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There are reasons that we live along the North Carolina coast. One of them is that we get the opportunity to walk along the beach when people to the north of us are often shivering in the snow. Not every … Continue reading
Winter Beach
Every year we get to a time when it make sense to declare it winter at the beach. It doesn’t happen with the first shot of cold air, but some years it does come earlier than other years.
In 2010-11, winter descended onto the beach early in December. It only began to relent a little by the last week of January. This year has been completely different. We have not had the snow that made last year’s winter one that we will remember.
This week we did finally get an inch of rain that reminded me of the rain that came last year towards the end of January. With 2012 starting out dry, we needed the rain.
This has actually been a very nice winter so far. We have seen a number of days including today, January 12, 2012, make it into the sixties and sometimes even the seventies.
Still, even here along the peaceful shores of the Crystal Coast, winter eventually touches us. When there is a near blizzard in Chicago, some of those cold winds usually make their way down the slopes of the Appalachians to our coastal plains.
When the cold winds come after the water has cooled well below sixty degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes winter at the beach. It’s not that it is a bad time to be at the beach. It is just very different from those days when wearing shorts and wading in the water is standard practice. Of course in the winter, there are no crowds.
I had hoped to go for a walk on the Point today, but I was delayed by some things that needed doing. We didn’t even head over to the beach until after 4 PM. By that time it was too late to attempt a long hike at the Point since we lose our daylight around 5:20 PM.
With the dwindling daylight in mind, we headed up to Third Street since it is a short walk to the ocean from the parking lot. Our trip east along the beach gave us plenty of hints that winter has come to the beach.
While there are few people over the beach this time of year, usually on nice days there will be a handful of cars in the parking lot at Eastern Regional Access. We only saw one. When we got to the Third Street parking lot, there were no other cars.
As we walked up the ramp to the viewing platform, I could hear the waves crashing. It wasn’t long before I felt the bite of the wind and zipped up my light jacket. I knew that Glenda, my wife, would be back in the car in moments. As I walked down on the beach, I saw the characteristic coarse red sand that we often see after the wind has blown a lot along the beach.
Then I looked down the beach and saw the mist in the air. As the waves were crashing, little bits of foam were being blown towards the shore. Then I got the final sign that winter had arrived at the beach. My hands started to get cold. My hands are like little heaters so when they start feeling the cold, the wind has to be blowing off some chilly waters as it was today.
My eyes scanned the beach, but I didn’t see a single bird or another human being not even a fisherman. Glenda had retreated to the car almost at the moment that I walked down the steps to the beach so I wasn’t really surprised to find myself alone on the shore. The water was pretty stirred up but not stormy by any means. Still even with the blue skies and sunshine, it was clearly winter on the beach.
I didn’t stay very long on the beach, and I enjoyed the sensation of my hands warming as I got back to the car. While I know that days for beach walks will have to be carefully chosen for another month or so, there will be days when the wind isn’t blowing, and the beach will be very pleasant. I will manage to find some of those days.
As we drove west along the beach toward the town of Emerald Isle, our windshield got a covering of the mist that often blows in from the shore during the winter. It is usually so light that it is hardly noticeable until it builds up for a few days, and then you wonder how your windshield got so messy. While it seemed that few businesses were open in town besides Jordan’s Seafood, there were some signs of life at Food Lion and Emerald Plantation. However, I suspect most summer beach visitors would not recognize the Food Lion parking lot in January. I was sad to see our only local bookstore has closed, but that is just reality in the days of Kindles.
As we crossed the bridge, I was reminded that winter is that time of year when being over on the mainland has some real advantages. With the shelter of the pine forests and the luck of having a large south facing area along one side of our house, it is rare during winter when it isn’t pleasant by our home along Raymond’s Gut. On a warm afternoon, it can be ten to twenty degrees warmer in my tomato beds than it is over on the shore.
