Waccamaw River

10/23/08 (click on title for a map)
Today we motored from Barefoot Landing, almost on the N/S Carolina border, down the Waccamaw River to Georgetown, SC. The farther southwest you go, the more cypress you see. These fascinating trees grow out of the swamp from a cluster of conical roots that eventually merge into straight, tall trees with small leaves. Most of them are dripping with Spanish moss. We passed Bucksport, one of Florrie's favorite spots in this Low Country. It is the area that inspired one of the pastel drawings in the slide show on this blog.
Here's an excerpt for Florrie's daily journal: We're moving too fast for me to make on-site drawings but maybe I'll be able to do some from memory. The cypress are spectacular. One old gray tree looked like a wraith with a gossamer cape and billowing skirts striding from the water into the forest. Another looked like an ethereal leaping dancer with her "costume" trailing behind. The moss looked like wafting hair. It was both spooky and beautiful. It took awhile for me to realize that the rounded triangular shape of the woman's heads were actually the abandoned nests of eagles built into the topmost branches of the near-dead trees.
There were also totally denuded cypress snags, trees so long dead they had no bark and were completely light gray. They loomed out of the water with holes big enough to look like tormented eyes and mouths. Limbs reached out like arms, twisted in grotesque positions. These also wore tattered moss "garments" that billowed in the breezes. Old cypress are often hollow so the trunks had deep dark gashes that accented the length. The effect gave the whole scene, even in mid-day, the effect of a forest full of Halloween specters. Imagination could run wild here. It is Tim Burton's Paradise!