Best Jewelry Store near Isle of Palms, SC

The South Carolina Department of Transportation is asking residents to weigh in on a preferred concept for the Isle of Palms Connector restriping project. At the transportation committee meeting on Feb. 6, Mount Pleasant council members discussed a new alternative concept presented by town staff that includes a larger multiuse path compared to SCDOT’s concepts.

The Town’s concept includes a 14-foot multiuse path on the south side of the bridge (left shoulder when facing Mount Pleasant) with designated bike and pedestrian lanes, a four-foot buffer between the path and traffic and two 11-foot vehicle lanes with an 11-foot median in the middle. The median provides space for emergency vehicles to pass through, and it could be used as an additional westbound lane off of the island for planned special events or evacuations.

“The main change that was proposed as part of that concept was actually to provide a wider pedestrian lane and a wider bicycle lane, separating those uses,” said James Aton, the deputy director for capital projects and transportation for the Town.

At the base of the connector on the Mount Pleasant side, there’s an option to restripe the road to include two westbound lanes leaving the island.

The Town’s concept is similar to SCDOT’s Concept 3, except SCDOT proposes a 10-foot multiuse path with a six-foot buffer and the median between the two travel lanes is 10 feet. SCDOT’s Concept 4 is a mirror of Concept 3 with the bike and pedestrian lane on the other side of the roadway. However, both municipalities favor the bike and pedestrian lane on the south side of the bridge – in Mount Pleasant it allows cyclists and pedestrians to easily access shopping, restaurants and nearby apartments and the Isle of Palms has infrastructure in place to gather pedestrians on that side.

SCDOT presented five concepts in front of the Isle of Palms city council on Dec. 13 and the Mount Pleasant transportation committee on Jan. 3.

SCDOT’s Concept 1 includes a 10-foot bike and pedestrian lane on the south side of the connector, a six-foot buffer, two 11-foot travel lanes with a four-foot paved median in the center and a 10-foot shoulder on the north side of the bridge. Concept 2 is a mirror of Concept 1.

The first four concepts presented by SCDOT do not add capacity to the connector. On a typical travel day, the center median lane or shoulder lane would be used in emergency situations, whether its drivers pulling over for an emergency vehicle or first responders moving an accident out of the way. It would not be used for travel except for planned special events.

Concept 5 presented by SCDOT creates two westbound travel lanes leaving the island to help reduce travel time on the bridge, especially during the busy summer months. This concept includes the 10-foot multiuse path with a five-foot buffer area on the south side of the bridge.

Another option is to leave the current configuration as is. The Isle of Palms Connector was restriped early 2021 to provide more safety for cyclists and pedestrians. The existing configuration includes bike and pedestrian paths on each side of the bridge in a single direction with a 3.5-foot buffer on each side. There are two 11-foot travel lanes with a 4-foot paved median in the center. Additionally, the speed limit went from 55 to 45 mph.

“The benefits of that [configuration] is you’re separating direction of travel for bikes and pedestrians, sort of improving the overall safety of the interaction of those users,” said Aton.

The main goal for revisiting the restriping, initiated by the City of the Isle of Palms, was to assess emergency vehicle response times and find a solution for traffic leaving the island. Police and fire chiefs for both Mount Pleasant and the Isle of Palms said there have not been any issues getting emergency vehicles through the connector and there have not been any delays in response times.

“It’s not something we’ve seen as an issue,” said Mount Pleasant Fire Chief Mike Mixon, “but [a median lane] would keep the cars from having to move to the side.”

The SCDOT survey opened Jan. 17 and closes after 30 days. To provide input on SCDOT’s five concepts, visit http://bit.ly/3YJMtOZ.

Seven Lucy Beckham High School student athletes signed letters of intent to play their sport at the collegiate level.

“I have the privilege to be around these student athletes who have worked hard at all those practices,” said Athletic Director Scott McInnes at the signing ceremony on Feb. 9. He acknowledged the sacrifices the parents of student athletes make throughout the four years.

Each coach shared a few words about the athletes, plus the athletes had an opportunity to thank family and friends for helping them reach this goal.

