Bulls Island & Boneyard Beach, Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge Guide

Bulls Island is a wild, undeveloped barrier island inside the 66,000-acre Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, and you cannot drive there — the only way over is the ferry from Garris Landing in Awendaw, run by Coastal Expeditions, the refuge concession. The payoff is Boneyard Beach: a mile-plus stretch on the island’s northeast end where the ocean has slowly drowned the maritime forest, leaving hundreds of enormous oak and cedar skeletons bleached bone-white and toppled across the sand, roots to the sky. Behind it there’s no snack bar, no lifeguard, no cell signal to speak of — just loblolly forest, alligator ponds, and a beach so pristine people come for the sand dollars alone. It is one of the most otherworldly places in the state, and the effort of getting there is exactly what keeps it empty.