Spring Blooms continue

Tulip Garden

Violas in Sculpture Garden

Magnolia Trees

Straw Flowers

Double Tulip

Brookgreen Gardens is a place to see

Spring Blooms

Our visit to Brookgreen Gardens

Display of blooms in the garden today

Poppy
Violas

Red Camellias

Old Man Sculpture

Narcissus Cluster

Oak Garden

Daffodil

Narcissus

Tulip Garden

Just a little of what we saw

This morning

I drove Paul to the Tupelo Bay Golf Centre in Garden City. He was meeting our South Carolina friend, Don, for his first round of golf, with his new clubs.

The early part of their day was sunny, but they did get a little wet with a late afternoon shower.

So what does a woman do while her man plays golf - she shops. I spent a couple of hours twacking. I also took time to enjoy some of the spring blossoms in the area. These pear trees are in bloom all over the area and are absolutely beautiful.

I later visited with Irm while the men golfed and then she treated us all to a nice home cooked meal of meatloaf and veggies. They are a lovely couple and have treated us with much kindness during our time here.

Tonight, Paul and I said good bye to Irm and Don, until next year as we sadly leave here at the end of this month.

Ocean Isle & Sunset Beaches, North Carolina

A couple of weeks ago Paul and I made a trip north across the border to North Carolina. Our first stop was Ocean Isle Beach. We had hoped to find some treasures on this beach, but no luck so we enjoyed a leisurely walk. It was a sunny day with just a little wind. One of the nicer days we have enjoyed during our stay in the Carolinas.



We visited the Museum of the Coastal Carolinas in Ocean Isle Beach. Although it was not open for visitors at the time, the ladies working there were kind enough to turn on the lights and let us walk through to see the exhibits. I enjoyed the shell displays, part of which is shown in the picture below and the fish tank. Although a small museum, it is well worth a visit.


Our next stop was at Sunset Beach, only a few minutes drive from Ocean Isle Beach. We found this area to be more nature and less populated which we prefer. We took the boardwalk to the beach and enjoyed a long walk.

Paul and I really like this tall grass and love to watch it blowing in the wind. It grows in clusters all over the area.

These are some of the beach houses along the waterway at Sunset Beach. A lot of them have rooftop decks to get a better view of the ocean.

On our drive back to Surfside Beach we stopped in Calabash, North Carolina for dinner, which is named the seafood capital of the world.

I still feel that our seafood at home in Beresford is high on the list of the best.

Our Sea Shells

A fun pass time for us this year here in South Carolina has been finding seashells. When we arrived here at Surfside Beach in January we joined the Grand Strand Shell Club, attended their monthly meetings and signed up for a shelling trip to Raccoon Key. We hope to take another trip to Bull Island before we leave at the end of this month. We have shells all around our condo and now have the difficult task of selecting the ones we can keep, which will not be easy as they are all special.

We would like to share some of our finds with you. This pail holds some of our finds from Raccoon Key - whelks, channel whelks, and sand dollars. I have over 50 sand dollars from that one trip and one very special sand dollar that Paul found for me on Valentine's Day on our beach walk.

Sand Dollars

Whelks

Lettered Olives

Starfish, Pen Shell, Scotch Bonnet (rare), Sea Urchins

Angel Wings, Tulips, Channel Whelks, Nutmeg & Nassa Shells

Cockle Shells

Paul also found this Horse Conch which still needs a little cleaning but a rare find.

Raccoon Key Shelling Trip

When Paul and I came back to Surfside Beach this winter we joined the Grand Strand Shell Club. We met Irm and Don who live here in Murrell's Inlet and they asked us to join them on a shelling trip to Raccoon Key. I met Irm last year at the Can-Am Days and was very impressed with her sea shell crafts, which included beautifully-made shell gift boxes.

This past Sunday we drove with Irm and Don to McClellanville, South Carolina to meet up with about 30 enthusiastic shellers and take the boat to Raccoon Key.


Aboard the boat here Irm is looking at some of the shells and fossils that have been collected on earlier trips. Don and Paul are looking on.

The boat ride is about 40 minutes and along the way our Captain, Chris (who is a honorary Newfoundland) stopped at Bird Island for us to see the pelicans and other birds. We are very lucky to see a pod of dolphins playing in the cove.

It took Captain Chris a couple of attempts to find an area for us to dock the boat so we could get off without getting wet feet. Although it was a sunny day, it was rather cool and not a day to be wet. Everyone is anxious to be the first off the boat so they can quickly look for the best shells. Sometimes the mud can be like quick sand, called pluff mud, so it is not always best to be the first one off. This trip we landed on solid ground. We arrived at 11 a.m. and Captain Chris returned for us at 3 p.m.

There are regulations governing how many shells that be taken off the beaches here so we were told that we were only allowed a bag each. Some people were armed with 5 pound pails, carts, etc. Paul and I had a couple of bags and a small pail. Here you can see some of the shellers busy collecting treasures. As our pail was small, it was filled quickly with many whelks, although my aim was to find sand dollars.

After a couple of hours shelling, we found Don sitting on the dune. He had collected a tub of sand dollars for me. Up to this point I had only found five, while some of the ladies had tubs and tubs of them. Jackie also gave me several and pointed me in the direction of where to find them. Paul and I were the amateurs on this trip. This was also our lunch spot. Unfortunately Don's lunch was down the beach with Irm.

I was very happy with all my treasures that I found during the day and while waiting for Captain Chris to return for us, I still had to look for one more sand dollar, and happily found it.

Paul and I enjoyed meeting all the shellers and it was a very enjoyable day. The beach area of Raccoon Key was so untouched and there were shells everywhere. Paul did find several channel whelks which are a little rare and I found a slightly broken scotch bonnet which is also rare.

This bucket shows just some of the whelks, channel whelks and sand dollars that we found.

We would like to thank Karen for organising the trip but more so thank Irm and Don for inviting us to go along. They have made us feel very welcome here.

We hope they will visit us in New Brunswick some time.