Daufuskie Island, South Carolina
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Daufuskie Island is a residential sea island between Savannah, Georgia and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. It has a full-time population of around 300 and is home to two resorts.
The island's recorded history traces back to Pre Revolutionary War times. The island was home to a sizable population of Gullah inhabitants from the end of the Civil War until very recently. Gullah are the descendants of freed slaves. The 1972 Pat Conroy book The Water is Wide was set on Daufuskie, fictionalized as "Yamacraw Island." The book recounts Mr. Conroy's experiences teaching on the island in the 1960's, when the Gullah lifestyle of living off the crabs and oysters in the Calibogue Sound was threatened by industrial waste.
The island is now split into five parts.
To the northeast is the Haig Point Club, a private, member owned residential club with a small number of year round residents and a fair number of members who maintain vacation homes there.
South of this is the Daufuskie Resort and Breathe Spa. Formerly a private vacation club with an emphasis on golf and tennis, and offering a private residential component, this is now a publicly accessible resort. Further south on the eastern side of the island is Oak Ridge, a small oceanfront community followed by Bloody Point, a private residential community with amenities that are an accessible part of the Daufuskie Island Resort and Breathe Spa.
The western part of the island is unincorporated land, with several dozen residents living in a variety of accommodations, from trailers to beautiful waterfront homes with private docks. This section of the island is often referred to as the Historic District. Visitors can take a tour around this historic portion of the island, with boat transportation available from nearby Hilton Head Island, Bluffton or Savannah on the mainland. Highlights include the site of the Bloody Point Lighthouse, the school where Pat Conroy taught, and the home workshops of local artisans.
The Haig Point Club has its own private ferry service. The Daufuskie Island Club also runs its own ferry service, which is also contracted by the county to provide public ferry services between Hilton Head (Salty Fare Emabarkation Center) and the Melrose Landing on Daufuskie. Residents of the clubs, as well as some of the other residents on the island, use golf carts and bicycles to travel around the island, although there are a handful of cars and trucks on the island. Personal vehicles are not allowed on the Melrose and Haig Point properties.
The Daufuskie Island School is a Beaufort County public school that was built in 1997. It is a very modern facility with wireless laptops for the 14 students. Grades K-5 are taught here with two classrooms of approximately 7 students each. Students in grades 6-12 are transported to the Hilton Head Middle School and High School by a county school ferry. On Daufuskie, these students take a small school bus to the boat at Melrose Landing, travel approximately 45 minutes by boat to Skull Creek on Hilton Head and are then picked up by a bus and taken to the Hilton Head schools campus.
Daufuskie Island is also the home to the International Junior Golf Academy since 2004.
There are two historic lighthouses on Daufuskie Island. The Bloody Point Lighthouse built in 1883 and the Haig Point Lighthouse built in 1873.