It will be June or July before the coolness of the ocean breezes will be a benefit once again. Until then I will wander the woods along the marshes near our home and watch for those sunny windless days when the winter beach is an inviting place.
Peace on the Beach
Many places seem about to explode with activity as Christmas nears. That is not the case along the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina.
As we get close to the end of the year, we actually enter the quietest season here on the coast. A few of the restaurants take advantage of the smaller crowds and close for a few weeks to give their staff time with their families.
Still there are plenty that are open and happy to have customers. When we were over at Mike’s on Emerald Isle this Saturday, December 17, at 1 PM, we were only the eighth or ninth couple to come in all day. Sunday, they have a breakfast buffet starting at 7 AM. I am willing to bet there will not be any waiting for a table.
Many area residents actually get on the road themselves during the holiday season and go to visit their families. In the summer people are anxious to come to the beach. When winter rolls around, the beach isn’t as much of an attraction as it is in the heart of summer when the water is warm enough for swimming. For our area’s slightly older group of residents, it is often easier to pack up and go see the kids than it is to try to bring the kids to the beach and help Santa find them here.
That few people come to the beach in December is actually unfortunate since this is one of the nicest times of the year. That is especially true when we are having weather that makes it seem like Indian summer has never disappeared. It has been shorts weather for a long time.
I had a stellar day over on the beach on Friday, December 16. My 2.7 mile hike on the beach was enough that I wished that I had listened to my own advice. Having shorts on during my hike would have been much more comfortable than the blue jeans that I was sure I would need. The water and the sky that I found over on the beach were amazing as you can see from these pictures.
While the fishing has slowed except for some trout holes on the White Oak and other rivers, the waters have been calm this week, and they are still relatively warm. It has been a good time to go kayaking or boating.
I had my kayak in the White Oak once this week. I have been down to Swansboro a couple of times in our skiff. It has been just as beautiful on the rivers as it has been on the beaches. There are some White Oak River pictures mixed in with this album I posted from some adventures earlier in the week. It is pretty nice when you can go out for a sunset cruise with just a light jacket on in the middle of December.
The White Oak cooled from 60F the previous week to 50F on December 14. That happened before we had two days when we were at or very close to 70F during the day. I am sure the river warmed a little but has now cooled some this weekend.
Still the water isn’t cool enough to chill the sun warmed air that has been in place with our mostly cloudless skies. Wearing a coat has not been a necessity this week. Saturday was cloudy and cool, but it looks like we will recover from this weekend cool snap.
December 20 through December 24, the temperatures are forecast to be in the mid-sixties. The mid-sixties are my favorite temperatures most of the year. When I can get them in December, it does not get much better than that.
Besides the great weather, shopping is never as hectic here on the coast as it is in places like Northern Virginia. I have a long history of avoiding shopping in places which end up on the national news like Reston, Va did on Friday night.
There are plenty of small shops along the coast here. There is also something reassuring about knowing that your shopping cannot get much more exotic than Belk’s, Best Buy, Ace, or Walgreen’s. After all, some recent studies show that most people are not impressed by expensive gifts and are just as happy with thoughtful inexpensive ones.
We also have the added benefit that most of our parking spaces are designed for extended cab trucks instead of your average Toyota Prius. It is not unusual to see a pickup truck with a boat trailer behind it in one of our mall parking lots. I bet there has never been a truck with a boat trailer in a parking lot in Reston, Virginia. If one managed to get into the parking lot, it would likely be there forever.
With great weather, peaceful beaches, cute shops, great parking, and inviting waters, there is not a better place to spend the holidays than the Crystal Coast if you can get away with it. You just have to get people to understand that palm trees make good Christmas trees, and the best tree of all is a Crab Pot Christmas tree.
We really enjoyed Christmas here on the White Oak last year even with the snow the day after Christmas. This year the snow will likely stay away, but that should make the area even more attractive for a holiday visit.
Last light on the White Oak River
If you don’t like the weather that NC’s Southern Outer Banks has enjoyed this fall, please don’t bother talking to me because it is obvious that you are impossible to please.
