The Crystal Coast, Salt water on my feet

Time for Strawberries & Mowing Grass

Kayak on the Dock, Spring Green Grass

We are lucky along the Crystal Coast.  Unlike some spots we have a spring that you can savor.  The reason behind our relatively gradual warming is that the area's waters take time to lose their winter chill.  It often means we enjoy an extended period of very nice temperatures from April until sometime in June.

While a place like Washington, DC, can go straight from winter to summer, that just does not usually happen here. The first week of April, 2013, Washington was suffering from ninety degree temperatures and we were comfortably in the low eighties. 

Our sandy soils do not support all the blooming trees that you might see in central North Carolina or southwest Virginia. Both of those areas explode into spring sometime around the third week in March.  It is a wonderful show to watch but it can have its downside.

I have often thought that one of the cruliest ironies for northerners moving to the bluegrass parts of Virginia and North Carolina is that they learn quickly that the beautiful spring scenery comes with grass which needs to be mowed at least twice a week. There is something very pleasing to the eye about a fresh mowed mountain bluegrass yard but it is truly a lot of work.  Even as April moves towards its end on the coast, we have to look for pretty green grass but we usually have hardly cranked our mowers.

The picture at the top of the post is behind my bulkhead and tends to get green earlier than most of our yard. It looks a lot greener than the balance of my yard.  The rest of my yard which I mowed on April 18, still looks pretty brown.  in another two weeks it will look great. Fortunately, I still be mowing it less than once a week even well into May.

While our grass gets green later than the grass in the Piedmont of North Carolina, our vegetables and berries get ripe sooner.  As is often the case, I mowed our yard on the same day that we got our first box of Eastern North Carolina strawberries.  Swapping a showy spring for early local berries is a trade off that I am happy to make.

I would far sooner be eating strawberries than mowing my yard twice a week.  Still some  of the trappings of spring come and go quickly on the coast.  Bradford pear trees which bloom for weeks in the mountains often shed their blooms for leaves in less than a week here at the coast.  Many years our daffodils at the coast are gone in days.  This year, an extended spell of cool weather kept them around for most of a month.  We have to hope that our lettuce will mature before the middle of May or often it will get bitter with the warmth of an approaching summer.

I actually do not mind mowing grass down here on the coast.  It is good exercise, the ground is level, and except for the heat in August, it is not too bad. It is one of those things where progress is easily discerned unlike much of the work I have faced in my life.   However it is work and I do have a big yard here at the coast. I continue to insist on mowing it with a self-propelled mower that I walk behind.  For my most recent mowing, I turned on the GPS tracking in my phone to see how far I walk when I mow our yard.  When I finished I was surprised to see that I had walked 2.75 miles.  It looks like I am getting some worthwhile exercise behind the mower.

Based on that 2.75 miles, I cancelled my afternoon hike and enjoyed a nap.  It was spitting rain anyway and I would rather walk when the sky is blue and there is a better opportunity for a nice picture.  I am not going to complain about rain either.  It was a nice warm rain and I would rather have rain in April than have a dry April like we had a few years ago.  If April is dry by June things can be desperate.

With the first local strawberries here and the first mowing done to coincide with the first blooms on my tomato plants, I think it is safe to say that spring along the Southern Outer Banks is proceeding well.  We are perhaps a couple of weeks behind what is normal but nothing out of the ordinary.   It does look the spring crops will have enough moisture for a good start.

We just need the wind to stop blowing and the fish to start biting and all will be well in our sandy world along North Carolina's coast.

Beach Season is Here

Beach season really never stops on North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks.  We just have days when there are better places to be than the beach. However, the official beach season usually begins Saint Patrick's Day.  Last year we had enjoyed plenty of warmth already by the middle of March. It was markedly different than the spring of 2011.

This year the weather has mostly cooperated with the season opening. It has not been a bad winter but we did have some cold and cloudy days in February and now the winds are here.  On top of that there is construction on the Emerald Isle bridge which will not be finished for another few weeks.  The combination of cool days, wind and traffic delays on the bridge kept me away from my favorite beaches during the month of February 2013.  It is rare that I miss a whole month.