Baseball

Lane Lockhart — University of South Carolina Union

Football

Malachi Coakley — Union County

Tierell Milligan — St. Andrews University

AJ Kut — The Citadel

Jack Weil — The Citadel

Track & Field

Allison Kammer — University of South Carolina Upstate

Sam Seifert — The Citadel

Bishop England High School hosted a signing day ceremony on Feb. 1 to celebrate nine athletes who committed to playing sports in college. The student athletes took the stage individually with their parents and coaches as their high school sports accomplishments were recognized.

Swimming

Lindsay Burbage — University of Massachusetts

Matthew Piccard — Virginia Military Institute

Softball

Adelaide Coyle — Erskine College

Football

Tommy DiLiegro — Wofford College

William Poole — Gardner Webb University

Charlie Ranney — Bates College

Track & Field

Maggie Long — Anderson University

Rowing

Sophia Savage — Fairfield University

Baseball

Asher Western — University of South Carolina Beaufort

Football

Zach Hagedon — Old Dominion

Timmy Castain — North Greenville

Swimming

Ben Hutson — Converse College

Gabe Grimm — Lees-McRae College

Soccer

Beck Dean — Furman University

Soccer

Turner Orvin — Johns Hopkins University

Soccer

Maile Merklein — University of South Carolina Lancaster

Three more Mount Pleasant high school athletes committed to play college sports on Dec. 21 by signing their letters of intent.

Wando High School’s Mikey Rosa committed to playing football at the Citadel. The team captain and linebacker was selected to play in the 2022 Shrine Bowl and was named the 2022 Shrine Bowl Defensive MVP.

“Mikey is a remarkable young man. He checks all the boxes when it comes to character, leadership and being a teammate. Mikey is a leader on the field and off always willing to lend a hand to whoever may ask,” said Wando coach Rocco Adrian.

Two Oceanside Collegiate Academy football players also signed their letters of intent. Vaugh Blue signed with Liberty University, and Monroe Freeling committed to the University of Georgia. Freeling is the number one college prospect in the state for the class of 2023.

Flatland Cavalry’s in the studio, which means new tunes are likely coming soon.

They shared a teaser straight from the studio in Austin, Texas yesterday, along with a clip of a new song where you can hear them discussing the tempo and tracking of it in the background:

“How’s that feel tempo wise?”

And it sounds like Flatland frontman Cleto Cordero responds:

“I think it’s glidin’ along.”

They shared the clip along some of the lyrics in the caption, as well as hinting that their fourth studio album is in the works:

“I can see the new day through the promise in your eyes #FC4.”

Of course, it sounds great, and I can’t wait to find out what’s in the works:

I can see the new day through the promise in your eyes #FC4 pic.twitter.com/jAHO0OxUf3

— Flatland Cavalry (@FlatlandCavalry) March 6, 2023

Stay tuned… I have a feeling there’s much more to come soon rather than later.

The Flatland boys most recently released their Songs to Keep You Warm EP last fall, and put out their third studio album Welcome to Countryland in 2021.

They’re also gearing up to hit the road on their extensive North American Tour 2023 trek, along with a slew of fantastic openers, including Cole Chaney, Colby Acuff, and The Steel Woods, in addition to opening a few shows for Luke Combs on his world tour this year.

“If We Said Goodbye”

FLATLAND CAVALRY NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2023 DATES:

2/24 – College Station, TX # 2/25 – San Antonio, TX 3/23 – Austin, TX 3/24 – Houston, TX ” 3/25 – Arlington, TX * 3/30 – Lexington, KY $ 3/31 – Grand Rapids, MI & 4/1 – Indianapolis, IN * 4/7 – Lubbock, TX ” 4/8 – Newcastle, TX 4/13 – Ashville, NC % 4/14 – Athens, GA % 4/15 – Nashville, TN * 4/22 – Detroit, MI * 4/25 – South Burlington, VT % 4/26 – New York, NY % 4/27 – Alexandria, VA % 4/28 – Charlottesville, VA % 4/29 – Pittsburgh, PA * 5/4 – Columbia, MO @ 5/5 – Chicago, IL @ 5/6 – Chicago, IL * 5/11 – Hays, Kansas ! 5/12 – Omaha, NE * 5/13 – Minneapolis, MN * 5/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ 5/20 – Boise, ID * 5/24 – Portland, OR @ 5/25 – Spokane, WA @ 5/26 – Tacoma, WA @ 5/27 – Vancouver, BC * 5/28 – Palmer, AK 6/3 – Edmonton, AB * 6/8 – Fort Smith, AR ** 6/9 – Wichita, KS * ** 6/10 – Kansas City, MO * 6/15 – Columbus, OH ** 6/16 – Cincinnati, OH ** 6/17 – St. Louis, MO * 6/22 – Little Rock, AR $ 6/23 – Oklahoma, City, OK $ 6/24 – Luling, TX $ 7/6 – Isle Of Palms, SC ** 7/7 – Orlando, FL ** 7/8 – Tampa, FL * 7/13 – Montgomery, AL ” 7/14 – Huntsville, AL ^ 7/15 – Charlotte, NC * 7/20 – Buffalo, NY $ 7/21 – Cambridge, MA * 7/27 – Norfolk, VA ** 7/28 – Richmond, VA ** 7/29 – Philadelphia, PA *