It is hard to believe that I was only wearing shorts and a tee-shirt when we went walking on the beach the afternoon of December 6. It was as pleasant on the beach as any October day. October days on the Crystal Coast are often spectacular. December can be nice, but this year is a good one to banish the memories of last year when we even got some very rare snow just after Christmas.
By the time we got home from our December 6, errands and beach walk, it was 4:30 PM which is well past the warmest time of the day. Even at that late hour, I stayed with my shorts and only put on a light wind breaker over my tee shirt and life-suspenders for my evening ride on the river.
It was so nice out on the river, that I almost had to force myself to head home. I am still pinching myself over the fantastic weather that evening when I stood in our skiff and enjoyed the beautiful sunset that is the picture for this post.
There was almost no wind, and the tide was coming in as the sun slipped down behind the trees and spilled some amazingly colorful light across the White Oak River. My mind knows that winter is coming, but my heart doesn’t want to let go of this lingering warmth from fall 2011.
This year’s December 6, was a great day to be outside even for yard work. I finally pulled up the last of my tomato plants. Damage from Hurricane Irene kept them from breaking my December 19, last-tomato-picked record, but it was still a fantastic year for tomatoes.
This weather is not atypical for North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. We’ve seen great weather like this for four of the six winters that we have lived here. However, this is an especially nice early December that Mother Nature has given us. Last year, December of 2010, was certainly not like this year or even one of those earlier warm years.
A year ago we fell into a deep freeze early in December, and the upside down weather gave us some cold temperatures that are very rare here on the coast even in the depths of winter much less before the official start of winter. Actually by December 8, 2010, the water behind our house was frozen, as I wrote about in my post, Nothing but Ice.
When I dropped my skiff in the water for my December 6, sunset cruise this year, the water temperature in Raymond’s Gut behind our house was 62.5 Fahrenheit. It was really no surprise since the air temperature on our deck that same afternoon reached almost 78 Fahrenheit. It will take a while before we see any ice in the gut this year.
Back in 2009, after we came through a very rainy fall, it only took us until December 11, to get down to 34 Fahrenheit and start looking like winter. Even then I still had hopes of breaking my December tomato record. That last-picked-tomato record of December 19, just might last a while.
As I go back even farther to December 2008, I find that we had a siege of cold weather which resulted in temperatures falling into the twenties on December 8. The cooler temperatures didn’t keep me a way from the beach, but I do remember thinking that I might have to start wearing gloves, but the only problem is that I have yet to find them.
As long as we don’t have the December snows like we did last year, I will be a happy camper. Every day that I get to walk on the beach in shorts is one day less of winter, and after all, most of us moved to the coast to avoid winter and enjoy the beach.
Just maybe this year will be like January of 2007 when we only had nineteen hours of below freezing temperatures, and we had eleven January days when the high got above seventy degrees. We can always hope. I wouldn’t mind breaking those records.
More pictures from the beach and river taken on December 6, 2011 are posted on the web.
My watery backyard
I have enjoyed water all my life. My happiness has always been the greatest when there is some water close by our home.
Often it hasn’t mattered whether it was a stream, pond or an ocean. Sometimes just being able to see water has been enough to keep me going.
When I was growing up in Lewisville, NC, a small creek down in the woods behind the house helped keep me happy most of the time. Even then there were times when I needed more water.
My mother used to drive my friend, Mike, and me to my uncle Henry’s fishing ponds across the county line in Yadkin County. We were left there at very young age, but we were very responsible kids and both strong swimmers. We could fish a whole day and not say a lot. Neither us ever fell in one of the ponds. We were too busy fishing to horse around with each other.
After college, I moved to Nova Scotia to fulfill an itch to be close to the land. I got an old farm on a hillside that had a wonderful view and frontage on the Bay of Fundy. I could eat breakfast and look at the water.
On our farm in New Brunswick, we had a small pond and a trout creek at the back of the farm.
