Saint Helena Sound is a broad coastal inlet in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, about 15 miles east of Beaufort between Edisto Island and Hunting Island. Part of the relatively undeveloped ACE Basin, it is where the Ashepoo, Combahee, and south branch of the Edisto rivers meet the Atlantic, giving the basin its name. At roughly 7.5 miles wide at its broadest point, the sound has the open character of a major tidal estuary. The Intracoastal Waterway crosses it, connecting the sound to a long inland route along the East Coast. Its importance today also lies in its protected, largely natural shoreline within major conservation lands.