The upside of social distancing: How we’re coping by land and sea in SC Lowcountry

With everyone (except me) nervously tiptoeing out and about, I tried to think if there was any upside to this whole coronavirus mess we are enduring.

Still not comfortable about mangling with the hordes of folks I see heading here in minivans stacked with vacation goodies like bicycles, beach balls and such, I am just fine hanging out at my house and my second home, the deep blue sea.

Until I see if that this reopening brings the numbers of virus cases down, it’s me, my wife, my beagle.

Had it not been for the “stay at home” order, my yard would have been a real mess. On top of that, this has been one of the windiest springs I can remember. Hopefully by the time you read this, my fundraising mahi tournament for the Waddell Mariculture Center in Bluffton, called “Run for the Bulls,” will be in the books after being postponed three times due to this ever-present wind.

So, what is the upside of being able to make it offshore only once through all this? My yard, house and gardens have never looked better!

With me always having been an avid gardener, my wife, Karen, caught the bug big time. She is unstoppable. Even lugging a very heavy backpack leaf blower doesn’t stop her at our property line. Oh no, she blows off the entire neighborhood.

Each year I save seeds from that year’s blooms because I find it way more satisfying starting from seed rather than buying fully grown plants. Between the two of us, we spend all this at-home time weeding, planting, fertilizing, cutting back vines and such and, boy oh boy, has all that hard work paid off.

Many of my annuals still have a way to go before blooms appear, but other plants like our monster angel trumpets, gigantic gardenias and massive column of confederate jasmine are absolutely covered with blooms. Between the sweet smell of the jasmine and gardenias, it’s like walking into a candy factory when I step out the front door.

Our nesting pair of Mississippi kites are back, whistling all day long, and I reckon all the blooms have brought more hummingbirds than I have seen in years. Out on the back deck, they zoom up within inches of my face, hover and squawk at me in that high pitched voice. It’s like they are trying to tell me to get the heck away from their precious nectar. So cool.

As I mentioned, other than one trip offshore, this spring has been a fishing bust. I don’t know if the A-Team meteorologists are also at home because over and over again, offshore trips are planned and in the space of 24 hours, forecasts of 5 to 10 mph winds change to 20 to 30 mph, canceling the trip and hours of preparation.

The one day I did manage to get out, it seemed every boat from the area was out there too. I’m talking 70 miles out and it looked like a parking lot.

Regardless of the number of boats, the dolphin (mahi) bite was hot and the fish were big. We did pick up one wahoo, but dolphin were our target species in preparation for the “Run for the Bulls” tournament.

Fishing with my friend Dan Cornell on his new 60-foot Viking called “Game On,” we missed as many mahi as we caught. After a year off, you tend to get a tad rusty.

But the mahi we caught were spectacular, especially the bulls — the males of the species. The females, or cows, are usually smaller with a rounded head while a big bull’s head is flat like it had run into a wall or something. Strong fighters and aerobatic, they can be quite a handful on rod and reel.

It wasn’t until a day later that Dave Harter told me that the big bulls we catch off our coast are from a group that comes from the eastern side of the Bahamas and travel in the open ocean before hitting the Gulf Stream near us.

In other words, our dolphin are generally way larger than those caught off the Florida coast because theirs come from a group on the western side the Bahamas. Neat fact, huh?

Like you, I am feeling cooped up but until I see that things are getting better, I’ll stick to some fine, rich soil and blue water.

Stay safe, and don’t give up on masks quite yet.

This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 5:30 AM.