Lessons learned about taking the Lowcountry for granted

Every so often something happens to me that opens half-closed eyes and shows me just how lucky I am to live in this beautiful place. I am fairly certain that many of you, like me, have become numb to how much the pandemic, election differences and other problems have affected your daily life. It’s just plain stressful.

I have done my best to deal with this stress by wearing masks, limiting time with some of my best friends and getting out on the water as much as possible with my faithful beagle companion, Butterbean. She is great to hang with, but being a very social person, I wake some mornings with the urge to ignore safety protocols and visit friends I miss dearly.

Thus far, I have rarely taken this route. I spend the rest of the day in a funk. My only escape is the ocean, and even then, it is often not enough to pull me free.

In recent articles I have told you how blessed I have been with visits this summer from my daughter and grandchildren, followed by surprise appearances by my brother and sister — but only after we all were tested for COVID-19.

With this rule in place, my wife Karen’s nephews in Houston — JP and his brother, Travis — called, asking if they could visit for a week. They, too, were exhausted by social distancing and pandemic restrictions, so we agreed, as long as they agreed to be tested.

JP, or John Patrick, now in his early 30s, is the same age as my son, Logan. When he was young, he spent part of the summers here with Logan doing kid stuff: fishing, swimming and exploring. As the years passed and they reached adulthood, JP’s visits became less frequent, but I always stayed in touch with him. Travis, his older brother, not so much, but both guys are very bright, with wonderful wit and a sense of humor. And both are avid anglers, even though Houston isn’t known for its fishing opportunities.

They arrived just as the gigantic tides began, throwing a wrench into my plans to get them out on the water as much as possible. With tides averaging between 9 and 10.5 feet, so much flowing water shuts down the bite every time. Add to that strong winds, and most of my plans went right out of the window. Until the wind or tides settled down, I decided to go back to my roots, fishing in brackish lagoons around the area where I could generally catch redfish, an occasional trout, or possibly a flounder.

JP and Travis were in hog heaven as we jumped from lagoon to lagoon. In one lagoon they hooked into big redfish at the same time. But there was one problem: a black scaly hide, a long tail and rows of sharp teeth.

A gator. And that reptile really wanted one, or both, of those hooked fish. Tourists stopped to watch and, per my instructions, every time that gator went for a fish, the guys would free spool their reels so the redfish could dive down. The gator did manage to chomp down on the tail of one big redfish, but I was able to pull it free before releasing it mostly unharmed.

Whether we were shore fishing or in my boat, the guys couldn’t stop pointing out how lucky I was to live in such a beautiful place. After fishing all day, they would sneak down to the dock and fish until midnight as I snored on the couch.

The fishing was far from great — until their last day, when we braved the rushing tide and stiff winds in my little 16-foot boat and hit the mother lode of big flounder, juvenile grouper and a few mangrove snapper.

They also caught two 20-pound loggerhead turtles (a first for me) that were released unharmed. And they had an up-close visit from a manatee.

Travis and JP, who clearly remembered things he saw and did during summers with us long ago, both left saying they would never, ever forget this visit. That alone washed away all my stress and opened wide those half-closed eyes.

I am so lucky.