Somehow when I bundle up in a down vest and wind jacket, I do not feel as out of place walking along the woods by the marshes as I do over on the beach.  Recently with the nice weather on the mainland, I have been able to ditch the down vest but it is always a lot cooler over on the beach early in the season.   Our February warmth usually only lasts for a few hours at a time and my default action during those short warm periods is to go for a winter boat ride.

Saint Patrick's Day weekend turned out to be different or at least a hint of things to come.  The wind was here but we had plenty of heat to compensate. The temperature probably hit seventy degrees and our blue skies returned to go with the warmth.  Construction on the bridge was also suspended for the Emerald Isle Saint Patrick's Day Festival. Of course the festival and one of the first really nice days of spring happening on the same day meant that to avoid traffic on the bridge, you needed to go early.

As they say, the stars were aligned.  I left home early enough to make it to the Emerald Isle Festival by 11:00 AM.  I managed to get a good parking place and intended to walk around the festival and at least get a picture or two of some of the bands.  Even before noon the early the crowds at the festival were amazing. 

We were still a long way from the stage when the river of people that was carrying me along, just stopped moving. My crowd tolerance is low so  after a minute or two I finally gave up and headed back to the entrance where my favorite barbecue stand is located.  I bought my barbecue sandwich, took a mouth-watering picture of all that pork on the grill and headed over to Ace Hardware to find a spot to enjoy my sandwich.  It was a perfect, slightly spicy Eastern North Carolina barbecue sandwich with good slaw to top it off.

Next I made my way back to my car and headed west along the beach and Coast Guard Road towards the Point.  The Point is as far west as you can go on Emerald Isle.  It is an amazing area and as vehicles stop driving on the beach in time for the summer visitors, the Point becomes an even more natural spot.  I love to walk there because it one of those places where change is constant.

I map the Point regularly to check for changes to the beach. If you look at one of my maps on Google Maps, you might wonder how I manage to walk on water.  It turns out that my maps are more accurate and updated more regularly than Google's maps.  The lines representing my walks on my maps are always on sand on the land side of the waves.  I use my maps to make sure visitors who buy our travel guide know what is happening to the beaches.  I am working on an update to our travel guide and hope to have it published by the end of March 2013.

I first visited the Point in the summer of 1969 and visiting there brings back more and more memories.  The Point has changed dramatically since we moved here in 2006.  In November of 2007, there essentially was no Point, there was just water at the end of the vehicle ramp as you can see from this picture.

Five and one half years later there is over 1,700 feet of sand where it was hard to find any in November, 2007.   This picture that I took on Saturday, March 16, shows sand almost as far as the eye can see.

I had a nice long walk at The Point on Saturday, March 16, 2013.  I walked enough that it should be clear that beach season is here. It will be one of many walks there this year.   I have posted some pictures and will add more pictures of my hike as soon as I get a chance to sort through them.  This link will take you to the album where you can find my latest collection of pictures of the Point.

A Brush With Winter

Winter has been pretty nice to us here along the Carolina coast.  About the only snow storms have been in our memories.  When our New England friends got their recent blizzard, we got 2.7 inches of rain.

The weather after our drenching storm was nothing to complain about in February.  On February 12, I took ride out on the river in our skiff.  There was plenty of blue sky and the water temperature even out in the river was a respectable 56.6F.  However, we knew the good weather could not last forever.

On Saturday, February 16, we awoke to a temperature of around 40F.  Unfortunately we learned that our high for the day would not be much better than that and we might get a little taste of snow.

Snow is not unheard of here on the coast. A couple of years ago we had some cold weather and what I guess could be called an old-fashioned coastal winter. We have not gotten any where close to that this year.

Our weather on February 16, 2013, could easily be described as a gloomy winter day but it is hard to make it into a serious winter day.  We did live with the tiniest threat of a little snow.  One of our local weathermen said we had a good chance of getting between a trace and 1/4 of an inch.  I am hoping my Canadian friends never hear about that forecast.

