The Crystal Coast, Salt water on my feet

Winter never stays long

The Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina is designed to be a nice place during the winter. 

There are not many places on the east coast with south facing beaches and water that stays warm well into November.

While it is a little confusing to newcomers that the water is to the south and not to the east, it is a very good thing in the winter.  If you think about it, having all the tree-covered sand dunes and the Croatan National Forest between you and the north winds is a great thing if you want to stay warm while walking the beach on a cold day.  A trip over to the Northern Outer Banks on a windy day will convince most people of the wisdom of my weather observations.

Having south facing beaches also makes for some great sunsets. While a beautiful sunset won't keep you warm, psychologically it will help you survive winter. The brilliant sunsets do present a few challenges.  Driving into the sun when you are headed down the beach towards the town of Emerald Isle just when the sun is setting can be an interesting experience.  It is not something that you want to try without sun glasses and your car's visor in the down position.

Beyond the south facing beaches, the area's trees really do help to keep us warm in the winter. We are a heavily forested area which is a little unusual for southern beaches.  With our home located just off the White Oak River and surrounded by woods, about the only winds that really hit us full force are ones from the southwest.  Those are not normally very cold winds.

The area is also blessed with sunshine more than half of the time.  With clear blue skies and the warmth of a North Carolina sun, it is no surprise that we often see the first ripe strawberries in the area in early April.  We have even enjoyed them in late March.

Winter at the beach isn't such a bad thing for those of us living here.  We have the place pretty much to ourselves.  There is never a wait for a seat in a restaurant in the winter, and the parking at the grocery stores is a lot less hectic in January than it is in July.

This year we have been blessed with especially nice weather during the fall and even some fantastic early winter days.  While we are facing a "cold snap" here in the middle of January, most people would be pretty excited to have low temperatures that are only a couple of degrees Fahrenheit below freezing.

Last year we did have a serious winter. It was perhaps the coldest in over 100 years, but winter has been a totally different story this year.  We are actually still eating lettuce from our fall garden.  Last year the water temperature was in the mid-thirties at this time of year.  I even had to use my skiff as an ice breaker.  This week on the tenth of January 2012, I recorded water temperatures in the river just two degrees under fifty degrees.

Actually we want our waters to cool off in the winter, because they offer some very welcome cooling usually until the middle of June or early July. With the water as natural air conditioning, late spring and early summer on the Crystal Coast is often a time when we sleep with the windows open while central North Carolina is running their air conditioning.

Winter is not really much of a challenge here on the coast.  While we might get some cold weather, I rarely wear anything but Crocs for shoes even in the winter. I cannot ever remember wearing a heavy coat.

If you like an era where you get a taste of all four seasons but no real snow shovelling, NC's Southern Outer Banks are hard to beat.  On top of the great weather, the scenic beauty of the area will stretch your imagination.

 

Signs of the changing season

We have enjoyed an outstanding fall with mild temperatures continuing through the first week of December 2011.

The shorts weather in early December this year was in stark contrast to the deep freeze that visited us during the same week in December 2010. 

The water behind our house froze on December 8, 2010 as the high temperature for the day didn't get beyond 36F.  Temperatures like 36F are more likely to be the low temperatures in the dead of winter instead of the high for a day early in December.

Colder temperatures do happen even here.  Looking back to December of 2006, we saw a very cold night when the temperature dropped down to 24F.  With the water still being warm we only got some light ice on the gut.  It is more normal for our cold weather to wait until late January and February. Then with cooler waters it is easier to get extensive ice.

This year we have yet to have a day when we didn't get into the fifties so it has been a much milder fall.  Still the weather has changed.  Earlier in the week, we had several days in the seventies before our cool down.  With the cooler weather, life in the marshes around us is beginning to adjust to a new season.

Late this week, the first pelican visited Raymond's Gut, the water behind our house, since Hurricane Irene sent them looking for shelter earlier in the summer.  The great blue herons have also showed up during the day instead of just coming to roost at night.  This fishing must be good up our way.

While I managed to both go kayaking and take the boat out our inlet and down the river earlier in the week, the winds, some rain, and cooler temperatures have kept me at the dock the weekend of December 10.  I also saw my first ducks of the fall, but I wasn't able to get a close enough look to identify them.

With the holidays approaching, lots of Christmas lights have shown up.  We attended an office party in Atlantic Beach on Thursday night, December 8, and chose to drive back down the beach through Salter Path and Emerald Isle.  It was a peaceful trip with no other cars and some beautiful decorations to light our way.

The Christmas holiday can be very quiet here along the White Oak.  Many coastal folks travel to visit their families this time of year.  A few of the restaurants even close for a time to give their staff a chance to be with their loved ones.

I absolutely love the holidays at the coast.  There are not enough shopping opportunities for people to get in a tizzy.  Life mostly goes on at the same measured pace that we slide into as all the tourists disappear. If you really want much shopping it requires a little driving.

However, if shopping isn't your cup of tea, our beaches are mostly empty and a great place to walk on a warm winter afternoon.  The trails along the marshes offer just enough protection from the winds that a cool afternoon hike is a very comfortable proposition.

One of the great things about living along the Crystal Coast is that in a normal winter, the outside is just another room that we get to enjoy. The winter of 2010 was not a normal winter, but the winter of 2011 is starting out much more like the ones that we have seen in the past.

