Sometimes the Legends are True

We live on an island amidst a myriad of other islands, marshlands, tidal creeks and very near the Atlantic Ocean.  While our town is not the home of a Target, Starbucks, or even a reputable Italian restaurant, it   does lay claim to much beauty.  And where there is beauty there is always mystery.

This is where my story begins.

Cruising through the tidal "creeks" (read: rivers) many of the islands look the same.  Some are large and usually lined by enormous houses with lush green lawns and long docks to house their boats, while some are small and hold only a grove of palmettos raised a few feet above the marsh grass.  There is the occasional marina and the occasional sandbar where you can see the, well, uh, South Carolina "natives" in all of their lawn chairs and beer in the middle of the water glory.  Then, there is Monkey Island.  Yes, you read that right - MONKEY Island.  As it would seem just down the road (well, if you consider a tidal river a road and your boat a car) from our house lies the only free range monkey colony in the United States.  There, about 5000 monkeys live on a beautiful, lush 400 acre island accessible only by boat and ringed with "No Trespassing" signs.  The story goes that they are "grown" for research and that about 500 a year are harvested for these purposes.

Since last month, we have been on "Monkey Quest 2010" just about every weekend, trying to catch a glimpse of said monkeys.  On Father's Day weekend, we saw several but they were too far back in the trees to get a good picture of them.  While my lawyer husband assures everyone aboard that trespassing is only a misdemeanor and that he's not even sure what statute they could prosecute us under, none of us has yet to set foot on the island.  I'm fine not even having a misdemeanor, much less not being attacked by wild monkeys.  This past weekend, we had a little better luck.  While trying to crank the boat back up, (I'll spare the details of potentially being stuck in the middle of nowhere on a boat with two tired and hungry toddlers.  That's a whole other post in and of itself.) we noticed that a curious little fellow had climbed to the edge to observe our potential demise.  Behold:

Although we were tempted to see if the little guy could work our a tow for us, we did eventually get the boat cranked thanks to the mad McGuyver-like skills of the men with us, but we got a good picture of a monkey at last.  I am nearly positive that we'll be back.  Finding monkeys has become a minor hobby/obsession for B these days.  

So, there are monkeys in South Carolina.  Who knew?