My Folly Comfort Zone
It’s a crazy world out there, sometimes you just need to get to your happy place
Mostly, I hated the total absence of sunlight. I also didn’t care for the separation from home. Time under the water aboard a submarine was little more than a waiting game. I waited for my watch to end. I counted days until we returned to Charleston. We waited for the fateful order to annihilate the enemy.
In November of 1980, I reported to the Sub Group Six office at the Charleston Naval Base. Sitting in the office were two acquaintances from Nuclear Power School. I ended up tagging along with them to share a front beach house on Folly Beach. I don’t remember my first drive out from Charleston. I don’t remember driving across the causeway, surrounded by a November-brown marsh. I just remember being there, looking out across the 6th street beach that disappeared every high tide. I remember the gray sky, brown sand, and murky brown water. Soon I learned to surf.
For Folly Beach in November of 1980, tourist season was over. Cheap off-season September-to-May rentals were plentiful. Off season, the traffic light at Ashley Avenue and Center Street flashed yellow. There was no Holiday Inn or Tides. Instead, in 1980, rooms were offered at the Holliday Inn. Folly had no yogurt shop or laundromat. In 1980, surfers flocked to The Washout, but the sixth street break was usually unoccupied. In 1980, Greg Eliot had just turned pro-surfer, but Vernon Knox was not yet ready to become councilman or Mayor. For groceries, one chose between Chris and Jerry’s (now Bert’s), Turtle’s Corner (now Follywood and the Drop-In), and Monk’s Corner (now St. James Gate). Sunday beer came as a brown-bag 12-pack from the Sand Dollar. Scrambled eggs and black coffee at the Sanitary Restaurant washed away a Sunday morning hangover. The town was quiet.
In 1980 (like now), Folly took in everyone, including sailors. A small contingency of sub sailors lived on Folly Beach back then. We blended in, living just like Folly humans. Folly Beach, always ambivalent, didn’t save the foolish or coddle the famous. Life on Folly came with no expectations. Folly Beach regularly swallowed the unwary.
On my 5th and final submarine “boomer” patrol, I became the bridge phone talker. Standing in the conning tower, passing the captain’s orders below, I sailed into Charleston. Dolphins rode the submarine bow wake. Off to the south, I spied the Morris Island Lighthouse. I smelled the salt marsh as murky brown Cooper River water washed over the sonar dome. This time, I came home for good.
Anton DuMars, a Folly resident since November of 1980, once sailed on ships that sank on purpose. The nightmares have almost stopped. S/V Spartina returns, mid-December, after refit in the Chesapeake. To book a sailing charter, email Anton at sailspartina@gmail.com.