I am hoping that all the ice that we see this winter is along the edges of the gut. I don't want to have to use my skiff as an icebreaker again.

 

Lingering Warmth on the NC Coast

While much of the east coast has been enjoying some recent nice weather, here on North Carolina's Crystal Coast, it has been an especially nice fall. While we are enjoying this warmth, in the back of our minds, we're hoping for a nice winter also.

Our weather has been near perfect with the exception of some persistent winds that have made for some interesting changes on the beaches here in our coastal paradise.

Still the winds have to be considered a minor annoyance when the temperature is over seventy degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of November.

In late October we were still seeing some almost summer-like warmth.  I went for an excursion on the beach and checked the temperature to find that it was seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit.  With fall, there is little humidity in the air so this year with warmth in the mid-seventies or better, our weather along the coast has been perfect for outdoor activities.

There have only been two or three cool mornings and only two days which felt really like winter was on the horizon.  Those couple of days when we didn't make it out of the fifties, New England was suffering through a snow storm so I will not complain about our weather.

Our forecast for this middle week of November 2011 looks fantastic.  Even when the temperature is only in the upper fifties as it will be later in the week, you can still have some great fun out on the water because the water temperature is holding above sixty degrees.

When you can walk out to get the morning newspaper and wear shorts without the hint of a chill, there is not much more that you can request from Mother Nature in November.

With the middle of the month upon us, I have been out on the White Oak River three of the last four days in my kayak. One of the things about a kayak is that you really notice the water temperature.  There is very little plastic between you and the water so when the water gets into the lower fifties, riding around in a kayak is a little like sitting in half a chilled glass.  However, as long as the water remains in the sixties, kayaking is just refreshing.

The cooler but still pleasant days make for great hiking and biking in addition to the boating.  Sometime being surrounded by the 158,000 acres of Croatan National Forest, the 56 miles of pristine beach of the Cape Lookout National Seashore, and the over 20 miles of family oriented beaches on Emerald Isle requires some tough choices on what activity to undertake.  Plenty of practice makes me up to the task.

I tend to alternate between taking long hikes at the Point on Emerald Isle, shorter beach walks with my wife at Third Street, boat rides to Swansboro, White Oak River fishing trips by kayak, hikes at Croatan trails, and bike rides in our neighborhood.

Because the beaches are always changing, I never get bored with my walks. It is hard to tell what you will find. In 2007, the Point was under water.  It took a year before the sand was back, but the beach continues to evolve.

Walks that I took after Irene on Emerald Isle's Point showed some massive changes.  Even at my favorite small beach, Third Street, we found a lot of sand gone on one of our recent trips.  Less than a month later, the sand was back but piled on the beach slightly differently.

There is one thing for certain, this lingering warmth makes beach exploration and mapping a whole lot more fun than it is in January when the water has cooled, the air is chilly, and a cold north wind is blowing.

Each trip to the beach that I take while wearing shorts this time of year amazes me, but the truth is that the weather we are enjoying is not that abnormal. My fascination with weather results in some interesting charts.  I keep track of the morning low temperatures in several locations, including the Cape Carteret area.

If you check out this table and graph of morning low temperatures, you will see that November 14, 2008 had an even higher low temperature than we did this year on the same date.  October and November can with some rare exceptions be magnificent months on the Carolina Coast.

I still remember the image of a wedding party standing in the surf on October 10 last year.  All you have to do is to look at the album of photos that I took that evening to convince yourself how warm it was in October of 2010.  That was the case even with the winter of 2010 turning out to be a colder than normal one.

A look at the average temperatures for the area shows that we're just a little above normal, but the difference is really not that much.  The kicker is that if you already have pretty nice temperatures, and you're running a little warm, things can seem almost summer-like which is what we are seeing this November.

While we are scheduled for some cooler weather later in the week, it doesn't look like I will even have to cover my tomatoes which will hopefully make it into December once again if we are lucky.

The North Carolina coast, especially the Crystal Coast, is a wonderful place to spend fall and even winter.  Last winter which was the coldest in one hundred years, resulted in just a little snow for our area.  People were excited to see some snow, but I was pleased that for the most part it melted before lunch.  I don't mind a little snow on the grass, I just don't want to get into shoveling it.

So far the warmth on the Crystal Coast has kept my snow shovel relaxing in a corner in the garage for the last five years.  That's fine with me, and I will continue to enjoy any of these fall days where the sunshine and warm air combine to make us wish this weather would stay forever.  Every warm day in November and December is one less winter day.  This November is one of those times when we don't listen to heat pumps.  None of us will be complaining about that.

More information on visiting the area is available at Crystal Coast Life.

 

 

Fall on the Carolina Coast

You would have a hard time finding residents who think there is a better season than fall along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.  The weather often defies description. It is a time when the air is cooler, the water still warm, and the skies almost as blue as they are in winter.

Just about any activity is within the realm of possibility.  People still swim in the water though it is a little cool for swimming in my opinion.  However, I don't mind standing knee deep in the water, wetting a line, and trying to catch a fish or two.  The scenery and the weather are often so nice that catching fish is optional.

There are fall days that I have a hard time deciding what to do. The humidity is for the most part gone so long walks on the beach are very enjoyable.  But if the wind is quiet,  the area waters are perfect for kayaking this time of year. Hiking and paddling are two of my favorite activities.  I often carry a fishing rod in my kayak.

