Sunrise at Botany Bay

Botany Bay Plantation WMA, Edisto Island, SC  © Doug Hickok


A short hike to the boneyard beach at Botany Bay takes you to an almost surreal place, one of a slowly dying sea island forest. Countless years of relentless tides and damaging storms have eroded so much of the protective beachfront that the woodlands are being inundated by the encroaching sea. Yet, the tangle of dead wood and the haunting shapes of stranded trees make for fascinating photography. And, if Long John Silver ever needed an adventuresome place to bury his pieces of eight, or if Salvador Dali ever wanted fresh material for his phantasmagorical landscapes, then the boneyard beach at Botany Bay would be the ideal spot.