As someone who lived in a "snow belt" in Canada, I am not even sure 1/4 of an inch of snow registers as a trace.  We lived through some amazing storms in our sixteen years in Canada.  I cleaned away tons of snow on our farmstead. 

We were serious when we joked that the road crews in New Brunswick where we lived would not even run the big snow plows unless we got more than six inches of snow.  It was not worth their time.  That little dab of snow just smoothed out the bumps in the road. 

Even our home in the Virginia mountains near Roanoke used to get walloped with a serious snow storm ever few years. I am just not sure we should even be talking about 1/4 of an inch of snow.

All kidding aside, I suspect we will survive our brush with winter.  The tiny bit of slush on our front porch was gone not long after it arrived. The weather forecast for the next week shows two days with 60F temperatures so if this is our winter, it is not going to last very long.  I still have only abandoned my crocs once this winter.  I have only worn gloves on my morning hikes twice.

It is normal for coastal North Carolina to get two or three cool days and then we will break out of that pattern and usually get some warmth for a few days.  As we get towards the end of the February, the sun gets stronger and it is harder for the cold to last more than a day or two. Once the waters that surround us warm, it is hard for the cold to do much with the area.  That is one reason our Decembers can be so spectacular.

Sunday February 17 is about as cold a day as we see in most winters.  If the weathermen are right, the temperature will not get above 38F.  That really is a cold day for the Crystal Coast. Usually we consider it a cold day if we do not break 50F.

Not getting above 40F makes it one of those days when I will think back on some warmer weather to keep the cold from making me think we are actually in winter.

Usually our winter sunshine keeps the cold from penetrating my psyche and helps me continue focusing on an early spring.

Most years that is the way it works out.  March 2012 started as an unusually warm month but we cooled off by the time we got to April.  Then May brought us some great weather except we finished the month with a very rare twister.

I sometime think that part of the pleasure of living here is not knowing exactly what the weather is going to bring except we can usually guarantee a few hot days in August.  On Christmas day 2012, the weather was so nice I went kayaking on our big river.  Two years earlier, we had snow on our dock the day after Christmas.  I will also admit that three years ago on February 16, 2010, we got some real snow.

Still this is North Carolina and spring will be here no matter what in a few weeks. In just over a month, I will be planting my tomato plants. With luck and a little warm weather along the way, I will be enjoying a home grown tomato by the end of May.

Growing things is part of living here on the coast, and the great weather we have makes it a lot of fun even it we do see a flake or two of snow once in a while. 

Most of time that blue sky and blue water you see at the top of the post makes you forget about the temperature.  Our nice weather also attracts some very interesting visitors including our newest feathered friend, Frank29x.

 

Standing on the Dock with Summer Dreams

It’s January on the North Carolina coast.  We’ve just been through a magnificent few weeks of weather and a very special mid-January weekend. 

It has been warm and wonderful for a long time.  Now we are headed into some cool weather, but folks not far to the west of us are getting snow.

Tonight, January 17, 2013, I have seen reports of 9 inches of snow in Pulaski, Virginia and 5 inches of the white stuff in Chapel Hill.  The storm came quickly and seems to have caught most folks almost by surprise.  I'll happily take our cooler weather if the snow will stay away.

It is the time of the year to stand on the dock and dream.  There are days like last Thursday, January 10, that you can sneak out on the river and have a nice ride.  I made it down to Swansboro harbor and back with just a t-shirt. Considering that I was skimming along the water at 30 mph, it is safe guess that we had a very warm day.

Most of us are expecting to pay for our warm weather.  It seems to work out that way.  It you get a warm December, January might be cooler.  If February is warm, it will take March longer to warm up.  We take what we get with the weather, but we can dream and that is what we do when we stand on the dock in January.

I think of those mornings in July when I gulp down a cup of coffee and head down the river to the marshes on the other side of the Intracoastal Waterway from Swansboro Harbor.  If the currents, tide, and winds are right, there is place there that I can drift fish a few minutes in my skiff and let the cares of the world float away.

I have caught bluefish, trout, and a variety of other fish there.  At the same the fish aren’t the main reason that I head to the marshes that early in the morning.  I go there because it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  The marshes stretch all the way over to Hammocks Beach State park. This is a YouTube video of the marshes. A map of the area can be found here.