Earlier in October I went for an evening paddle, and the water was almost perfect when I got back into our inlet.  I just glided along and listened to the sounds of the birds around the marsh.  A few days later the wind was just right, and I hardly had to lift a paddle as the wind pushed my kayak back to the dock.

Fall is also a great time to take a skiff out and enjoy the beauty of the area marshes.  My wife who is not a huge summer boating fan really enjoys riding through the area waters in the fall.  Even with pictures, it is hard to appreciate the beauty of the waters and marshes along the Crystal Coast.  You don't even have to own a boat to go on a marsh cruise in the fall.  The folks at Hammocks Beach State Park have regular pontoon boat cruises for fund raising for local charities in the fall.

It is also almost impossible to get through a fall weekend without a festival of some sort.  We have recently had the NC Seafood Festival in Morehead City, the Mullet Festival in Swansboro, the Mumfest in New Bern, and two lobster festivals at area Episcopalian churches.

If I had to pick one favorite fall thing, it would be standing in the still warm water and doing a little surf fishing.  However, being a resident on the Crystal Coast lets me sample all the pleasures of the area in the fall. 

Even our yards cooperate.  The centipede grass that makes up most coastal lawns conventiently slows its growth in the fall so that we have more time for fall activities.  It sure beats a mountain blue grass yard.  They usually get a spurt of growth in the fall and often require mowing into December.

If you have never visited the coast in the fall, don't let another season slip by without giving it a try.

Moving to the coast, what to learn from Irene?

Now that the skies have cleared, and the waters calmed after Irene's visit to the eastern seaboard of the United States, what lessons can we take away from Irene?

The first lesson is one that I have known for a long time, hurricanes can do a lot of damage inland.  We found that out living in the Virginia mountains over three hundred miles from the coast. However, a lot of people move to the coast and assume if they are few miles inland, they will be safe.

As is often the case, it is all about location.  There are places that flood regularly thirty to sixty miles inland of the thin strand of sand along North Carolina's shore.  There are also places on the beach or on water close to the beach that rarely flood.

You have to ask questions when looking for property, and most of all pay attention to the history of the area.  One of things that comforted me when we moved to the Southern Outer Banks of Carteret County was the proximity of buildings from the 1700s in both Beaufort and Swansboro.  While those buildings are no guarantee, they do help paint a picture of what has happened over time.

One of four things that you can do on your own is to go to NOAA's historical hurricane track site. Enter the place name of the closest town to the location you are considering, and then don't panic when you see all the lines because the records go back a long ways and include everything from tropical depressions on up. 

Zoom into your location, and see what has happened in the past.  Our location on the White Oak River has only had two category two storms in the last 150 years.  One was Donna in 1960 and another was an unnamed storm in 1878.  The 1878 storm was the only one that we were on the bad or right side of the storm.

However, due to the nature of hurricanes there might have been storms that were very significant locally that don't look particularly close on the map. That is why the last you can do is one of the most important.

The second thing you can do is find the area's flood mapping site.  This is the location of North Carolina's flooding mapping site.  Plug in the location of any home that you are considering, and the site will pull up the flood maps.  However, you really need to be familiar with the area from the air because the site might well have the address slightly misplaced.

If you look at this image snapshot of my own home taken from the flood mapping site, you will see that I have marked the actual location of the house which is 700 feet into the flood zone instead of just outside of the flood zone.

One of the ways that you can know see to the exact location of a house you are considering is to do a little mapping on your own.  I use a program on my Android smart phone called MyTracks.  MyTracks does a great job of mapping your location, or you can use Google's built-in maps and a program called Lattitude which allows you to send your location by email.  It you want the location of a home, just send yourself an email from Latitude while standing on the front steps.

MyTracks will also record your trip and save it to a Google map so you can view it on a computer.  Just start it recording when you leave a home and stop it when you get back to a real estate office.  That way you can do a drive by any properties that interest you on your own.

The third thing to do is view some flood surge maps.  The maps only provide some broad guidance as you can see from this picture.  However, they can set off some warning bells which would indicate that you need to do further investigation.  If you see places where nine feet or more of water is coming up a river, it is clear that living on that river would require some care in choosing a home.

The fourth and most important thing is to talk to some local people who have had extensive experience in riding out storms.  I have a friend who has been in our area for over sixty years, and he has given me a wealth of information. Ask the locals what areas flood and what areas are safe.  You should know that even among locals, some people are more paranoid about storms than other.  We have one neighbor who put plywood over the windows of his brand new home in our well-sheltered subdivision.  As far as I know none of the forty plus homes suffered any wind damage to their windows during Irene. I think the building code requires 150 MPH windows.  My neighbor got the benefit of drilling holes in his new home, and having his windows covered for several days until he had time to take down the plywood.

When Irene came to visit, we did get a number of the local herons and egrets who came to our cove to hide from the storm. It was a good sign as far as I was concerned.  While their feathers might have gotten a little ruffled, I am sure they were better off hiding up the river with us than in a wide open marsh near the shore.

That are some basic common sense guidelines that can help in deciding on the right location for a home.  First if you live on the water and have a broad expansive view of the water, the wind and or storm surge can likely drive that water towards you, and unless you live on a hill it could end up around your home.

