The Creation of Cathalan Island. By Evan Anderson

It was a distant day ago when a daunting task was put upon us. One of the many days paddling on the Edisto, we decided to stop at this luxurious beach. The white sandy beach was dotted with perfectly placed palm trees, great for hammock use. It had a cabana type structure that was utilized for cooking.
One thing caught my eyes above all other things. It was a spit of land in the middle of the river that we could walk out to. With the help of a few other group members, we walked out to the patch of sand and began to analyze this real-estate. We looked at its promising possibility. However, there were dangers as well. The powerful current threatened to erode anything we would think about building.
Ignoring the issue, we decided to address the current when it became more prominent; we began to start building a base wall, expanding the island and closing the water away from getting inside to the part we wanted dry. Once that task was finished we split up the team. We had some gather moist sand from the main beach, they put the sand into the closed off section and began raising the island out of the water.
The others were maintaining the island from the eroding current. Sticks and branches were placed around the island to help block the water from just simply grinding away at the island. Almost there. The final step in defense was an outer barrier that was created to take the brunt of the current. That wall would also need maintaining, however it was very minimal. Creating the outer barrier also created our own tide changes in the water between the island and the barrier.
Now that the island was fairly protected, we decided to look upon our achievement. However, it was missing something, something rather important in fact. Our humble creation was missing vegetation. It looked rather dull after we realized the hard truth. So, we gathered up small green plants and positioned them in good looking spots. Now it looked better, it was still missing something very important though…..
We finally realized it was buildings. We began to gather very small sticks and built several adobe huts upon the island. We also constructed a small little dock. We finally sat up on the beach and looked to our creation in satisfaction. After we left we gained a curiosity of how long the lonely island could possibly last. But we all were glad with the knowledge of building a large island in a strong current was very possible. And now you know too!