Fun in the Sun at Hilton Head Island

There are plenty of things to do while at Hilton Head Island, and Shelter Cove Marina is a good place to be to take advantage of them.  Some events take place right at the marina, such as the Beer Fest that we attended last Saturday.

Shelter Cove is part of the Palmetto Dunes Plantation, which boasts a lovely beach. It's an easy bicycle ride from the marina, or you can take advantage of the free shuttle, the Palmetto Dunes Buggy, to take you there.

We also enjoyed having lunch at Dunes House after a refreshing dip in the ocean.

Or, if you'd rather swim in fresh water, the pool is nice.  It seems to be one of the best kept secrets that it even exists, so you may have it to yourselves, as we did.

In the mornings, we enjoy taking our coffee for a walk around the marina perimeter. But the view is nice from our front deck as well, so one morning we were lazy.

Of course, then we felt guilty for not getting our usual exercise, so we made up for it by washing down the boat, which can be another way to cool off on a hot September afternoon.

We decided to try our hand at catching crabs, which are plentiful here, with mixed results.  On our first try, we caught one crab without claws (which we released to swim another day), one shrimp (which escaped through the wires of the trap), and one flounder!  That was a surprise, but since it was too small to keep, we released it as well.

Finally, we caught a keeper and decided to cook it and eat it. Although it looked fierce as we took it out of the trap, we discovered after cooking it that the shell was actually soft, so it must have shed recently and hadn't hardened up much yet.

Although just one crab doesn't provide much meat, it made a tasty snack.



So, that's a sampling of what we've been doing at Shelter Cove for the last ten days since our arrival. The weather has been sunny and hot during the day with pleasantly cool early mornings and evenings.  The forecast is for rain to come this week, which the area sorely needs.