I usually don’t stay long. Then I’ll take the channel down to Cedar Point and run back south on the Intracoastal to Swansboro where I’ll head back up the White Oak River to our home in Bluewater Cove. The channel up the White Oak has some zigs and zags but it is well marked.

Usually I am back home in less than an hour.  Sometimes my wife hasn’t even made it to the kitchen for her first cup of coffee.  For me it is a great way to start a summer morning.

The pleasure of being out on the water that early in the morning is something that sticks with you.  The memories help me get through the winter.  All I have to do is step on the dock and the pictures of summer mornings stream into my mind. I can smell the water and feel the heat. It is all part of life here on the Southern Outer Banks.

It is a good thing to have something to look forward to when you know there are some cool days ahead.  I can hardly wait to stand on the dock tomorrow morning.

Bogue Sound During the Holidays

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, thoughts here on the Southern Outer Banks are quickly turning to the holidays. I used to work for a Carteret County firm that had a slogan for our area,  "Life is different here."

There is some truth in that.  While many places seem to gear up for the holidays.  Coastal North Carolina seems to gear down.  Locals who have been hosts to beach visitors all year seem to take pleasure in getting some return for their hospitality.  It is not unusual for a significant number of coastal dwellers to take the roads and head inland. 

It is a good time to go.  Most of the east is still without snow at Thanksgiving.  That will not be same at Christmas.  Still it is actually a great time to come visit the coast.  Our grown children will be visiting us for Thanksgiving.  They love the cooler temperatures and the absence of crowds which they get plenty of in Northern Virginia.

Our beaches are almost empty except for some fishermen.  The blues and golds that dominate our area make sunsets and actually most of the day a treat as long as the sun is shining.  While early November of 2012 has been a little weather challenged, so far Thanksgiving week looks like it is going to be great.

The peace that comes to the area waters takes some of the pressure off of the holidays. (Unless my wife reads that statement, and then I might be pressured to get in the skiff and go for a long ride.)

I find it easier to relax and enjoy our company here on the coast.  There is not enough serious shopping to make it even worth considering a Black Friday trip.   You would have to drive to Wilmington, and no one wants to go over the edge of the earth to do that.  Actually if you went shopping on Black Friday down here, it likely would not be nearly as crowded as it is in most places.  Our big event is the Emerald Isle Christmas Parade.  It is definitely a trip back to a better time.

Bogue Sound along with the ebb and flow of its tides is a big part of life here at the coast.  That doesn't change with the holidays.  As I crossed the bridge over to Emerald Isle this morning, I saw someone in the water working at getting a mess of oysters.  I also saw a shrimp boat headed down the Intracoastal Waterway.  I should stop by Clyde Phillips Seafood between the bridges and get a pound or so for the weekend. The shrimp this time of year are especially nice.

The fishing has been good and there are not many empty places among the favorite trout spots.  Along the waters that are parallel to the local roads, you don't have to look hard to find someone wetting a line.   I saw a lot of rods out today in anticipation of less than desirable weather for fishing later in the weekend.

If the weather holds tomorrow morning, I'll likely slide my kayak in the water and paddle out to one of my trout holes.  If the winds are not cooperative, I might stay in our inlet and try for one of the puppy drum that have been around most of the fall.  It is a good time to be out on the water.  We rarely have crowds up on the White Oak River.  This time of year except for the warmest days which might bring out a boat or two, things are getting to look a little deserted.

That lack of crowds is fine with me.  It gives me time to count my blessings and truly be thankful for the amazing area where I am privileged to live.  There is a lot to be said for living with the 158,000 acres of Croatan National Forest at your back and the 56 miles of Cape Lookout National Seashore's beaches on your flank.

The other flank is covered by the Marines who can be a little noisy at times but even they finally seem to winding down for the holidays. Of course the Atlantic Ocean to the south of us cannot be ignored, but so far she has treated us well this year.  We are very thankful for that.

