Happy Friday, friends! Boy am I glad it’s the end of the week. It’s been one of those weeks where work just hasn’t gone as smoothly as I would have liked, but I’m hoping that means next week will mean some smooth sailing. Isn’t that how life works? We have our ebbs and our flows. Times where all things are moving along like a well-oiled machine, and then we enter into seasons that are filled with obstacles. I was so happy to be able to get away for a vacation, and I’m also lucky to have a job to come back to. Brighter skies are always ahead. Even though work was sub-par, Aaron and I were reliving our time at Hilton Head (and wishing we had a few extra days). You can read all about part I of Hilton Head here.
Today, I’m sharing some of the activities we did during vacation!
Vanishing Island
You don’t think that we went on vacation and didn’t have an activity, did you? If you’ve been reading here any part of time, you know that Aaron and I love to get out and explore new places we visit. I mentioned in my post on Wednesday how the tides in Hilton Head are unique. They switch over every 6 hours – creating some really unique features as a result. One of these are a series of “vanishing islands.” One in particular, dubbed appropriately as “Vanishing Island” is only accessibly by boat for a short window of time (a couple of hours each day).
When we were planning this trip with our friends, we knew we needed some kid-friendly activities. And this activity sounded like it was right up everyone ally. You book a boat tour out of one of the local harbors. Our tour was almost like a private tour because it was us, our friends and just two other families. It’s about an hour boat ride out to vanishing island, and we loved that because you got to see all of the gorgeous waterfront homes. And the boat had a bit of AC I believe?
That’s my view from the boat ride. Just gorgeous water – and gorgeous skies!
Exploring Vanishing Island, Hilton Head
This is Vanishing Island – it was actually kind of large, so plenty of room to explore!
Once you arrive at Vanishing Island, you hop off and explore for about an hour (and before the tide comes back in to cover the island up again). I grew up in California, and going to the tide pools during low tide has always been a favorite of mine. It’s still a favorite activity of mine when I have the chance when I’m home in California. There is something about the ocean – it’s full of unique wildlife and pretty shells. And, the very first thing I saw when I hopped off that boat – was a starfish.
In fact, the closer we started looking, the more star fish I saw. I’ve never seen more starfish in my entire life. The adults – and the kids – had the best time finding starfish, looking for shells and loading those coveted sand-dollars. This was 100% kid-friendly – and 100% adult friendly.
Bestie pic!!! That’s one of my favorite beach cover-ups from Vineyard Vines.
The boat came to pick us up after about an hour. And, we took a little detour on the way back to the harbor. The captain heard of a pod of dolphins at nearby Dafauskie island (we didn’t visit this island, but I want to go on our next trip to Hilton Head – it doesn’t have any cars – just golf carts). Our captains drove us right over to the pod of dolphins so we could see them before heading back to the harbor. Highly recommend the Vanishing Island excursion.
After we docked, we at at San Miguels – a cute Mexican Restaurant at the harbor. It was delicious and a highly recommend if you are at Shoreline Harbor.
Kayaking Hilton Head
It’s no secret that I love kayaking. Aaron and I own one, and it’s something that we’ve always enjoyed doing. So, before we left for Hilton Head, we knew we wanted to get on the water in some kayaks. So, one afternoon while the little kiddos were taking a nap, Aaron, Brent, and I had a few hours of time to make it happen, and we took Layla along with us.
She had never been in a kayak before, and she wanted to go in mine, so we made it happen. Our hotel had a shuttle that would take you within 4 miles of the hotel, so the shuttle dropped us off at Shoreline Harbor for the rentals. Layla and I hopped in a double.
The guys at the dock told us there were manatees that had been hanging out earlier in the day, so I was hoping to see one. Layla had never been kayaking before, but she did great with the paddling. We set out into the water and headed down into a little cove with some other boats and kayaks.
I thought I saw a fish jumping out of water, but realized it was something bigger, so we went closer to explore. We kayaked right into a pod of dolphins. It was the coolest things because they kept popping up right in between all of our kayaks. And – Layla loved it (and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I thought it was pretty cool myself)!
We stayed on the water for a couple of hours, and we headed back in. We stopped in on some of the shops in Shoreline Harbor before heading back to the hotel for some pool time and dinner!