Later when we move back to the states and lived on a mountain overlooking Roanoke, Va., I would often hoist our two person kayak on the roof of our little limo (a Nissan Axxess) and head off to Carvin’s Cove for some fishing.
Still I had a dream of living by the water. In 2006, after looking for over three years, we found a place in Bluewater Cove on Raymond’s Gut just off the White Oak River.
In September of that year we moved into our home which definitely has water behind the house. The water leads to the White Oak River, Swansboro Harbor, the ICW, Bogue Inlet, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean. Not long after moving, I officially declared the White Oak my backyard.
I got a new one person kayak in the fall of 2006, and in June 2007, we got our 20 ft. Sundance skiff which I gave the unofficial name of “Living the Dream.” Since then we have fished the area with varying degrees of success. We have had some great fishing trips, and I have even caught fish off of our dock with my fly rod, but I always felt that to really enjoy living where we do, I had to learn more about fishing the river.
This past February, the North Carolina Sportsman magazine published an article about fishing hotspots in the Swansboro, NC area. I bought one, and when I turned through the pages, I was not very surprised to see our deck in the distant background of what was called the croaker hole in the article. It was a spot that we had successfully fished often.
I haven’t fished a lot in 2011, but this fall as the opportunities to fish have presented themselves, I have been focused on using artificial bait and staying close to home on the White Oak. Most of the fall I carried a rod with me when I went out in the kayak or skiff. I just didn’t catch much of anything, but often I was only out a few minutes.
Earlier this second week of November 2011, the waters began to really cool, and my luck started to change. I caught a bluefish from our skiff while drift fishing the croaker hole near the red sixteen buoy which we can see from the Bluewater Cove dock. That was all I caught in the few minutes that I fished, but I did think about naming him “the bluefish of happiness.” One fish is not a lot to rave about, but I caught him with in sight of our house.
The next day, the weather was even nicer, so I decided to head out and fish the oyster rocks in the middle of the river near our home. It is something that is hard to do in anything but a kayak since the water depth is very shallow as you can see from this picture.
I had only been fishing a few minutes when I caught a nice bluefish. In a few more minutes, I landed a really nice trout between fifteen and sixteen inches in length. No long after that I caught a smaller trout just a little over twelve inches long. I fished for a while more, but I didn’t get any more taps as they call trout bites. That was okay, it was my best kayak fishing trip of this year.
As I have said before, fish are optional when you are fishing in such great weather in surroundings that are hard to describe with words, but it is nice to catch one once in a while, and it is even better if you catch it in your backyard.
I am looking forward to the rest of the fall, I think that I might have my touch back.
Warm Oct. Afternoon on the Beach
There is really no way that those of us on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast can complain about this fall’s weather. We have endured a couple of chilly evenings, but for the most part, our fall weather has been stellar. We have hardly had any clouds in the sky.
However, even here near the beach, cool weather has to start showing its chilly face eventually. As someone who “closely” follows the weather in a number of places, I was aware that a cold front was scheduled to visit our area on Friday, October 28. With that deadline in mind, I decided to head over to the Point at Emerald Isle on Thursday afternoon, October 27.
I have lost count of how many times that I have walked the Point this year, but I did not want to miss what might be our last day on the beach in 2011 when the temperature made it to 80F. There is nothing like walking the beach in the fall and wading in the still warm ocean water. I really dread the time when I have to switch to bluejeans for my beach walks.
As I walk the beach in the fall, I like to fish a little, even if I don’t catch anything. With fishing as part of my excursion, my outfit is carefully considered even down to the things that I take with me.
I don’t leave home without my fishing hat even though I am careful about putting on sunblock. Mostly it protects my balding head without me getting sunscreen in my hair. More importantly, I have a waterproof case for my tiny clip wallet and a couple of cords that I hook to the case. One cord has a multipurpose fishing tool, and the other has a tape measure and my fishing license in a waterproof plastic card holder. My cell phone goes around my neck in another waterproof case which has a slightly different multi-tool attached to it.