Each time I take the bridge across Bogue Sound, I know in my heart that there are few places in the world that can rival the scenic beauty of this area.  To be able to enjoy a peaceful holiday here without getting on the roads is real treat.

 

 

Riding the Temperature Curve

There is something special about fall on North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks.  You often get to turn your heat pump off and enjoy a ride on mother nature's temperature curve right in your own home.

We eagerly look forward to that time of year when the air cools enough to throw open our windows.  Monday, September 10, 2012, marked the first time since spring that we have just opened our windows and gone with the outside air temperature for more than a few hours.

Making the most of the cool outside air requires some intelligent opening and closing of windows during the day. However, it is a task that I enjoy.  Depending on the day, we might have our windows open from eighteen to twenty-four hours.

When I first opened our windows on Monday afternoon, our home was at 78F downstairs and 79F upstairs.  The outside air temperature was not much different, but it cooled rapidly.  By the time I went upstairs to work later that evening, the temperature had already dropped to 72F.  It was cool enough downstairs that we closed a couple of windows before we went to bed.

In the morning when I walked to the kitchen for my first cup of coffee, the downstairs thermostat was showing an interior temperature of 69F.  Outside it was just over sixty degrees.

The first day of our break from the heat we managed to keep the windows open until around 4 PM.  As the temperature outside approached 80F, we closed the windows and let the air conditioning run until about 7 PM when we turned it off and went back to open windows.

That night we opened more windows and left them open all night.  In fact our windows were open for the next sixty-four hours.  I closed them around 11 AM on Friday morning as the humidity and heat started to build.  The heat pumps still haven't come on as noon has passed, but they will as the afternoon heats up.

The rhythm of the warming and cooling of the house is a pleasant change from the abnormal world of living with a heat pump where the temperature never changes.

Living in a house that can be cool or warm takes me back to my childhood days.  I was nine or ten years old before we got a single room air conditioner when I was growing up in Lewisville, NC in the fifties.  Before the air conditioner we had awnings over the screen-covered windows.  Beyond that and some electric fans, you lived with some heat.

I can remember only a couple of nights when I sneaked into our living room which had the air conditioner.  Escaping the heat wasn't really much of an option in the fifties.  Mostly you just went about your business.

I am also reminded of our years in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the eighties.  Neither our car or home there had air conditioning.  I can only remember one time when it got hot enough to matter in Halifax.  Of course Halifax always cooled off at night because of the water surrounding the town.

Airing out the house when the temperature is right always makes me feel better.  There is nothing like fresh air riding a cool breeze from the water.  I'm looking forward to weather which will let us keep our windows open even longer.

While having your windows open is one of my favorite things, the Crystal Coast also has outside weather that is easy to love and an out of doors with places wild enough to offer remarkable peace to those willing to look beyond the beaten track.

 

Finding a Place that Fits

Looking for the right spot to live is sometimes like trying to take a picture of a fish in the air. 

You can spend a lot of time and still come up with nothing.

You can view a lot of my thoughts on moving by checking out the index to this blog.  While I have written about moving a lot, everyone has events that make their own situation unique.

Our life went through a lot of changes in 2004.  I begin to feel like I needed a change of scenery from Roanoke, VA where we were living.

At the same time my heart had found another home in Carteret County, North Carolina.  There were several reasons why Carteret County met my needs, but mostly I was hooked because there is water everywhere in the county.  The area also felt like home.

After much looking in Beaufort and on Emerald Isle, we found our special place in Bluewater Cove just three miles up river from Swansboro.

In the fall of 2006 we closed on our second home and have spent most of our time at the coast since then.  Eventually we came to the conclusion that we had to choose the mountains or the beach.

It was a tough decision for my wife, but it was an easy one for me because my heart had already moved to the quiet waters along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.  In August 2010 we put our Roanoke County home on the market.  We are fortunate that it only took us two years to sell our home and bid adieu to Roanoke.

As I was making one of our last drives from Roanoke to the Crystal Coast, I got some some confirmation that home had become Carteret County.  The drive from Roanoke to Carteret County is a substantial six hour ride, and as with any long drive you get pretty worn out.  Five and one half hours into the drive I was nearly exhausted from the move, the stress, and the drive.  Yet when I reached those tall pines of the Croatan National Forest, the stress started melting away.  I felt like I was home.