Supporting Acts

# Connor Smith & Megan Patrick % Cole Chaney @ Colby Acuff ! Grady Spencer & The Work << Brent Cobb ** Pony Bradshaw + The Steel Woods $ Emily Nenni * Supporting Luke Combs ^ Supporting parker McCollum ” Support TBA

Swaths of uninterrupted white-sand beach, the smell of salty spray, warm sun on your skin, and the rustle of palm fronds gently blowing in the wind—these are the sights, sounds, and scents of Isle of Palms. The South Carolina barrier island packs a lot of relaxation and big fun into a vacation destination that's just seven miles long and one mile wide. The island's proximity to Charleston (just 18 miles by car), make it a preferred summer hideout for locals. An abundance of vacation rentals and the iconic Wild Dunes resort have been drawing visitors from across the country since the early 1970s.

With the deep blue Atlantic on one side and marshy creeks of the Intracoastal Waterway on the other, Isle of Palms offers the best of the Lowcountry and the beach in one stunning setting that's begging to be added to your vacation calendar.

Six of Isle of Palms' seven total miles are occupied by public beaches, which means you'll have your pick of the litter when looking for a sandy spot where you can post up for the day—or the week. Once you've staked your claim, all the normal beach activities are yours for the choosing, from splashing around in the surprisingly calm seas to building the ultimate sandcastle or playing a game of beach volleyball. For families, the Isle of Palms County Park, located in the middle of the island's coastline, is ideal. The public beach has lifeguards, outdoor showers, chair and umbrella rentals, restrooms, and even a playground for little ones retreat to once they tire of the sun and surf.

Make the most of a visit to Isle of Palms by scheduling a charter to take you offshore. Get your sea legs at the Isle of Palms Marina, where you can easily rent a boat and spend a day exploring the island's bays and waterways. Fishing charters are plentiful and offer both reef fishing and Gulf Stream fishing. For adventure enthusiasts or wildlife lovers, Barrier Island Eco Tours hosts a range of naturalist-guided tours that take visitors through winding salt marshes, tidal creeks, and the Intracoastal Waterway on the way to uninhabited Capers Island. Animals you might see along the way include loggerhead turtles, bottlenose dolphins, and every shape and size of coastal birds.

Breakfast is noteworthy at Sea Biscuit Café. The tiny beachside shack has been dishing out delicious morning meals since 1968. While they offer all the classics, the daily specials are where the magic happens. Past offerings have included chocolate banana challah French toast, lemon lavender pancakes, and tomato pie.

When you need a mid-day refuel for the whole family, Coconut Joe's is the obvious choice. Located on Isle of Palms' main drag, you won't have to venture far to get fresh seafood and impeccable vibes. The open-air covered deck is the ideal spot for munching on the restaurant's namesake shrimp, while rocking sandy toes and sun-bleached hair. When happy hour hits, venture to the rooftop bar for a frozen cocktail or painkiller. Nothing will put you on island time faster.

By the time you're finally ready to come in from the sun and go out to dinner, Isle of Palms will be waiting with plenty of options. The Boathouse and Acme Lowcountry Kitchen are island staples that have stood the test of time thanks to excellent quality food and good old-fashioned Southern hospitality. For a special night out, try Coda del Pesce, a fine dining restaurant that specializes in Italian with lots of influence (and fresh catch) from the nearby seas.

