.  Most grass is brown and dry.  Not green.

Yesterday afternoon at around 2:30 I went for a bike ride.  I found a fire truck and another piece of Fire Department equipment in front of B building.  No one was around.  I assumed it was a call, as most are on HIlton Head, due to someone having a health issue.  But when I returned a half hour later, the fire truck was still there and a stream of water was running down the driveway.  

I parked my bike and walked back up.  Three firemen were feeding a hose back onto the truck.  I asked what had happened and was told there was a small fire between buildings, started it was thought by a window in one unit reflecting and focusing sunlight into a hot spot.

As you can see the burned area came close to Buildings B and A.  Only grass was burned.  I doubt the flames were high.  But all these buildings are wood.

A little excitement in the lives of the elderly.

 

Hilton Head Island: unimaginable and inescapable

I thank James for a link to a short video about the unimaginable size of the universe from which I believe inescapable conclusions must be drawn about some of the myths our species have created.

I know that I am repeating myself when I observe that for more than a thousand years we believed that we were the center of the universe, that everything revolved around this planet.  What egotism.  

When Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, got us beyond that, most scientists still believed that our galaxy was the entire universe until just over one hundred years ago when Edwin Hubble saw  a smudge on an image taken by the telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory that he marked ‘Var’ for variable that resulted in proof that there are other galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Now we have videos like this one.  Unimaginable and inescapable.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KIWG6_dAeg0?si=1L2Yuz1YL6pJwDYn

Hilton Head Island: here and there

When I returned to Evanston from Opua in late 2014 I wrote:

                Here a mix of rain and snow.  Temperature 32° and falling.

There 70° and sunny.

Here for breakfast I have uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, fresh blueberries, powdered milk and water and good coffee.

There for breakfast I have uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, dried fruit, powdered milk, and instant coffee.

Here, on weekends, the food is better.  Even during the winter, Carol usually grills something on the small gas grill on our balcony.

During the week the food is about equal.

     Here microwaved Lean Cuisines.

     There freeze dry.

Here there are ice cubes and drinks that should be cold are.  Martinis are sipped.  Wine comes from  bottles and is better.  I drink Laphroaig from a crystal glass.

There gin and tonics are air temperature.  Martinis are unknown.  Wine comes from boxes and isl       lessor.  I drink Laphroaig from a crystal glass.

There Laphroaig costs at least $85 U.S. a bottle and replenishment is four miles distant.

Here Laphroaig costs $45 a bottle and replenishment is a ten minute walk away.

Here I watch sports and movies on television and stream music to five excellent speakers.

There I listen to New Zealand Concert, the national classical music radio station, and stream music to quite acceptable bluetooth speakers.

Here I sit facing a fireplace.

     There I sit facing a companionway.

    Here I live indoors.

     There I live outdoors.

Here I vacuum rugs.

     There I scrub decks.

     Here I am mostly alone and silent.

     There I am mostly alone and silent.

     Here I walk down the hall to shower.

     There I row a couple of hundred yards and walk a hundred more to shower.

Here hot water in the shower is free and untimed.

     There I have to insert a $2 coin in a box to obtain five minutes of hot water.

Here the room does not move.

                There The Great Cabin constantly moves.

                 Here there is constant background noise.

                There is often complete silence.

Here I am surrounded by land and ten million people.

                There I am surrounded by water and a few hundred people.

Here is flat.

        There is all hills.

                Here I walk down and look at empty Lake Michigan.

                There I climb the Opua hill and look down on boats moving about the bay.

                Here are Canadian geese.

                There once were gannets and now are terns, gulls, cormorants—shags to New Zealanders—and a   few ducks.

                Here the Internet is fast.

                There the Internet is not fast and more expensive.

                Here I can buy things with a click and have them delivered promptly.

                There I can’t.

                Here I look out windows at snow, undistinguished buildings, and a cemetery.

                There I stand in the companionway and am surrounded by beauty.

                There I sleep in a sleeping bag beside waterproof duffle bags and a sail bag.

                Here I sleep between sheets beside Carol.  Here has its compensations.

There is good.

                Here is good.

Hilton Head Island: a lamentable trend

 

We were on the southern edge of the storm and only got a little over an inch/3cm of snow.  Flakes began falling slowly late yesterday afternoon and continued until after dark.  This was a storm that moved in from the ocean, not down from Canada as most winter storms do.  

When I woke this morning at 6:30 the temperature was 21F/-6C and the wind chill 5F/-15C.  Now at almost noon it is just below freezing and as you can see the snow has already melted off streets and sidewalks.

However this is the third snowfall since we bought the condo eight years ago.  It snowed that month and it snowed in January of 2025 as well as this year.  That makes three snowfalls in eight years.  The snowfall prior to 2018 was twenty-nine years earlier in 1989.  And according to a local TV station this is the first time since 1917-1918 that Hilton Head has had snow in successive years.

We will be back in the 50sF/low teens C on Tuesday, but I don’t like the trend.