That evening when I stood on our dock and the next morning when I went for a walk along the water, I knew that we had made the right decision.  People and places change.  What was right for us in Roanoke in 1989 had come and gone.

Our life is now at the coast, and I'm very happy I can still see the magic in any place. It is a treat that this new home is a place with waters and sky which can stretch your imagination.  I'm going to enjoy those things that make the Crystal Coast special to us for as long as I can.

To me living in a place where life has no walls is a wonderful privilege.  That we have already made some great friends and found a wonderful church home makes it even more special.

It is time for the next chapter in our lives, but we will keep the memories especially of that last Roanoke Christmas tree in the winter of 2011-12.

Summer Rain at the Dock

Most people come to the beach with the hopes that it doesn't rain during their vacation.

No one wants someone's vacation spoiled, but I think the people of the Crystal Coast have breathed a collective sign of relief as afternoon thunderstorms and a more normal summer weather pattern have returned to our area.

The last two summers, 2010 & 2011, were extremely dry in Carteret County.  At our dock just off the White Oak River, the 2011 rain total for May, June, and July was under two inches.  In 2011 any corn crop in our area that wasn't irrigated was a complete failure.  Many residents were stuck with expensive water bills just trying to keep their yards and gardens alive.

We were so dry that swamps were burning.  There also wasn't enough moisture around to generate afternoon thunderstorms which are extremely important in the south during the summer.  It actually took Hurricane Irene to break our 2011 drought.

This year started off differently. We did not have a real coastal winter like the one which brought us three snows in 2011.  March 2012 started very warm, but we finished with some weather that came close to bringing frost to the tomato plants that I put in the ground in mid-March.

Still spring was nice in 2012, and April 2012 brought us strawberries a week to ten days earlier than the previous year.  During the spring we really did not suffer from drought, but we did get dry a few times. Then at the end of May we got visited by Tropical Storm Beryl which brought us inches of rain and spawned a tornado that grazed our neighborhood.

June 2012 brought us some great beach weather and just enough rain to survive.  July ushered in hot temperatures for everyone on the east coast including the Crystal Coast.  With strong coastal breezes helping to temper the heat, so far the summer of 2012 in our cove has been pretty nice with the exception of a couple of very hot days.

There is no doubt that heat has been our biggest challenge in July.  Last year we also had a hot spell in July, but it felt much worse because we were so dry.  There were even some fires burning in the swamps to the northeast of us near Alligator River.

Having more rain this summer has helped keep things green compared to the previous two summers.  Even with the heat there have been several peaceful mornings in our cove that were perfect for for enjoying my kayak.  The ocean breeze was strong enough that I managed to fish in relative comfort even in the peak heat during the middle of the day on July 4 and 5.

The heat also hasn't kept me from doing some amazing beach walks both at Hammocks Beach and at the Point on Emerald Isle.  It has been a good summer to be walking along the water.

Over the last six months our weather has been nice with the one serious exception being the less than one minute when the tornado passed by us.  This year it was even nice enough for us to wander out into the ocean waters beyond the beaches in April. Some springs the winds blow so much, it is hard to regularly get on the water before May much less out in the ocean

So perhaps we can ask you indulgence if you show up at the beach and end up with a little rainy weather.  It is hard for our area to be what everyone expects it to be without adequate rain to keep our forests growing and our fields and yards green.

Rain rarely hangs around here very long, and most of the time in the summer, it is just another welcome visitor.

Even on those odd rainy days there is plenty to do here on the Crystal Coast. If you need more details check out the new book that my wife and I recently published.  The book's title is "A Week at the Beach, An Emerald Isle Travel Guide."

Our book of 87 pages has a chapter on what to do on a rainy day.  It is available now for the Kindle for $4.99.   You can read it on practically any electronic device with the free Kindle reader software.

Feels Like Summer for Memorial Day

There comes a time each year when you can no longer deny that summer is on the horizon.

I think we reached that point during this last week of May 2012.