In my back pocket is a small plastic fishing tackle box with a few lucky lures. In my right pocket goes my small Sony HX7V camera. Below that pocket there is another zipper pocket for my truck keys. I usually wear my ancient LL Bean’s sunglasses that have a reader section built into the lenses. The lenses make tying knots in fishing line a lot easier.
If the weather is nice as it was on Oct. 27, then my Nikon 3100 with a telephoto lens will also be around my neck. You never know when the opportunity for a great bird picture might present itself. A microfiber hand cloth and a light spinning rod complete the outfit. I’m fairly sure that I scare most fish away as soon as I arrive on the scene, but I do get some good pictures.
Everything that could be damaged by water is in a waterproof case because I inevitably end up getting wet. That is also the main reason that I wear a bathing suit on my excursions during the fall and summer. This year after hitting over 100 miles hiking on the beach, I settled on Crocs as my footwear. On my long hikes, I typically end up walking in some silty areas where I would rather not put my bare feet which are normally perfectly happy on most of the beach.
On my October 27 excursion, I parked at the Station St. parking lot just off Coast Guard Road about 3 PM and started my hike to beach. I didn’t get very far when a car stopped to ask me about finding a place to fish which didn’t require a lot of walking. I guess he figured anyone looking as much like a beach bum as me had to be a local. He seemed to be under the impression that you could park at the Coast Guard Station and fish there. I corrected that illusion and gave him directions to Third St. Beach. Then I continued on my journey.
I walked onto the beach from the Wyndtree Drive access public access point and headed west along the low tide line. Hitting the beach at around 3 PM meant that I arrived there at low tide. The beach over at the Point continues to change with each visit. It is almost a full time job keeping up with the changes there, but it makes for a topic that interests a lot of folks. I am not an expert, but the tide over at the Point seemed lower than I had seen in a while.
The body of water that I have called the Emerald Isle community swimming pool seemed to be gone. There was little evidence of the swimming area where I had seen it on some of my earlier trips. A little farther down the beach there was some indication of a little water not far from where it used to be, and then I ran into this area where I am guessing the the pool moved. I’ll have to make another trip when the tide isn’t so low to see how much of a swimming pool remains and exactly where it has moved.
Walking west from there, I found some of the folks who fish the beach from their trucks parked on a sand ledge which was actually a long way from the water. It was almost like they were expecting the water to come to their trucks. Most of the truck fisherman don’t do a lot of walking.
As I got closer to the actual Point, I could see there were a few trucks down on the beach. There were a lot of changes in the beach as I rounded the Point and headed north.
There was an impressive part of Bogue Inlet not under water. I walked out and took this picture looking back towards the homes along the Point.
Then I walked down to what is called Coast Guard Island and continued along the north side of what is end of Coast Guard Channel. The tide was so low that the remnants of Coast Guard Channel were split in two. I took this picture at the head of the northernmost channel.
Looking back west towards Bogue Inlet made for a great photograph. Next I walked up to the edge of the dunes and took this picture looking across Coast Guard Island towards the Emerald Isle Bridge. There was an amazing amount of bait in the northern channel, but my few casts there did not raise any fish.
If you look closely in this photo, you can see the peninsula that the low tide gave us on Oct. 27. This picture was taken looking east down the edge of the northern side of Coast Guard Channel. Here is a picture of the low tide peninsula between the two channels. Finally this a shot from the same area looking back towards Bogue Inlet.
I had a great time wading around in the water and exploring some new sand. I took the GPS track from my Droid and used an image editing program to fill in sand where it actually is based on my exploration. While my hand edited map is by no means exact, it beats the Google map which has me doing a lot of walking on water. The blue line is the 3.8 mile track that I walked at the Point on October 27.
You can see a lot more pictures of my journey at this Picasa web album. I have my fingers crossed for another 80F day when I can once again put my strange uniform on and have another adventure.
