Daufuskie ferry saga continues: boat will embark here instead of on Hilton Head
The public ferry between Daufuskie and Hilton Head Islands won’t embark from the public Cross Island Boat Landing starting Jan. 1 as previously planned.
It’ll temporarily depart from the CC Haigh, Jr Boat Landing, located off US 278 on Pinckney Island. This temporarily puts the embarkation point closer to Bluffton and further from Hilton Head for riders. It also relieves potential traffic and parking concerns voiced by business owners and residents near the Cross Island Boat Landing.
Long term, the Cross Island Boat Landing is still planned to be the embarkation point, according to Special Assistant to the County Administrator Hank Amundson. He said via text that the Cross Island Boat Landing plan fell behind “due to outside factors and would have created too much inconvenience to residents as a temporary, incomplete solution.” He didn’t say how long the county will use the temporary landing.
The county is making the switch less than a month before it is required to comply with a court order to relocate the ferry embarkation site away from Buckingham Landing by Jan. 1. Buckingham Landing served as a temporary embarkation site since Hurricane Matthew destroyed the previous embarkation in 2016.
Last week, when the ferry was expected to embark from Cross Island Boat Landing those near it said they worried parking and traffic problems, which bothered Buckingham Landing residents, might move with the ferry. Additional parking for the Cross Island Boat Landing isn’t complete or on schedule to be completed by the new year either because the county doesn’t own the land yet.
There are about 90 parking spots at the CC Haigh, Jr boat landing at #2 William Hilton Parkway compared to the Cross Island Boat Landing’s 45. Amundson said there won’t be a need for shuttles from Tanger 2 outlets because all the parking will be on-site at Pinckney Island.
Now, the scramble to comply with the court order continues. The county is upgrading the CC Haigh, Jr Public Boat Landing to support the temporary ferry embarkation. The upgrades include “a realignment of the parking to allow for additional vehicular and trailer parking on site, and a reconfiguration of the traffic flow to improve efficiency,” according to a county press release.
This story was originally published December 9, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
