October 31, 2021
On the last day of October, we went kayaking. Jasper led us through the narrow streams that wind through the marshes to the beach where we saw something truly incredible and somewhat frightening, as befits Halloween day. But more of that later.
As we kayaked along, we saw a host of wild life, including a soaring bald eagle and a cute little American mink, which peered out of the rushes before diving into the water and disappearing. As Eve pointed out, with the alligators for bags, belts and shoes and minks for coats and stoles, Kiawah’s not a bad place for those wishing to enhance their luxury clothing collection.
Where the stream met the ocean, we parked the kayaks and went for a walk along the beach.
But the main attraction was the dolphins. While we stood on the beach, four dolphins slowly swam up and down the opposite shore, herding fish toward the beach. And then all of a sudden, all hell broke loose as the dolphins drove the fish up onto the beach where they snatched at the stranded writhing fish. The storks were also apparently aware of what was about to happen, as they hovered nearby and quickly leapt into the fray to grab some fish for themselves. Apparently, this is called strand fishing and Kiawah is one of the few places in the world where you can see dolphins catching their prey in this manner. While we were there the dolphins tried their luck about four times. Click on the following image to see a video of the dolphins in action, taken by our videographer, Jasper.
That wasn’t the only scary wildlife sighting of the day. Back at the house, we saw this lizard, sticking to the kitchen window and creepily checking us out.
Mal and Lauren 