Coastal Pollution

A story in today’s Post and Courier "Pollution from Ships Big Worry" discusses the effects of ships that burn cheap heavy bunker oil on the environment.

Politicians and South Carolina Port Authority Officials have an amazing talent for trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious.

A quote from Byron D. Miller, director of public relations for the S.C. State Ports Authority is a case in point:

"Unlike port cities in California, Charleston meets EPA goals for particulates, the small particles in diesel emissions that are blamed for lung disease and asthma. We are an attainment area, so we don't have some of the issues they have on the West Coast

In other words the ocean wind blows the diesel exhaust to Columbia so Charleston doesn’t have a problem.

Anyone who has traveled to Bermuda or the Bahamas has certainly noticed how clean and fresh the ocean breeze. While neither country has strict pollution regulations, many island streets are clogged with oil spitting smoking two and four cycle scooters and small cars and trucks that would make most state side tree huggers scream and the EPA to produce mounds of reports. Of course the reason the air is clear and clean is Mother Nature supplies plenty wind to give the islands a daily breath of “fresh air” but it doesn’t mean they don’t have a problem.

On days when the wind fails to blow it doesn’t take long and the air might as well be from Mexico City or Tokyo.



Green Turtle Cay in the Abaco Islands had a local trash dump that was becoming a problem. Weekly burning was used to keep the amount of trash in check and a debate raged on for nearly two years as what to do with the expanding mound of trash.

Recycling is not unheard of, as island people reuse just about everything but the trash mountain continued to expand. That was until Mother Nature settled the “what to do” arguments and brought a Hurricane to the islands that swept the 3 acre town dump out to sea, along with many homes and the beer cooler from Niper’s Bar. Twenty years of trash gone at about 130 miles per hour and spread over a million square miles of ocean.

Today rather than build a suitable recycling center and garbage processing facility they just went back to business as usual. Such is the way of the Islands, but I doubt we have that luxury here in Charleston.

Dockside Conversations

In this age of internet blogs, cell phones with global access, text and on line instant messages there’s a nice casualness about a one on one dockside conversation.

At the Charleston City Marina dockside conversations come in many forms. Often it’s about an approaching storm, boating mishap, or the price of fuel. But just as often it’s a position report.

Years ago, word of sailing ships and loved ones at sea circled the docks with each new ship’s arrival in Charleston Harbor. Along the docks of the peninsula scuttlebutt would travel like wildfire, from ship to ship and into local pubs, late into the night. Tall tales and greetings from afar were of equal interest.

Even today among sailors the reports come in like the tide. Though with the internet I talk to my parents nearly every day, the joy of hearing; “I saw your parent’s boat in Green Turtle last week” is always pleasing and just another way we are reminded how small the world really is.

My parent’s boat is in the Abaco Out Islands of the Bahamas this month. Green Turtle Cay (pronounced key) is their favorite place to winter. If you’ve never heard of Green Turtle, well that’s the way Mom and Dad would like to keep it. In fact posting on this blog about “their island” will have me in a lot of hot water.



But I can’t think of a place closer to being true paradise than Green Turtle Cay.

When Southern Comfort makes the trip during the cold months of January and February often it’s tough coming home to a South Carolina that is covered with drizzle and temps that hover around forty.

Green Turtle is pretty much 80 degrees year around. The island is a real life Corona Beer commercial, with cobalt blue sky, pristine sandy beaches that stretch for miles and water so clear you can see a starfish 30 feet down and believe you can reach out and touch it just below the surface of the turquoise blue waters.

And so I’ll pass some time this morning listening to news I already know. That my parents are doing well, their ship though small is in fine shape, and that they send greeting from paradise with a quote from Jimmy Buffet:

“The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful”.