We are now about as far south in South Carolina as one can be and still be in South Carolina. We are at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. It is nearly 30,000 acres in size. The visitor center and the managed area of the refuge are in South Carolina; a lot of the rest of the refuge is in Georgia. We are about a 10 to 15 minute drive from Savannah.

The managed area of the refuge are former rice fields farmed before the Civil War. The refuge encompasses parts of 13 former rice plantations. The rice fields are now the impoundments, and water levels are controlled for management much as it was once controlled to raise rice. The impoundments and marshes are all fresh water. Saltwater is denser than the fresh water, and when the tide comes in it raises up the fresh water which then can flood the impoundments when control gates are open. At low tide, the impoundments can be drained by again opening control gates. We had learned about rice growing when we visited the Charleston area, but now we are able to see it up close and can better understand how 18th century growers could use the ocean tides as a hydraulic system to create conditions for raising rice.

But I greatly digress. We arrived at the refuge on January 3 and went to work on January 4. The RV site is very modern with a cement pad, and located about a quarter mile from the VC along a fairly new blacktop drive. There are two RV volunteer sites. The other site is occupied by a single guy who does maintenance work, stays for about 6 months, and has been here for a number of years. We are temporarily filling in for the volunteer couple who is on a South American cruise until late February. We did briefly meet them on the 3rd when we arrived.  The site and the VC are located on former paper company land and are in the midst of a loblolly pine plantation.Weyerhauser has a large paper mill close by in Savannah, and there are a lot of trucks hauling tree-length pine on the highways. One has to stay alert...

The major attraction of this refuge is a 4 mile wildlife drive among the impoundments. It is located several miles from the VC and one does not have to go to the VC to get to the wildlife drive. Despite that, the VC does get a fair share of visitors. A slow day is about 30 visitors; we saw some visitor counts of 100 during the holidays. So, it is very much more visited than Santee NWR. It has a gift shop run by a friends of Savannah NWR group. They also supply volunteers to run the VC. So, when they are not filling the available slots, we fill in around their schedules. Otherwise, we are doing a variety of  odd jobs, and more will be said about that in future posts.

We have explored the area a little bit. We did spend a day in historic downtown Savannah and plan to spend more time there. It is a beautiful area, quite different from Charleston. We really liked historic Charleston, and already we are having similar feelings toward Savannah. The uniqueness of Savannah's many small squares of green space dominated by live oaks and statutes of dead white guys really make for a pleasant experience. Well, more on that later, also.