All trips to Isle of Palms must include at least one visit to The Windjammer at Front Beach. The legendary local music venue is known for its incredible live shows, stellar views of the water, cold drinks, and unbeatable fried pickles.

The obvious choice for places to stay in Isle of Palms is Wild Dunes Resort, a 1,600-acre family-friendly resort that offers everything from rooms and suites at two inns, to private beach condos and home rentals. In addition to a more-than-comfortable stay, the resort also features several resort-style pools, a spa, and two championship golf courses.

If you're hoping for a cozier stay, the newly renovated Palms Oceanfront Hotel consists of 68 modern rooms with gorgeous views of the sparkling Atlantic. There are also plenty of rentals through Airbnb and VRBO for everything from multifamily waterfront homes to one-bedroom condos.

Whether you book for a long weekend or stay for an entire week, the memories and magic of Isle of Palms will stay with you for months and years to come—maybe even until you have a chance to make another trip back!

The City of Isle of Palms is holding the first of two public hearings to discuss limiting future development and protecting the golf courses in the Wild Dunes p

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - The City of Isle of Palms is holding the first of two public hearings to discuss limiting future development and protecting the golf courses in the Wild Dunes planned development district on Tuesday.

The discussion stemmed from a 1975 agreement that would make it possible for there to be over 300 more rooms built in the Wild Dunes between hotels and condos.

According to Mayor Phillip Pounds, it all started back in February when a group of residents asked the council to take a look at the decades-old agreement to see if they could make some changes. Anthony Santiago says he was one of those residents.

“We thought we were developed already after The Sweetgrass Inn,” Santiago said. “We don’t even have parking for that. And then through the due diligence we discovered the capacity to expand this more than double.”

Santiago and others who are against future development in Wild Dunes say that more development would overwhelm public safety and public works resources, cause more drainage and sewage issues, and make traffic and parking on the island more of a nightmare.

“Every city municipality has the right to rezone as you develop,” Santiago said. “This is almost fifty years ago when we did this. Nobody thought we’d be as big as we are.”

The Isle of Palms City Council now has five ordinances up for discussion that would preserve public and private facilities and put a cap on density in the planned development district.

Beverly Miller is the executive director of the Barrier Island Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit formed to address challenges unique to the barrier islands. She said she wanted to show support for the ordinances through a petition. It now has over 750 signatures.

“When that was written, this island was erratically different, and it’s so different now that we need to amend those zoning ordinances so that we are up to today and the demands that are on the island today that were not here in 1975,” Miller said.

Pounds said the Wild Dunes agreement was one of the first of its type in the country.

“Unusual maybe, but as areas get built out there’s certainly an opportunity for cities to revisit the zoning and the density and the future development,” Pounds said.

Pounds said the city has received many phone calls and emails from concerned residents worried how much the island could take. He says there’s confusion about the slow process, but he says with the public hearing, that will stop development even though they aren’t completely through the process.

“When you’re on an island where you have such little landmass to develop anything, the ability to put 300 plus units in Wild Dunes today, I don’t even know where they would put them because there’s not that kind of landmass,” Pounds said. “But some of the concern was, could they do something on the golf courses, could they do something on the tennis courts. That’s some of the ordinance that we’re looking at during this process is protecting those areas.”

Tuesday’s public hearing will take place at Isle of Palms city hall at 5 p.m. Another public hearing will take place Nov. 1 at 5 p.m. at the city’s recreation center. The city’s planning commission will take a look at the ordinances and give feedback to city council. Then, it will be up to city council to schedule a second reading which would solidify the ordinances.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

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When Joan Conover arrives at Fiddler’s Green, the promised land for departed mariners, she’ll look back on an Earth better for having sailed it.

Long before she took the helm of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, Conover was practicing one of SSCA’s founding principles: Leave a clean wake. On board, on land and on the airwaves, few have done as much as Conover to marshal the better angels of our privileged fleet.

On her first trans-Atlantic in 2005, she and her daughter, Christina, took daily dips of marine life—160 samples—all the way to Portugal. They froze and shipped them to Old Dominion University to establish an oceanwide baseline to gauge signs of degradation. Christina, a high school graduate at the time, became an oceanographer.

In the years since, amid 35,000 cruising miles, Joan and her husband, Greg, have helped organize sailors to improve lives, harbors, and communities in Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and Dominica, all tropical destinations that suffer from storms, flooding, bad sanitation, poverty, poor health, and the social and environmental impacts of yachts.

