LOWCOUNTRY ODYSSEY

Veteran journalist JOHN HUEY steps off the deck of his South Carolina coastal home to explore the tide-borne heart of the legendary region by boat

I have called the Lowcountry home for 24 years. My wife and I live about 20 miles southwest of Charleston on a sea island named Wadmalaw. Our house got its start as a shrimper's shack and sits atop a bluff overlooking a weathered commercial dock on a deepwater creek. Beyond that lies a half mile of teeming salt marsh, giving way to the mighty North Edisto River just above where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Further on lies Edisto Island, over which we watch the sun set.

Like many homes in this low-lying region of the South Carolina coast, our yard is dominated by grand old live oaks draped in Spanish moss, as well as pecans, magnolias, giant camellias and azaleas, and, of course, palmettos. We take most of our meals on the porch, where we can see and hear what's going on in the creek below. Dolphins-huffing along the creek at each change of the tide-are the primary attractions. Brown pelicans stage dramatic air shows diving into the water. If we crave blue crab, we stuff some turkey necks into a couple of traps, throw them off the dock into the creek, and wait a tide or two. We buy fresh shrimp off the boats just around the bend.

We are visited by eagles, hawks, osprey, pileated woodpeckers, buntings, herons (blue and green), laughing gulls, egrets, and crows almost every day. Then every night mink, sea otters, raccoons, possums, marsh rats, and deer thwart much of our gardening and bird feeding efforts.

At low tide, the pungent aroma of pluff mud dominates any scent more delicate than, say, deep-frying something outside. When the wind dies down, the mosquitoes and tiny flies known as no-see-ums assault us in swarms. When the wind rises to the point of acquiring a name-like Matthew or Irma-we board up and head for the hills. This is the Lowcountry I know and love, and yet...