Second if you live up a river off of a huge sound, the laws of physics dictate that when you drive all that water from the sound up a much smaller river, there will be flooding.

Third the topography of the area where you live is critical.  If you are seeing very inexpensive waterfront property, there is likely a reason. Our county, Carteret, goes downhill from west to east.  While no part of the county is very far above water, the western part is in far better shape than the eastern part which looks like a giant marsh if you drive through it.  A trip down east is very different than driving around our area on the western side of the county.

The topography rule is also important in the subdivision where you pick a home.  There is one subdivision in our area that is shaped like a bowl.  When you have extreme rainfall even not related to a storm, you can get flooding there as you can on Emerald Isle near Coast Guard Road where the roads commonly flood after a storm.  Our subdivision is sloped towards the water. When we had the 20.25 inches of rain in eight hours, we got a little water on our dock, some homes in the subdivision shaped like a bowl ended up with water inside them. When the tide went out, the water dropped from my dock even though it continued to rain for four hours.  The homes in the bowl shaped subdivision had water in and around them for days.

Another rule that works well is avoid homes with basements.  They just don't work well here at the coast.  You are far better off with a home on a block foundation which has flood vents in the foundation.  Flood vents are standard in new construction in areas which flood.  It is also a good idea to avoid a home at the foot of a large sloping field. Torrential rain can come at you in like a small ocean wave if the topography of your home is wrong.

Also if you are buying an older home, you need to realize that it might not meet all the latest hurricane proof building codes.  It is not unusual to see an older home not far off the ground next to a new home that is three or four feet off the ground. Which one do you think is built to handle floods?

There are a lot of small local factors that have a tremendous influence on the safety of a home.  If you understand hurricanes, you can make some intelligent guesses on wind direction.  I actually bought the inexpensive online Hurricane Survival Guide.

While it is targeted at boaters, it helped me understand wind directions in a hurricane.  Our home is well protected from the east and north.  Our main vulnerability is from the southwest.  When hurricane Irene came by, we only had to deal with winds from the east and north.  While we are protected, that doesn't mean storms aren't impressive as you can see from this YouTube video that I did from our deck at the peak of Irene.

So how did things go in our first hurricane test on the coast since our move here in September 2006?  Certainly our area got punished by Hurricane Irene, but we survived Irene's onslaught which started at 5 PM Friday and did not end until 7 PM Saturday. We actually had an ice crea cone on Emerald Isle the day after the storm.

Carteret County in general and western Carteret County specifically came through Irene in great shape.  My Crystal Coast Life article gives detailed information on how the area fared.  At our home, I estimate we saw 80 MPH winds and perhaps as much as 15 inches of rain.  However, our power was only out for 14 hours so we cannot complain.  Another general rule that seems to be emerging from Irene is that small local electric cooperative do better than large old line power companies.

One other thought is that if you have a lot of trees close around your home, they can damage your home during a storm or provide you with lots of yard work for days after a storm.  We were happy to not have any trees around our home.   My clean-up consisted of running the lawn mower with bagger over the yard to pick up the debris that a neighbor had blown into my yard.

We were well prepared for Irene, and preparations confirmed much of the advice of the experts.

Things are back to normal here along the coast, and I am happy that I did my homework well before we bought a home here.

 

Beach, Sound, or River?

If you are moving to an area like the Crystal Coast which offers something of everything, what geographic area should you choose?

You could live on the beach at Emerald Isle, around Bogue Sound, or on the White Oak River?  All would give you good access to water.

The answer depends on many things including budget, personal taste, and availability.

While there are many homes on the market, most people quickly narrow it down to a few that they like.  If they are lucky, they have found one which they love in their price range and with features that meet all their needs.

It all sounds so simple, but of course it isn't.

However, if you want to walk out your door and go for a beach walk every morning without getting in a car, that narrows your search.  By the same token, if you want to drop your boat in water and go for a quick boat ride before breakfast like I do, that also limits your choices.

So what are some of the considerations when deciding where to locate on the Crystal Coast? 

The first thing that I typically ask people is what size home do they want.  Next is the price range that they need to hit.  Generally I send people off to talk to a bank before we have the price discussion.  These days you cannot get serious about looking for property until you have talked to a bank. Unless you have cash in hand, it is a waste of your time and my time to look at homes unless a bank has told you how much they are willing to lend you.

Price and size typically help narrow the geography a little.  Homes typically cost more per square foot over on the beach.  Also beach homes are typically smaller with some very expensive exceptions to the rule.  Maintenance, taxes, and insurance are also more expensive on the beach.  Taxes and insurance are important when it comes to thinking about a mortgage.

One other consideration is boating. You can only have a boat lift on the sound side of the beach.  Often over on the island having a lift with a boat on the soundside requires a long dock.  There are exceptions to this rule, but in general the docks are fairly long over the beach side of the sound.  That makes them susceptible to storms and surges.

You certainly do not need a boat lift to enjoy the water with a boat.  However, it you like to boat frequently and typically your trips are short, a lift is a great choice.

Facilities for launching boats continue to improve along the Crystal Coast with two new or improved ramp facilities in Beaufort and a huge new access area with ramps on Emerald Isle.  The Wildlife Resources ramp in Cedar Point has increased its parking and is in line for a major reworking.  Cape Carteret has a very nice ramp which is available to Cape Carteret residents for a minimal yearly fee.

