Life on the Coast

FaLL is Finally Here

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 21:09:33 -0500

The water temperature dropped from 65.7F to 64.3F in just one day, and that was with the temperature staying above 50F at night.

This morning there was a pretty wind gusting. By early afternoon it had dropped to nothing. I should have headed out on the river, but we were there yesterday and could find no interesting fish so I stayed at home and worked.

In fact I did not even get in one of our vehicles today. It was a nice treat, not leaving the home place for a whole day. I think I will try to do that more often.

There was plenty to do. I finished a post for the Crystal Coast Living Blog that I do for our real estate company.

I put up a website of pictures of a neighbor’s kitchen to help our youngest daughter get her kitchen redone. I did a little touch up washing of the vinyl on the home.

Then I did some painting in the house. Finally about 4:30, I told my wife we had to get outside and enjoy this weather. She agreed, so we threw our stuff on the boat, lowered it into water and headed out Bluewater Cove to the White Oak river to watch for the show.

The water was dead calm and aside from a fisherman cutting across my bow, there was no excitement. We rode down towards Swansboro a few buoys waiting for the sun to set.

The sunset was a nice one with some spectacular color on the water. We both enjoyed it and vowed to make this trip more often.

Quiet on the River

Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:06:44 -0400

The White Oak River is somewhat unique. It is short in total length and as it nears the coast it gets to over two miles wide. It is a big river. A lot of water comes in and out of the river every day.

We are lucky the river has no city on it and only one farm anywhere close to it. Among coastal rivers, the problems of the White Oak are minor compared to other rivers like the Neuse which just had its second fish kill in the last few weeks. Both kills were in the millions of fish. Whether the kills come from natural causes or from human activity, they are big part of the Neuse.

I am very happy on the White Oak. Many visiting boaters fear the White Oak because you have to follow a channel. That keeps the river fairly quiet.

There is an active boating community around the river, but it never seems very crowded, and for that I am also thankful.

The view in the picture is one of the first views I see every morning, and one of the last views of daylight that I catch each day.

The knowledge that the White Oak can take a deluge and not even blink is a good thing. Eight inches of rain like we got this Monday would cause a lot of problems in the mountains of Virginia.

Here it was just a wet day on the coast, and things look pretty normal out on the White Oak.

If Summer has missed yoU

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:49:47 -0400

Summer has not missed the Crystal Coast. There are a number of folks on the east coast reporting the absence of summer.

We are not one of them. The waters are warm, the skies are blue, and there is plenty of room on the beach.

If you have never visited the area before you are in for a real treat. It is such a friendly area with a small town environment that many people end up retiring here.

That would describe many folks who are living in the area. Then their friends come for a visit, and they end up falling in love with the area.

That is what happened to us. We fell in love with the area and ended up living in Bluewater Cove. There is a new home under construction here in the Cove, so feel free to join us if you enjoy an active water focused life not ten minutes from the beaches of Emerald Isle.

A Last Detour before Summer

Sun, 17 May 2009 20:57:29 -0400

Yesterday I spent some taking photographs of a friend’s family reunion over on the beach at Spinnaker’s Reach. It was pretty warm. As I detailed in another post, we woke up to warm temperatures this morning.

Tomorrow we will be lucky to see the mid-sixties. That is not exactly tourist weather. The rain we got was timely for everything except the ripe strawberries and people trying to enjoy a Sunday on the beach.

We have had adequate moisture this spring which explains why everything is so green. What we have not had is quiet weather. We have seen plenty of wind which has put a dent in much of the fishing. I have tried kayaking on the river a number of times but most of my time has been spent fighting the wind and currents.

My mind tells me that if I can have a little more patience, I will have all of the water time that my body can stand.

It is just that summer seems so close that I can almost taste it. I have enjoyed the peace of the beaches and some great but breezy weather.

It will not be long before that spring green is replaced by the paler greens of summer, and I will be complaining about summer heat.

Maybe I can bottle that cool air from tomorrow and open it up in August when I need it.

The White Oak My Home River

Wed, 8 Apr 2009 22:42:43 -0400

When I grew up near Lewisville, NC, there were woods all around our home. Most of us young boys in the area considered those our home woods. We knew almost every nook and cranny. We played in the streamed and hiked the woods to their end.

Right after college, I went into commercial farming in the Canadian wilderness. We had four hundred acres there, and I knew the woods pretty well. It was my home turf. We had the Tay River running adjacent to our property. In most places the Tay was a foot or two deep in the summer. Close to our property it was never more than twenty or thirty feet wide.

Fast forward twenty seven years and here I am on a beautiful coastal river that approaches two miles in width. While the surface of the river is sometimes as smooth as glass, the bottom is as complicated as any set of woods that I have hiked. While woods have hills and ridges, the White Oak has oyster rocks and deep holes. It is a complicated place, and I am thankful that the channel out to the Intracoastal Waterway is well marked.

The mood of the White Oak can also change quickly. With some wind the river can be a dangerous ride especially at low tide.

Still I am proud to have a river that I can call my home river. It will take me a number of years to be an expert on the river, but I am having lots of fun learning.

With any kind of luck, I might be able to make a quick run out into the river tomorrow morning.

It just depends, today the winds were strong enough that waves were crashing over the oyster rocks. There were no boats on the river today.