My wife and I lived in the Pee Dee for close to 6 years. I can say the only good thing is now gone, since I married her and moved away. We were in Florence / Lake City. The only slightly good thing I can say is that since the area is so empty, there are a lot of good riding routes, and the bike club is pretty strong with a very active membership. The size of the group rides and # of people who travel together for out of town races is very good for the population.
www.pedalpack.org There is no masters swimming group unless they started one in the last 18 months since we moved. Just north there are some good trail running areas, in the Sand Hills state forest. They have quite a few miles of decently well packed trails that I always used when I was bumping my distance up to prevent injuries. If you enjoy water though I would have to recommend moving farther north Wilmington, NC or south to Charleston. Myrtle Beach does not have enough open water access for sailing, all of their maritime infrastructure is on the ICW and it is a long way between inlets. It is much easier in Wilmington and Charleston to get to water, and Charleston Harbor is almost big enough to constitute open water. Each of these towns has several triathlons per year, and an active running, swimming and biking community. The roads unfortunately have more traffic and are not in the best shape for road cycling.
Just so you know my biases, my wife and I live in the suburbs of Charleston, and her sister lives in Wilmington. It was partly cloudy today, but got up to 80 deg. I was actually complaining about the heat when I ran tonight. Also, if by any odd chance you are considering employment with a Taiwanese plastics company located in the area, DO NOT.
http://www.charlestontriathlonclub.com http://coastalcyclists.org/ http://www.theextramileinc.com/ http://www.charlestonrunningclub.com/ http://www.swimsmrt.com/
Tim Anderson
"It's the nature of the internets that you get some dweeb who knows nothing about (insert topic here) pontificates about (topic), believing that his/her opinion is worth the same as opinions from those who actually knows what's going on." --Echappist