The Marshwalk When the Shrimp Boats Come Home

Myrtle Beach has a boardwalk that faces the ocean and gets all the postcards, but the Murrells Inlet MarshWalk — fifteen minutes south on US-17 — faces the marsh and gets all the locals. The difference is the difference between a stage and a living room.

The MarshWalk is a half-mile boardwalk along the edge of the salt marsh, lined with restaurants whose back decks hover over the creek. I come at five o'clock, when the shrimp boats are heading in and the light on the marsh grass turns everything the color of old copper. The boats move slowly through the channel, their outriggers folded like wings, and the pelicans follow them in like escorts who know exactly where the scraps will fall.

Drunken Jack's is my spot — a multi-level deck with a raw bar and she-crab soup thick enough to stand a spoon in. The crab is local, the beer is cold, and the view across the marsh at sunset includes herons, fiddler crabs, and the occasional dolphin fin cutting the surface with the casual grace of an animal that knows it's the best thing in any room it enters.

The live music starts around seven and echoes across the water in a way that makes every song sound better than it is. The crowd is sunburned families, couples on second dates, and retirees who moved here for the beach and stayed for the marsh, and nobody is in a hurry because the MarshWalk doesn't reward hurry — it rewards sitting still and watching the tide do its work.

Insider tip: Skip the MarshWalk on July Fourth — it's packed. Come on a Tuesday in October, when the mosquitoes have died, the air has cooled, and the marsh belongs to the birds and anyone smart enough to show up with a light jacket and an empty stomach.