The School Bus Boat

Sandy Island is a 9000-acre island of sand dunes in the Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers, at the center of what were once the most extensive and profitable rice fields in South Carolina.  A freed slave purchased part of Sandy after the Civil War and a community of freemen and their families began their new lives at one end.  Today 120 descendants of the original Gullah remain there. The rest of the island is a nature preserve and the island is accessible only by water.

The island originally had its own school, built in 1932 by a benefactor, but it has been closed for many years.   So, the school children take a boat to Pawleys Island to get an education.  The boat that served as the school boat for over 50 years was old and had no access for the handicapped, lacked safety features, and leaked diesel fumes that made the kids sick.

Two years ago, the state provided a brand new customized boat with six benches for passengers, a handicap ramp, four heaters, new life jackets, windows, an emergency exit, and a 90-horsepower motor -- none of which the old boat had.  

The other boats in the photo above are transportation for commuters who leave an old car parked at the landing for the rest of their trip to work on the mainland.  

    

The New Prince Washington cost $120,000.

How would you like this "highway" for your morning commute?

There is no public ferry for the adults on the island. If they don't have a boat of their own, they catch a ride in to Pawleys with a fisherman or boat-owning friend to get to work or appointments.  For the return trip, they sit here to wait until someone with a boat comes along and offers them a ride.  

While it looks like it could be bus shelter in a city, it's at the end of a long, deserted road through the woods with nothing else for miles around, near where we saw the bobcat a few weeks ago.