This blog entry is not so much about the picture above as it is the contents of the picture in the lower section that I will addressing. In the above photo, you will notice what appears to be a 2-story shack on a barge or in this case a pontoon. This is the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge in North Carolina just before you enter into South Carolina. Yes, in 2010 this country, with all its progress, can boast that we have a primative 19th century pontoon bridge to permit single lane traffic to transit over the ICW. We took this photo on November 2nd. November 11th was the last day of operation for this "bridge" to be replaced by the new span bridge in the upper section of the photo. Briefly, the pontoon bridge had a stationary center section on the pontoon. At each end of the pontoon is a section of bridge that could be raised/lowered to match the corresponding roadway on each respective side of the ICW. When boats need to pass through the pontoon bridge swings out of the way as pictured above. The tides, if they are too low, can shut down this bridge for boat traffic because the bridge can''t swing. I do not know if that would also affect motor vehicles. This bridge is a real engineering marvel.
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