What you want to do with your boat might also influence where you want to locate.

Currently getting out Bogue Inlet to the ocean is more of a challenge than it has been in recent years.  If fishing offshore is important to you, you should carefully evaluate where to locate.  Beaufort Inlet is in much better shape than Bogue Inlet.  Having said that, there are lots of people who go in and out of Bogue Inlet with few problems.

One of things often mentioned by people who live in Emerald Isle by the beaches is summer tourist traffic.  We have about six weeks of a strong tourist season.  That means if you live over by the beach, you have to be willing to put up with a little inconvenience at times.  The bridge from Cape Carteret to Emerald Isle is two lanes, and it can plug up for a time on Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the summer.  Some island residents just hole up during especially busy holidays like the Fourth of July.

In addition to traffic on the bridge, grocery stores in the area get very busy on holiday weekends and a few other weekends during the summer.  Most locals do their grocery shopping from Monday to Thursday.  However, it you live on Emerald Isle by the beaches, you can expect the Food Lion, which is only grocery store on the west end of the Island, to be relatively busy most of July and part of August.  The same thing holds for island restaurants and other services.

Living on the mainland lets you get around the traffic a little easier, and there are other options for grocery shopping on the weekend.  The same goes for restaurants, but good ones even on the mainland are still busy most evenings during July and early August.

As to weather, the mainland warms up before the beaches and cools down before the beach areas.  There is typically more wind on the beach areas, and in early spring the damp cool of the beach area begs for some real warmth which can often be found on the mainland just across Bogue Sound. The beach stays a tad warmer during the winter, but that is often offset by stronger winds.

Living along the sound on the mainland is a great compromise if you can afford it as soundfront property on the mainland is typically very expensive.  However, if you can swing it, it is a great way to watch life on the water along the coast.  There is always traffic on the Intracoastal, and it is fun to watch.

If you cannot swing living directly on the sound, there are a number of water access communities along the Crystal Coast.  All of the ones in the western end of Carteret County are either on the White Oak River or along Bogue Sound.  The amenities in the communities vary widely, and any claims of boat ramps and access to deep water should be carefully evaluated.  Some communities as they have aged have neglected their boat ramps to the point that the ramps are unusable except for very small boats.

While there are neighborhoods with year around residents over on the beach, you will likely more easily find a neighborhood with permanent residents over on the mainland.  This is also true for children.

Living on a coastal river is different than living either on the sound or by the beaches.  It is actually worth a discussion on its own.  It is where we chose to live.  I have my boat on a lift not much more than 25 feet behind our house.  It takes me just ten minutes by boat to Swansboro and the Intracoastal. Also when the sound and ICW are full of boats, I have the option of hiding out in the White Oak River by our house.   I love to walk on the beaches, but that requires a ten to fifteen minute drive.  I also am passionate about being a Southern gardener.  For me growing tomatoes is very important so I tend to think our location on the mainland by the river is a little better for getting early ripe tomatoes. If my location sounds great, my neighbor's waterfront home with a boat slip is for sale.

There are lots of different ways to determine where you want to live.  A good place to start is talking to a Realtor® who knows the area well. At a minimum you should visit an area website with real estate information.  Working with a a Realtor® can be quicker.  Showing you a few places is the best way to get the lay of the land and understand the neighborhoods.  You see things driving around in a car that you often don't have the opportunity to see on the Internet.

Reading about the area also helps you make an informed decision on where to live.  You can find links to my articles on the area both on this site and at this webpage.

The more work you do up front before starting to look at homes (including talking to a banker), the easier it will be to find your dream home.

 

 

 

How will you know the right spot?

Actually knowing the right spot is a little more art than science. 

Surprisingly the knowledge that you have found a place that you might enjoy often comes as an "aha" moment.

Some of the clues that I would offer are fairly simple.  First and most important, your spot in paradise is rarely the first place that you visit. Usually on your first visit, you really do not know what you want or what is really available.

Second, your place is most often not exactly as you might have imagined it.  Imagination is a great thing, but getting it to map to reality is serious challenge.

The real key to finding your place and recognizing it is coming to an understanding of what is really important to you.

The last three homes we have purchased, we really wanted a nice backyard.  The first of the three had great potential for a backyard, and we actually paid to have some trees taken down and a backyard created.  Then it turned out that we had a really nice backyard in community that wasn't right for us.

We ended up moving to another community five hours away.  It turned out to be the right community for us since we raised our family there and lived in the same house for over twenty years, but we never got the backyard we wanted because our home was on the side of a mountain.  In essence we traded our backyard for a view that made us feel like we were living in a treehouse for twenty years.  It was a great trade, and I will never regret it.

Five years ago, we decided to try living at the coast. For me it was a lifelong dream.  Of course we put a backyard on our list of what we wanted in a home. And once again we ended up with no backyard unless the water where our boatlift is counts as one.

This time we traded easy access to a the vast water playground of the Crystal Coast for some grass and trees.  I am pretty happy with the trade, but every person is different.

It is important that you see enough properties to get an idea of what is available.  Then when you are serious, you pick what home represents the best set of tradeoffs for your personal situation.

While real estate agents are very good at lining up homes which represent some distinct choices, only you can figure out what place just feels right.

