Folly Beach Part 1 -- beach fun, boats, dolphins, and SHARKS!

I've got lots of catching up to do on our summer travels!  At the end of June, we headed to Folly Beach, South Carolina, to spend a week with our friends the Wallins from New York City (Ross, Andrea, and their kids Emmett (7) and Ruby (4 -- just one week older than Scarlett!).  Our friends the Therivels, who live in Atlanta, recently bought a vacation house in Folly Beach right across the street from the beach, and we were lucky to rent it out for 4th of July week.

Checking out the beach after arriving in Folly after a long travel day.

Silly boy on our first official beach day.

Chris teaching future card sharks* Scarlett, Ruby, and Max how to play "war."  (*foreshadowing!)

Lounging on the awesome wrap around porch.

Scarlett and Ruby (*random aside:  Chris says their names sound like they should be flappers) walking running along the beach to dinner.

Taking a quick break to chat.

The guys bringing up the rear.

After dinner swim.

Push pops on the porch.

Watching the World Cup some random kids' show.

One of the highlights of our trip was a private boat tour with Captain Randy.  We cruised along the backwaters of Folly Island, which are lined with oyster beds and home to lots of bottlenose dolphins.  Where are those dolphins?   

There they are!

We headed out to Morris Island, a small, uninhabited island at the tip of Folly Beach near the entrance to Charleston Harbor, for swimming and shelling.  Morris Island was a strategic location in the Civil War, and was heavily fortified to defend the harbor.  It was the scene of heavy fighting during the Union Army's campaign to capture Charleston, and is best known for the battle immortalized in the film Glory.  Land erosion has destroyed most of the old fortifications on the island, but Captain Randy and his father have found some amazing Civil War treasures there, including tons of ink wells, pens, medals, buttons, and more.  Here's Captain Randy showing Max a Union soldier's button.

Chris and Scarlett (nice glasses) check out Captain Randy's megalodon tooth (an enormous prehistoric shark ... MORE FORESHADOWING.)

The island is home to Morris Island Lighthouse, which was built in 1876, although it is actually several hundred feet offshore, surrounded by water.  Construction of jetties in the late 1800s caused the currents to shift and eroded the island around the lighthouse.

The water stayed shallow for a long, long time -- note how far off the Wallins are and they're still only knee-deep.

Lame artsy shot.

So here's where things got really interesting.  Chris and Scarlett were wading in the water close to shore, while Max and I were hanging out on the beach looking for shells.  I glanced over at the water and noticed two fins, and assumed it was two dolphins swimming together like we'd seen on the boat ride over.  But then I realized one fin was smaller than the other and that they were really close together.  So I yelled to Chris, "Is that a couple of dolphins, or is that a shark?", to which Chris responded, "SHARK!!!"  So at this point, you would probably expect responsible and loving parents to immediately grab their small child and haul ass out of the water.  But that's not what we did.  Instead Chris just stood there pointing at the shark, yelling "SHARK!  SHARK!!!!"  I ran toward the water, but instead of grabbing my first-born child, I grabbed my camera.  And started snapping photos frantically while Scarlett ran out of the water screaming.  

Here's Scarlett fleeing in terror.  If you look in the direction her finger is pointing you can see the shark fin.  In our defense, the shark was probably only three feet long.  So it was like a baby shark.  A sweet, cuddly, harmless baby shark with small, not-very-pointy teeth.  (See?  We're not that bad!)

Here's a zoomed-in shot of the shark's front fin (left) and tail fin (right).  Granted, it was no megaladon, but it was still pretty cool to see.  And we all survived unscathed (well, except for potential emotional trauma ... sorry, Scarlett).

Max was already REALLY into sharks at this point (you may recall this is shark #2 for the summer), but this sighting solidified his obsession.  Well, at least until we went to the Charleston Aquarium later that week and took the kids to a terrifying 4-D movie about prehistoric sea creatures complete with water misters and shaking chairs for dramatic effect that left 90% of the kids in the audience (including Scarlett, Ruby, and Max) hysterical and dashing for the exit about three minutes into it. Parents of the year, right here.