For more than 30 years, Coastal Expeditions has taken people into some of the wildest places along the South Carolina coast—paddling tidal creeks, crossing salt marshes and carrying visitors by ferry into Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.
Over time, those experiences also created a responsibility to help protect the places they were exploring.
That idea eventually became the Coastal Expeditions Foundation, founded by Capt. Chris Crolley in 2018 as the nonprofit conservation arm of Coastal Expeditions.
The Foundation started with an effort to help restore Crab Bank, the small but critically important seabird nesting island in Charleston Harbor that had been steadily disappearing from erosion.
Since then, its work has expanded considerably.
Today, the Foundation supports sea turtle and seabird conservation, environmental education, habitat projects, volunteer programs and opportunities to connect people directly with the Lowcountry’s natural environment.
Some of its most important work happens within Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.
Each year, the Foundation helps fund wildlife technicians and college interns who work alongside refuge staff protecting loggerhead sea turtle nests and coastal birds. Since 2018, the organization reports helping protect more than 18,000 loggerhead nests in Cape Romain and funding 26 conservation technicians and interns.
That work is especially significant because Cape Romain contains one of the most important loggerhead nesting areas on the East Coast.
The Foundation also supports protection of seabirds and shorebirds on the beaches and rookery islands where they nest. Much of that work isn’t glamorous. It can mean putting up signs and barriers around nesting areas, monitoring colonies, educating visitors and spending long days on remote beaches protecting birds from disturbance.
Education is another major part of the Foundation’s work.
Coastal Expeditions has been taking students outside to learn for decades, and the Foundation helps make those experiences available to children who otherwise might never have the opportunity.
That can mean putting a student in a kayak for the first time, taking a class onto Bulls Island, exploring a salt marsh or simply giving a child who lives near Charleston’s waterways their first real opportunity to experience them.
More than 100,000 students have participated in Coastal Expeditions environmental field trips, according to the Foundation. Grant-supported programs help make many of those experiences available at no cost to participating students.
The Foundation also created Coastal Warriors, which connects veterans and their families with nature through paddling trips, outdoor experiences and hands-on conservation projects.
There is a common thread running through all of these programs.
The Foundation isn’t simply asking people to protect nature. It is trying to get people into nature first.
That’s an important distinction.
Someone who has watched a loggerhead crawl toward the ocean, stood among thousands of nesting seabirds, paddled quietly through a salt marsh or watched the sun rise over Bulls Island understands the Lowcountry differently afterward.
That personal connection can become one of conservation’s strongest tools.
The Foundation describes its mission simply: keep the Lowcountry wild through habitat preservation, public access to nature and immersive education.
As development continues to transform the South Carolina coast, that mission is becoming increasingly important.
The Lowcountry’s wild places won’t remain wild simply because people love them.
They will remain wild because people are willing to experience them, understand them—and then do the work necessary to protect them.
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