However, it is important that you remain realistic. In spite of what you might hear on the news, no one is giving away waterfront properties.  I still get people who expect to buy a nice home on the water for $200K. Sometimes they even tell me that have seen very cheap waterfront homes in another area.  Invariably I end up telling them that if the homes in the other area are such a great deal, they should head on back to there, buy one, and let me get back to fishing or walking the beaches.

While I can show people plenty of homes priced at around $200K, I don't have any in that price range which are literally on the water.

When we found our current place, we had been looking for nearly three years.  We had seen just about everything under the sun except what we wanted.  Our Realtors® even convinced us to make an offer on a place that really wasn't what we wanted.  Fortunately we didn't get it, and we started looking in another area with a different Realtor®.

When I saw the cove pictured at the top of the post and the dock behind the new home we had found on the water, I just knew we were in the right spot.  My initial intuition has proven to be correct.

Since I am a Realtor®, I have literally looked at hundreds of homes since we bought ours, and I have yet to see one that I like better for the same or less money. Would I like to have more of a backyard? Of course I would. However, I am enjoying a very big water playground that takes it place. Our home is very much our special spot just the way it is.

We put our mountainside home on the market last summer, and when it sells, we will likely make a few changes to our current home, but we are pretty happy in it the way it is.

Fortunately we knew our current coastal home was the right place because we had decided that if we were going to live at the coast, we wanted to be on water and to be able to see water.  We also wanted a new home so we didn't have deal with all the repairs on a historic home.

Living where we do, we get the chance to be out on the water whenever we want to drop the boat in the water. We are also much closer to the beach than in the first area where we looked.  Our efforts to get to that "aha" moment were well worth the time.

As an informed potential buyer, you can do much to make your search easier.  Make certain you want to live in a particular area before you contact a Realtor®.  As much as I enjoy being a tour guide, I really cannot afford to drive people around for hours only to have them decide that they would rather be in another area.

I have spent thousands of hours putting materials on the web to help people understand if the Crystal Coast portion of the Southern Outer Banks is the right spot for them. I enjoy answering email questions about our area, and I also don't mind meeting with people to answer some area questions.  However, unless you have made the decision to live in Carteret or Onslow Counties, I am going to pass on being your tour guide.

I can suggest you start at the welcome page of my Crystal Coast Life blog, and then visit my real estate search page, scroll down, and look at the homes which have sold in the last six months.  If some that have sold are in your price range and are something you might have considered,  take the time to read some of my many articles about living here or the ones designed to help you consider living here.

I walk the beaches of the area and spend time on the water so if those activities are important to you, I can answer your questions.

When you feel in your heart this is the right place for you at this time in your life, give me a call, and we will find a special spot for you.  This area is a welcome quiet spot for many of us who have spent too long in the cities, but it is also a place with plenty to do if you love the out of doors.

Defined by your environment

I've had lots of opportunities to look at the world through the filter of different places. That continues even today.

Recently I was in Reston, Virginia not far from the Washington Beltway and Tyson's Corner where it appears the whole area's infrastructure is being re-built.

After that weekend visit, I spent some time on the mountain overlooking Roanoke, Virginia where we lived for so many years.

Both of those visits came after an extended stay in Carteret County along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

All of the places are very different. The place where we stay in Reston backs up on Fairfax County park and is almost surrounded by trees.  In Roanoke, the home is on the side of a mountain with a view that sometimes includes the distant Peaks of Otter. Our Southern Outer Banks home is tucked in an inlet in Bluewater Cove just off the White Oak River.  The houses all differ greatly.

I have known for a long time that my mood is heavily influenced by the environment surrounding the home where I happen to be staying, but I don't think that I put all the pieces together until recently.

The way I feel probably has as much or more to do with what is outside the home as it does with what is inside the home. A place with regular bright blue sky and lots of sunlight not surprisingly makes me feel better. It might even make me feel better than a huge expansive home.

Most of us spend a lot of our lives worrying about what kind of home we live in, and as someone who sells real estate, I know a nice home is important to most people including myself.

However, where a home is can easily be just as important as how nice it is on the inside or how big the home is.

Living in Carteret County has really made that point clear to me.  The wonderful world outside our home along the county's Crystal Coast has become an extension to our home.

With a climate that often favors clear skies and warmer temperatures, it is easy to enjoy the out of doors.  When we first moved to the Crystal Coast, I was puzzled by the number of garages where you could see chairs obviously being used.

It wasn't long before a couple of chairs appeared in our own garage since it turns out to be just as nice a place to sit and enjoy the weather as our decks are.  While the chairs are often pushed to the side, it is not unusual for my wife and I to relax in those chairs in the afternoon breezes.

While the wonderful mountains around our Roanoke Valley home gradually became off limits to us due to development, each day on the Crystal Coast seems to offer a new place to explore.

When you live on a mountain, you can see for miles, but unless you live next to a park or own some acreage to protect your home, eventually the view might be the only thing you can enjoy from your backdoor.

Navigable water is different than land since it is open to the public and invites exploration. While the trails I used to enjoy from our mountain spot in Roanoke have been cut by development, the water near our home in Cartert County has become a vast playground that I use year round. 

Exploring the water and the also public beaches keeps me outside more than I might be otherwise. On top of that we have some unbelievable trails just a couple of miles from us at the Croatan National Forest Access in Cedar Point.

