Jewels of the Marsh

While much attention is justly focused on the endangered, seafaring loggerhead turtle population that nests here every summer, a less threatened cousin that spends all its time on the island also faces threats from habitat loss and human activity. The Carolina diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin centrata), with distinctive circular markings on its carapace, inhabits the brackish waters of our salt marshes and tidal creeks, feeding on crabs, snails, fish, oysters and mussels. It's the only turtle species known to prefer brackish water.

Its attraction to crab pots is one threat, sometimes trapping and drowning the animal. Encounters with motorized boats are another potential cause of mortality. Habitat loss from warming and rising water levels, or from human development along estuaries and inlets, is an increasing challenge for diamondbacks, which are found all along the Atlantic coast from Cape Hatteras to Florida. Although not considered endangered, terrapins are an important indicator species for water quality, with populations all along the coast monitored regularly.

The term "terrapin" is applied to land-based turtles, as opposed to marine species like the loggerhead. Carolina terrapins are active nearly all year round, living in burrows dug in mudflats and hibernating there during colder months. Its shell ranges from gray to a light green or brown, and is marked by concentric growth rings that indicate age, which can be measured in decades. One male specimen found on Kiawah had originally been tagged in the 1980's and was found still active and healthy twenty-five years later.

Like their seagoing relations, diamondback females lay their eggs, starting in late spring, in nests dug in sandy banks above the high tide line, which may bring females looking for nesting sites disastrously in contact with vehicular traffic along roads built too close to the water. The nests are often raided by raccoons, foxes and seagulls.

But the good news is that Carolina terrapins have recovered from near-extinction in the early twentieth century, when their pale yellow meat was considered a delicacy. They were eagerly hunted to supply restaurants and fish markets, bringing high prices that climbed even higher as it became more difficult finding them by digging our their hibernation burrows. Today, although legally harvestable, they're thankfully no longer considered suitable for the dining table and no commercial hunting permits have been issued by South Carolina for many years, allowing populations to rebound.

All photographs courtesy John D. Willson, Virginia Tech Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Conservation.

Name That Storm

Debby may finally be taking her long-awaited leave from the neighborhood, but we're still in peak hurricane season with the National Hurricane Center's prediction of up to 25 named storms this year. Debby has been accompanied by the eastern Pacific Ocean's tropical storms Emilia and Fabio, but for the Atlantic Basin our next named storm will be Ernesto.

The naming system's been around since 1953, although it wasn't until 1979 that the National Hurricane Center began alternating male and female names. The letters "Q", "U", "X", "Y" and "Z", with a scarcity of names beginning with those letters, are omitted from the roster, leaving 21 names to choose from. There are six rotating lists of names for hurricanes, meaning this year's names haven't been used since 2018; but some names attached to particularly devastating storms are retired, so we are not likely to have another Katrina or Andrew or Sandy anytime soon.

Who comes up with these names? That's the job of the Hurricane Committee of the World Meteorological Association, which is part of the United Nations. Member nations can suggest names or ask that names be retired; and during the very busy hurricane seasons of 2005 and 2020, authorized the use of letters from the Greek alphabet when the 21-name list was exhausted. 2020, you might recall, was the year of Hurricane Iota (which did not make landfall on the southeast coast, but battered much of Central America).

Some other storm-prone parts of the world have their own lists of names that would sound familiar in their own neighborhoods. In the central North Pacific, for example, names like Aka, Neki and Unala appear, while Micronesia has Mitag on the list, and the Philippines, Ragasa. And what about the word "hurricane" itself? It comes from the folklore of native Taino peoples in the Caribbean, and the names of two rival sons born to a goddess. One of the sons was so jealous of the other, who had created the sun, moon, plants and animals, that he tried to destroy them with powerful winds. His name was Jurakan.

We hope Jurakan's jealousy doesn't get out of hand this season, but while hoping for the best, be sure and prepare for the worst according to the NHC and local officials. For continually updated information about any pending storms, visit the National Hurricane Center on the web.

Of Privateers and Plunder

The southern end of Seabrook's river beach along the North Edisto river is one of the island's most peaceful spots; but it wasn't always so. Privateer Creek leads off the river here, at what was once known as Privateer Point, and it was here that swift-sailing, shallow draft sloops would emerge to attack well-provisioned vessels heading upriver to deliver supplies to settlers on Wadmalaw and Edisto islands, or ferrying indigo, cotton and timber downriver to Charleston. It was all part of the city's colorful history of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the "golden age of piracy", when Charleston (or Charles Towne, as it was known then) was known for its tavern brawls, street fights, gambling and houses of ill repute patronized by buccaneers and privateers from all over the Caribbean.

Edward "Blackbeard" Teach

Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, actually held the city hostage in 1718 by blockading the harbor for six days, bringing vital commercial traffic to a halt until the city met his demand for medical supplies for his crew - mainly mercury, which at the time was thought to cure the venereal diseases his men had contracted in brothels clustered around the harbor docks. Once supplied, Teach sailed away and never troubled Charleston again.

One of Blackbeard's former allies, Stede Bonnet, wasn't so lucky. Known as the "gentleman pirate" because of his privileged upbringing as the son of wealthy plantation owners, he went rogue for unknown reasons but was swindled out of his own ship, the Revenge, by none other than Blackbeard, who promised to return the ship if Bonnet helped with the 1718 harbor blockade. While Teach sailed away with his mercury, Bonnet was arrested and hung at what is today Charleston's White Point Gardens,

Anne Bonny

More famous still is Anne Bonny who, while a teenager growing up in Charleston, met and married the pirate James Bonny and embarked on an adventurous and violent career - first with her husband, later with her lover, "Calico Jack" Rackham, and later still with Mary Read, another female renegade. Read later died in jail, but Anne Bonny's fate remains a mystery. There's no record of her death and she disappears from history, although one theory has it that Bonny left the Lowcountry to live quietly in the Caribbean.

Stricter and more direct British control of the colonies brought an end to Charleston's pirate era by the 1720's. A marker at White Point Gardens is the only reminder today of those uproarious years, and nothing remains at Privateer Point but the silence of the marshes.