If you think great October weather at the beach is rare, you should check out this album which I uploaded on October 10 last year. I still remember the wedding party standing out in the surf.
As a side note no fish were harmed in the research for this post. In fact none were caught by me, and I only saw one small fish put in a cooler during the whole hike.
Marsh edges from my kayak
Most often when people talk about scenic views, they have in mind large scenes like this view from the bridge across Bogue Sound at Emerald Isle. In fact I have written about how wonderful scenery like that can stretch the mind.
However, there is another, more intimate way of looking at our area that can be even more powerful in changing your perspective of the coast. I doubt that I will ever forget my first kayaking adventure on our coastal river, the White Oak back in 2006. Before that trip I was a veteran of many kayaking trips to Carvin’s Cove in the Roanoke, Va. area. Those did not prepare me for sitting on water that is nearly two miles wide.
Actually it isn’t just the large views that making sitting on the coastal river water so special. The small nooks and little places along the edges of the marshy shores are among my favorite spots. Then there is the fun of actually taking a trip on the river in a kayak to a place like Jones Island near Swansboro.
With a tidal river and the winds that are often prevalent here on the coast, it is rare that a round trip ends up being the same route each way. If you look at this trip to Jones Island that I did earlier in the spring, you can see that on my return trip I had to make adjustments to compensate for tide and winds. It took forty-five minutes of paddling each way, but the effort required was different for each leg of the journey.
Of course the water on a big river can get challenging fast, but with experience, even choppy water is relatively easy to handle. I would not want to try kayaking in 20 mph or greater winds, but I have done plenty of kayaking in 10-15 mph winds. While it looks a little scary when the wind is blowing, it actually isn’t that bad.
Even in conditions like the the linked YouTube video, the safety valve is to quickly paddle to a more protected section of the river. Within a few minutes of taking that choppy water video, I paddled back into Raymond’s Gut at Bluewater Cove and took this video of me being gently pushed by the wind back to our dock. The day before I took another video while gliding in the inlet and listening to birds.
The experience and views that you get sitting on the water in a kayak is totally different that what you might get from a tall bridge or flying down the river in skiff.
If you haven’t had a chance to explore our coastal rivers by kayak, it really is an opportunity that you should not miss.
October is typically one of our nicest months here on North Carolina’s Southern Outer Banks. The air has lost some of its heat and humidity but the water is still warm.
For those of us who love to fish, October can be the time when we hit some home runs. I have had some memorable fishing trips in the month of October. In 2009, a fishing friend and I had an amazing afternoon with the bluefish around Bogue Inlet. In 2005, I probably had the best half day of fishing in my life near Beaufort Inlet. Both those trips were in late October.
With a hot summer that made fishing challenging, most of us fishermen and our female equivalents have anxiously been awaiting the fall fishing season. Actually we have been trying to rush it along. I did a little fishing early in the morning in late September, but the water temperature was near eighty degrees, and the fish still were not biting. I considered those efforts scouting trips.
Even over on the ocean at Third Street Beach, it still felt like summer as September turned into October. As the first week of October really got going, I received a call from a mountain top friend who really wanted to catch some spots. In fact he was so eager to fish that he drove a few hours straight to our place and hopped in my boat for an afternoon fishing trip.
Dedication like that is the sign of a true fisherman. Anyone who will drive to the Crystal Coast and go fishing without even stopping for lunch is serious about fishing. My friend and I fished a couple of afternoons, and he did catch a few spots. However, I caught only one blowfish for the two afternoons. Neither my friend nor I were upset about the lack of fish.
It is always easy to come up with excuses for not catching many fish. In my case, I am not a very dedicated bait fisherman. I would much rather catch a fish on an artificial lure of some sort. Both of my most memorable fishing trips revolved around a single lure on each trip. No other bait was involved.
