Beached Buoy

I’m thrilled to report that we made a return trip to Hilton Head for my birthday last month, as planned. Since I don’t want to bore you with another travel post from the same location, I thought I’d go for the photography category instead.

We were ridiculously fortunate and managed to miss ALL of the hurricanes (we even had glorious weather if you can believe it). The island didn’t go unscathed by Irma entirely, but what damage they did experience was thankfully very minimal. However, as evidence of what a powerful force Mother Nature can be, Hurricane Irma plucked a 13,000 pound buoy from its post, tossed it about the ocean, and deposited it eight miles away – right on the very beach we were staying.

I’m quite sure there were many people dismayed by this (with good reason), but I have to say that I was positively thrilled about the photo opportunity it provided. I wasn’t alone in this either. It quickly became wildly popular amongst tourists and locals alike, and it’s a good bet that it will go down in history as the most photographed buoy, given its sudden accessibility. So much so, that you had to wait your turn to pose with it. I don’t even want to discuss how long it took before I could snap an image without people in it. I managed though and was pleased with the outcome.

In all it was a great birthday trip and the beached buoy was just icing on the cake! This vacation was even better than our last since we got to stay longer, and I rented a three wheeled bike (instead of two). – Laugh all you want; I rather liked my adult tricycle and I didn’t fall haha! You can read about our previous trip here if you missed it.

Side note:

If you’d like to read a news article about the buoy, click here.