Spartina Marine Education Charters

If you want to see and experience the low country waterways and learn about their inhabitants this tour is a must. The 2 hours flew by, we learned about the dolphins and saw an incredible number. Let’s just say greater than 15. as in wow.
We have done kayaking eco tours on Hilton Head several times and were usually left wanting more substance. Well we found Spartina and Captain Amber. It is clear she is one of the lucky people who doesn’t have to work as she followed her passion in marine biology. Her knowledge-​base of the area and her passion for the creatures in the water combined to make a must experience tour.
We will be back to see what the next trip holds as we are certain each is different.

First, some context. I love tours with somebody who REALLY knows their stuff. For walking tours, I’m always right up by the tour guide because I want to hear every word. (I just don’t understand people who spend good money to go on a guided tour and then lag far behind chitchatting with each other instead of paying attention. Why even bother with the tour if you’re going to do that?)
Ok, so how does Captain Amber stack up? She REALLY knows her stuff. And she’s great at explaining it in a sometimes humorous and always interesting manner. And the boat is both comfortable and a perfect size for everybody to be involved. If you’re interested in biology, ecology, and/​or local history, you’re in for a treat.
You can really get a feel for how competent somebody is when something goes wrong, so let me tell you about what went wrong on our tour. A storm with rain and lightning hit partway through our cruise. Especially with the lightning, this meant we had to get off the water. So how did Captain Amber handle this? With calm professionalism. While she was busy doing a show-​and-​tell with fiddler crabs and stone crabs and blue crabs, she was also unobtrusively keeping an eye on the sky. She changed course while the storm was still developing in the distance, and had us back near the dock before the first lightning (still in the distance). She got us all off the boat and walking to the nearby church, so that we entered the church just as the raindrops started to fall around us. Inside, she continued to entertain and inform us while waiting for the storm to pass. When it did pass, it was too late to go back on the water, so she suggested refunding half the tour price, even though she had given us more than half the tour.
Sure, having the tour cut somewhat short by a storm was disappointing, but I have not a single complaint about how she handled it.