It takes very little to get me to stop fishing with bait and start fishing with lures. I am also known for ignoring what is happening regarding fish if I happen to get distracted by a good picture that needs taking. It is not unusual for me to be caught completely ignoring fish and snapping pictures. I almost lost a rod and reel over on Third Street because of that recently. I was bottom fishing with one outfit in a sand spike and had wandered off casting with a lure and taking pictures when I just noticed a large wave knocking my pole over. I managed to catch it on the next incoming wave.
When I am really serious about fishing, I usually carry one rod and in my back pocket is a small plastic box with a few lures. That is all the tackle that I take. I do take two cameras though.
Most of the time fish are actually optional for me, but I truly love to stand in the water and fish, and that is exactly what I did on the afternoon of October 7, 2011. I first tried Third Street beach, but the currents were too strong so I headed down to the Point. This is a movie of the beautiful waters that afternoon.
After my hike down to the beach and out the vehicle ramp, I fished the south side and west end of Coast Guard Channel. Then I walked over and hit the shore just north of the Point. I got to enjoy some birds swirling in the air just before I got to the beach.
Once over on the shore I headed back along the beach and enjoyed the impressive waves along the south side of the beach. I didn’t start fishing until I got just in front of the little hook of sand that makes the Point area so interesting for fishermen and even swimmers.
I had been in and out of the water all afternoon so wading into it one more time was not a problem. It only took me a minute to adjust to the water temperature. I worked the water pretty well, but I didn’t raise any fish.
If I had been really serious about catching fish, I would have probably moved on or changed lures. However, the location, the view, and the weather were close to perfect so I just stood there fishing the same water with little expectation of catching a fish. The moment was perfect even without catching a fish. I stayed so long that I felt the need to call home and apologize for being a little later than I had promised. Fortunately my wife knows me well and had already planned on me being late.
You can see some views of my fishing spot at this photo album. I will be posting more photos there after I get my weekend chores completed. My trip to the Point didn’t produce any fish for me, but it was spectacular afternoon on the water. It was a real treat. I will take an afternoon with no fish in the surf by myself over a day of sitting among the spot yachts any time.
The truth is that I throw back most of the fish that I catch anyway. Fishing is a sport of patience instead of immediate gratification anyway. If you keep fishing , you will eventually have some of those memorable moments. You cannot catch a fish without your line being in the water so this time of year, I try to stick it in the water whenever I am near water.
I had some recent fun fishing in my kayak. I even caught a fish, which was nothing to brag ab0ut, but I ‘m hoping that it is a sign of things to come. The sunsets that I have seen while fishing in my kayak will stick with me longer than the memory of the fish that I threw back.
I will be back out on the water the first chance that I get, but I won’t be disappointed if I come home empty handed.
The scenery and the water are all that I need. Fish are definitely optional
The shores of Emerald Isle
Living in the midst of great natural beauty does make a difference in your life. I don’t have a hard time making that statement.
All I have to do is let my mind wander back to the days when I used to make account calls in Washington, DC. The memories needed to transport me back to an early morning commute on Interstate 66 are not hidden very deeply.
Life is very different living in what I often call a coastal paradise. Whether we are able to live here for a few short years or for the next decade doesn’t really matter. This area has already had a profound impact on the way that I view the world.
Watching the cycle of life that the area nourished by the area beaches and marshes provides a far different perspective than a morning commute to DC on Interstate 66.
The life force that we see along the shores takes many forms. The tiny fish jumping behind our house and the fiddler crabs filling the muddy banks are all part of life in the marsh. That I can quite figure out what the fiddlers or shore birds are eating most of the time doesn’t matter. This morning I stood in the back door of our garage and watched a great egret calmly grab a small fish from a tiny marsh pond. I didn’t feel sorry for the fish since being eaten is part of living along the edges of the marsh if you are a small creature.
The shrimp, fiddler crabs, and bait fish all provide nourishment for other creatures as diverse as flounder to red drum and bottle nosed dolphins. If something dies and sinks to the bottom, the blue crabs are there to recycle it. The cycle never stops, just like the marsh grass never stops waving in the wind.