I will give the Roanoke Valley municipalities credit for developing the Greenway Trails along the Roanoke River, but I still think they missed a huge opportunity when they passed on buying the mountain land where we used to hike high above the city.  There is a big difference walking a hundred feet from a major road and walking 500 ft in elevation above all of those roads.

In Reston the adjoining Fairfax County park isn't anywhere nearly as accessible as the water behind our home on the White Oak River in Carteret County. The trails are hard to reach, and there is some concern for safety even in a town as upscale as Reston. Of course there are advantages to living in a large metropolitan area. On our recent Reston trip we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the National Arboretum.

While what is outside a home is very important to me, there are people who treat their home as a cave and only rarely venture outside.  To them the environment around their homes is of little consequence.  They go from one heated or air conditioned environment to another. 

While I am not a huge fan of winter cold like we had this past year, I do for the most part embrace the heat. In general our coastal areas are spared from the worst of summer's heat except for a few weeks.  The cooling or warming influence of the area's waters helps to give us a temperate climate though it has it's up and downs.

The fact that I live in an area where it is easy to stick a kayak in the water and paddle down the river or to take a long walk on the beach means that a nice trip in a kayak or a long hike on the beach have just become part of me.

When you are looking for a place to live, knowing how you are influenced by the environment around your home can help you make a better decision on where to live.  It certainly worked for us.

 

 

The heat pump game

One of the things that I like the most about living on the Crystal Coast is that we get to play the heat pump game. 

The goal of the game is to have your heat pump run as little as possible or worst case to run with the best possible efficiency.

Our game would be a real challenge in most places that we have lived, but here on North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks our climate is temperate enough that we can go weeks without having our heat pump run. 

In fact today is April 11, and I suspect that our heat pump has not run for most of the last couple of weeks.

In an average year here at the coast (click on monthly tab to see averages), our temperatures get very nice by the end of March.  We have gone into early July before having to run the heat pumps in air conditioning mode. Having some hot spells in early June and late May is certainly possible, but those twists are what make the game fun and sometimes challenging.

Most houses are not designed for very efficient natural cooling, but our Bluewater Cove home ended up having very effective cooling more by chance than anything. In the winter time we have lots of windows that get sunshine and keep the heat pumps quiet on nice days.  Heat tends to rise, and the inside of our house takes advantage of that.

When it starts getting hot, we close the blinds during the day, open the windows in the evening, and sometimes leave them open all night.  Our living room is open to the second floor.  If I leave the windows open in my second floor office and the adjoining second floor bedroom, it sets up a crossflow breeze which sucks all the heat out of our house.  Since we live on the water we usually have a breeze almost every evening.

As I explained in my post about Carolina fog being more useful than Canadian fog, our house can heat to near 80 degrees on a nice spring afternoon.  However, if we open the right windows and leave them open all night, the house will cool to the mid sixties by morning.  As the temperature starts to rise, I close the windows, usually before 9 AM to keep the cool air inside. Most days in late March, April, and May, we can make it until evening  without air conditioning.  Once evening arrives, we open the windows and the house cools down once again.  If we get a cool or rainy day, we just keep the windows closed and enjoy the warmth.

We eventually get to a period when the air conditioning might come on for an hour or two late in the afternoon, but that is still better than the heat of mid July and August when our heat pumps stay busy.

We also play the game in the winter.  On cold winter days when heat pumps aren't very efficient, we will often run our vent-less gas logs until the outside air temperature reaches the point where heat pumps work efficiently.

The heat pump game sure beats having to pay for heating and air conditioning twelve months out of the year.  The right house, in a good spot on the water here on the Crystal Coast has saved us heating and cooling money.

Figuring out the Crystal Coast Water Puzzle

Newcomers to the area often tell us that they want to be near the water.  Since Carteret County is 61% water, it would seem that being "near" the water would not be a great challenge.  In one sense, that is the case.  Nowhere in Carteret County is very far from the water.

However, when people start trying to solve the puzzle of the county's waters, they find it much more complicated.  There is no shortage of water, it just turns out that there are lots of different kinds of water.  I spent over twenty years in the technology industry, and I learned to tell people that they should figure out what they wanted to do with their computer before buying one.  It is very similar with water in Carteret County.  If water is important to you, he helps to know what you want to do on it, before you pick a place to put down some roots.

Having said that, it is all a matter of trade offs.  What is convenient to one person might well be inconvenient to another person.  If you want to get to the water in Carteret County, you can get to it, one way or the other.

There are lots of factors to consider, and I will list some of them.  However, if you are serious about wanting a place on or near the water, there is no substitute for getting in a car with me and visiting some of the places.  Not only do I take clients to visit prospective areas by car, I often put them in my skiff and show them some of the area.  I have taken clients right to the dock of the subdivision where they were considering buying a place.  If you are interested in serious help from me, check out my real estate site or just send me a note.  This is a contact form that will get in touch with me.

The first thing to decide is whether or not you want to live in a community with a boat ramp. Picking a subdivision with a good boat ramp will cost extra money compared to a subdivision without one.  Subdivision boat ramps are also not all created equal, some are not as advertised.  The best rule of thumb is to talk to someone living there who actually boats to verify any claims that are being made.