In 2007, some 11 years after joining SSCA, Joan took over administering Clean Wake, a program that SSCA’s founding sailors created to promote environmental and social stewardship. Joan has made the program a core focus of her presidency. “I liked their philosophy, written before many of the green or climate-change issues were raised,” she says. “It was obvious you need to protect the Earth because we have a tendency to mess things up.”

Joan first went to sea as a 12-year-old girl, crewing on her Norwegian grandfather’s salmon fishing boat in Puget Sound. “I’m not afraid of big seas—not if you’ve been in an old leaky wooden trawler,” she says. After marrying Greg, a US Army tank officer, they adopted Josh, a special-needs child who found water comforting. When Greg was assigned to Fort Hood, she told him, “I’d like to get a sailboat because it would be a family activity we could all do—in the middle of Texas,” she recalls. “Greg, who had not sailed before, called it ‘the craziest thing.’ Two weeks later, we had a sailboat. Josh loved it.” Stillhouse Hollow Lake, a reservoir that borders the base, was ideal for their 22-foot daysailer.

When Greg was reassigned to the East Coast, they bought a used Morgan 41 and got their sea legs on Chesapeake Bay. In 1989, they used $50,000 in cash to trade up for a 1976 Morgan Out Island 51 that Hurricane Hugo had tossed around in the Isle of Palms Marina in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Let me tell you: A 1970s shag carpet is not good on a boat,” she says. “It was orange and green. You’d get seasick when you came in.” They renamed that boat after a colorful, disheveled character in the musical Cats.

But it was built like a tank, and so roomy that it had a tub. Growltiger underwent a major refit: a 700-gallon-a-day watermaker, a washer-dryer, an autopilot, a generator, big house batteries, an electrical system and running rigging. Then, in 2005, they set out on a trans-Atlantic with their two college-age children and a mate. Over the years, they’ve rebuilt the engine, replaced ports with stainless steel, and replaced the hatches, sails, standing rigging and, more recently, the entire deck. The tub, Joan hastens to add, is used to stow stuff.

With a home port in Hampton, Virginia, and healthy retirement and savings accounts, the Conovers have been sailing back and forth seasonally to the Caribbean for 15 years. Josh and their Havanese show dogs go with them. But unlike most cruising conversations that focus on Caribbean delights, a talk with Joan is peppered with good deeds they’ve had a hand in.

There are the moorings in Dominica’s Prince Rupert Bay to reduce coral destruction. And the water filters, paint, shovels, stoves and a braille keyboard for a blind boy in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. The boat acted as a “pickup truck” to ferry supplies from Antigua to Dominica after Hurricane Maria. When a 2010 earthquake devastated Haiti, Joan used the internet, cellphones and her ham radio to coordinate sailors who traveled there to help.

Joan is a plain-spoken woman with a broad smile who describes poor children as kindred souls. “They should be in advanced-degree programs,” she says, “and you know that’s not going to happen.”

Back home, her tall SSB radio antenna behind the house beams communications with SSCA’s port hosts worldwide. And every fall, as cruisers gather around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, before heading south, she becomes a mother hen/drill instructor/tech expert to keep them safe. As a patent-holding systems engineer who is facile with radios, weather and terrain, she briefs rallies and then stands by to respond to inevitable calls for help.

Every year, boats set sail with new-to-them equipment—what she calls “wonderful little toys from a boat show”—that she helps troubleshoot from her radio room. “I decided my give-back was to help people stay connected, if that meant the best satellite or tracking system, be it Iridium, inReach, Zoleo, Starlink, SSB, PredictWind—whatever they had—to make sure they could stay in touch. I don’t think people realize how important it is from Hatteras down to the Virgin Islands to at least be in touch, or be tracked.”

At 74, Joan says she’s getting to the end of her sailing years, and she’s working to pass the Clean Wake philosophy to a new generation of cruisers.

“I guess it’s the human drive,” she says. “A lot of us have it. Some don’t. If we didn’t have a focus of going in and finding what we might do when we arrived in port, I don’t know that I would be interested in going. I don’t go just for the passage. I go for the experience after you get there.”

For a list of sanctioned SSCA Clean Wake projects, visit ssca.org.