On the beach it is easy to lose yourself in the endless march of waves. Just as creatures live and die in the marsh, the waves are continually moving sand and the life that goes with it from one place to another. Sea creatures wash ashore and the shore birds clean them up. When a storm and its waves take sand, it is just part of the cycle where some beaches grow at the expense of others.
Being an observer of the natural cycles here along the coast helps you to understand where you fit in the world. It is easy to figure out that the marsh grass will be growing long after we are gone. Also the waves won’t stop moving sand just because we are no longer walking on the beach.
It is reassuring knowing that in spite of all human interference, the marsh grass is still growing here along the sounds and rivers. At the same time the wave and wind driven sand keep reminding us that we only can use the land as long as the land allows us that privilege.
When in a city crisscrossed with roads and filled with huge buildings, we humans sometimes feel invincible. The invincibility disappears here on the edges of the marsh. A storm like Irene can bring huge changes to the marshes or the impact can be little noticed. Still you don’t have to drive far to see the power of nature.
Disaster has to strike a city for people to understand what we see on a daily basis.
Living with the knowledge that if you end up falling in the marsh, the blue crabs won’t discriminate against you gives life a little different perspective.
Maybe that knowledge that you are easily recycled takes just a bit off the edge of human arrogance that so prevalent in large cities.
Here in the marshes near the beaches, the big picture often has blue skies, lots of water, and an ocean breeze. The view here provides warmth, life, and the knowledge that the cycle will continue with or without us.
Waves at Third Street Beach
It is surprising that I know folks who live here not far from the beach and never manage to make it over to the sandy shore. I am the opposite extreme. I can hardly stay away, and I am always looking for an excuse to “go over to the beach.”
One of the reasons that I love going to the beach, is that even if you go to the same strip of sand, it is always a slightly different experience. The sand might be fluffed up more or maybe there are just a bunch of new shells on the beach. Of course the slope of the sand is always changing.
I went over to Emerald Isle’s 3rd Street Beach Thursday, September 22. It was late in the afternoon, and we watched a storm building offshore. The surf was actually pretty calm, and I wished that I had remembered to bring a fishing rod.
In lieu of fishing, I walked down to the surf, watched the tiny bait fish glittering on the surface of the waves, and made a YouTube video of the scene. The video turned out nicely, and you can actually see the silver flecks of the bait fish on the surface of the water if you look closely.
The trip whetted my appetite for a little fishing. On September 23, the weather looked pretty wet for the later part of the afternoon, but not bad around noon. The tide situation wasn’t too bad so I decided to gamble on a quick fishing trip. The trip isn’t bad from our house near the White Oak River, and I managed to walk down to the surf just before noon. My truck was the only vehicle in the parking lot.
There was only one group of three people relaxing in beach chairs, but otherwise the beach was empty. It only took me about three seconds to realize that the conditions were completely different than they were the day before. The waves were somewhat larger, and most importantly, there were no shore birds feeding on the tiny bait fish like there were on September 22.
The shore also had a lot more medium sized shells. As I stood in the surf it was obvious that things were different at my favorite beach. Of course standing in the surf fishing even when the fish aren’t there or perhaps not biting still beats doing almost anything else, so I stayed for an hour and enjoyed the waves crashing around my feet.
With larger waves and more current, the fishing was destined to be an exercise in futility, but the water felt so good that I hardly moved from the spot.
Time goes quickly on a beach even when you aren’t catching any fish. Half the time I am fishing with one hand and taking pictures with the other so I stay busy one way or the other.
Sometimes the photograph I catch is worth the trip anyway. The one at the top of the post isn’t the only good one from the trip, but it does do a reasonable job of making it easy to imagine the water swirling around your feet. It might be useful this coming winter when I need a dose of fall to remind me that we live in paradise here along the Southern Outer Banks. Click on it or this link for an enlarged view.
And I don’t mind if our paradise keeps changing a little.