We have one subdivision close to us where you often see the boat ramp advertised as being a feature for the community.  The reality is that you cannot even get a good sized skiff launched at their ramp unless there is a high tide and the winds are right.

And of course ramps require maintenance. Then the ramp is only part of the boating equation.  Only a few spots in Carteret County are close enough to navigable water that they can get away without dredging a channel.  Dredging requires a permit and can only be done at certain times of the year.  In our subdivision some of our HOA dues go to a fund to maintain the channel from our ramp to the marked channel in the White Oak River. In some cases finding a subdivision with a HOA that charges very little might mean that there is no maintenance being done on the boat ramp or the channel from the ramp.

If you decide on a community with a boat ramp, getting your boat into the water is easier especially in summer when the Wildlife Resources Ramp in Cedar Point is crowded. It is also a whole lot easier with a subdivision ramp if you are taking your family boating.  Dad can go launch the boat, tie it up at the community day dock, and then go back and get the family.

In some communities you can leave a boat tied up at the day dock for two or three days or until something starts growing on your boat hull which is about two or three days.  Leaving your boat tied up at a community day dock is a great way to have some serious boating fun.

There is one way to get access to a very nice boat ramp without living in a subdivision with a boat ramp.  If you live in the town of Cape Carteret, paying $50 annually will give you access to the very nice Cape Carteret boat ramp.  The last time I checked you could have access to that ramp from anywhere in the county for a $300 yearly fee.  Of course there are other for fee ramps in the area, and there is a new, very large public boat ramp being built on Emerald Isle.  There are also ramps in Morehead City and Beaufort.

As you are deciding whether or not you want to pay the premium for living in a subdivision with a boat ramp, you need to decide what kind of boat you want and how large it is going to be.  Another saying we have along the Crystal Coast is that we have a lot of water spread very thin.

In other words while you might see lots of water, don't necessarily assume that you can take anything in the water beyond a kayak.  In fact there are places where you can even run into challenges in a kayak.

You can actually end up with a property that is near some beautiful water which can turn out to be hard to access without going to a public water access miles away.  Or you can find a place where there is water access at the end of the street where you only put in a kayak. Then there are places that can accommodate even a good-sized off shore boat.  Carteret County and the Swansboro area have all that and more.

Many locals including myself favor a skiff around 20ft long with a 90HP motor. I did a lot of talking to boaters in 2006 before we got our own skiff in 2007.  It has been a great choice for what I want to do with a boat. Most skiffs are fairly utilitarian.  They are designed for hauling people and gear and for fishing.  They are the easiest boats to operate in shallow water, and temporarily beaching one to let people off on a sandbar or an island in the inlet is easy. 

Our standard procedure is to put the bow of the boat on the sand, let everyone but the captain off, bury the anchor in the sand, and back the boat off shore into some shallow water.  The captain then tilts the motor and wades back ashore.  That way you don't risk having your boat stranded as the tide goes out.

I am lucky to have my boat on a lift behind our home.  Our skiff is less than thirty feet from my garage.  In under ten minutes, I can load my gear, connect my GPS, and be in the White Oak River.  Having a boat on a lift has allowed me to boat nearly every week during the year.  I even used my skiff as an icebreaker once this winter.

However, having a boatlift means having waterfront property, and that costs even more than just being in a community with a boat ramp.  Still it allows me to maximize my time with my boat.  Wednesday, March 23, I took clients out to see some property from the water.  Later that afternoon, a fishing buddy and I went out for our first fishing trip of the year. The next afternoon I slipped my kayak in the water for the first kayaking trip of the year on the White Oak River. I could do all that because I live right by the water.

Of course if you decide to be on a river instead of the sound, picking the right river is also very important.  Some rivers are more subject to winds or flooding.  The banks of the New River in Jacksonville are mostly in the hands of the Marines.  Then there are big rivers like the Neuse which has a history of fish kills.  We chose the White Oak River which has enough tidal action to keep the water moving in summer.  It is also a short river with no city on it and mostly natural wetlands along much of its upper reaches. Another thing in its favor are the oysters in the river.  They are nature's way of keeping water clear. There are rivers in the Beaufort area where the docks have to be extremely long to reach the water.  Of course if you have the money to be on Taylor's Creek in Beaufort, you are in a prized spot.

I have hardly touched on some options like being on the soundside of Emerald Isle, renting a slip, or dry stacking a boat. You also have to consider where you are in realtion to the inlets if getting into the ocean is important.  I can be in the ocean in twenty minutes from our home on the White Oak.  If you are half way between Cape Carteret and Morehead City on the Intracoastal, it can take longer.

There are plenty of ways to enjoy the water in Carteret County, and there are a lot of different kinds of water to enjoy from the White Oak River to the Intracoastal Waterway, Bogue Sound, Bogue Inlet and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Crystal Coast, which in my view includes Swansboro, and which is sometimes called the Southern Outer Banks, is one of the great boating places along the Carolina Coast.  We have access to the Atlantic through Beaufort and Bogue Inlets.  For those who don't want to go into the ocean there is plenty of room to boat in the sounds and rivers.

Hopefully this article has helped a little in solving the puzzle of the waters of the Crystal Coast.  You can follow one of my boating trips with linked pictures on this Google Map.  You can also check out my site with many pictures of boating in the area.