The puffy white clouds over Swansboro and the Intracoastal Waterway are a good sign that summer is on our doorstep.

We had a March that was warm enough for me to go wading in the ocean, but the warmth did not feel like summer.  When summer comes, it wraps you in a blanket of heat which doesn't go away.  Morning walks have to be done early, and mowing the yard is best done well before 9 AM.

We often wait a little longer for summer here on the coast than places just fifty miles inland. Summer cannot take up residence until the area's waters get warm.  If the water temperature is 64F like it was on April 3 when I took this picture, you can be certain that things will cool off at night, and you will still get to sleep with your windows open.

However, when the water temperature in the gut behind our house reaches almost 81F like it did on May 24, then you can expect the heat pumps to run all night. 

Most of us enjoy summer, or we wouldn't be living at the beach.  Summer beach season officially starts with Memorial Day, and it is always good to have warm weather securely in place before that holiday weekend.

Memorial Day 2011 ended up being a good beginning to the season.  I suspect that the warm weather we've enjoyed prior to the 2012 Memorial Day weekend will set us up for a similarly nice first summer holiday weekend.  Certainly the stop and go traffic on the bridge to Emerald Isle late Friday evening, May 25, 2012, would lead one to believe this going to be a good summer for our vacation related businesses.

We didn't get to this pre-Memorial Day warmth easily.  After our warm March, we had some cool days in April. April's cool weather even lasted into the first week of May with temperatures dropping into the fifties at night.  It made for good spring fishing, but the swimming pool was a little chilly.

Still as May progresses toward its end, it is hard to deny summer if you live on the North Carolina coast.  Summer is going to arrive, and you might as well be prepared to enjoy it.  We're lucky that we are not on track to have a heat wave like much of the east coast this Memorial Day weekend.

Once again being surrounded by water will save us from the extreme heat.  While the water might be 81F in the shallow channel from our house out to the White Oak River, once you get down to Swansboro and the Intracoastal Waterway, it still is just in the upper seventies.  With the water below 80F, we can expect a moderating influence on the Memorial Day heat that will bake much of the east coast.

We are watching an early season tropical development, but it appears to be on an unusual southern course.  We'll likely have to endure some rough surf, but so far that is all that the forecasters are guessing that will impact our area.

Even with good crowd this weekend here on the coast, the beginning of summer really doesn't change our lives very much.  Most of the summer, we try to do our boating and kayaking during the week and leave the area's waters to visitors on the weekends.  It doesn't get very busy up on the White Oak, but there will plenty of boaters zooming around on the Intracoastal. If I go out in the boat, I probably won't go much farther than the marshes just south of Swansboro.

The other change isn't very significant either.  We just adjust our grocery shopping times to make sure we avoid the stores from Friday evening until Monday afternoon.  Doing that lets us miss the crowds who pack the stores to fill up their vacation homes. 

I managed to do our Memorial Day shopping between five and six PM on Friday, May 25.  While the grocery store was busy, it wasn't nearly as crowded as Clyde Phillips' seafood.  I only waited at the checkout for two or three minutes in the Lowe's Cape Carteret store.  However, I wouldn't want to be in either Lowe's or the Island Food Lion on Saturday, May 26.

I am not going to complain about summer and a few extra people in the grocery stores. It is just part of living here on the Crystal Coast.  There are other advantages that far outweigh summer crowds.  I have spent the last two days enjoying our neighborhood swimming pool with my granddaughter.  I went for a boat ride yesterday morning, and if the weather stays night, I might even get in a beach walk.

On top of all that, if looks like my first home grown tomato of the season will be ripe sometime the last week of May.  Having a ripe tomato in May is just another reason to welcome the warmth and summer.

 

 

Spring on the Crystal Coast

The spring of 2012 is my sixth spring on the Crystal Coast.  They have all proved to be different.

I enjoy spring unfolding along the coast. It is a lot more subtle than spring coming to the mountains.

While each spring has been different, there are things we can count on in our roller-coaster of spring weather. 

Wind, blue skies, and moderate temperatures are no strangers to us this time of year. They are actually our companions most days.

Mostly we enjoy weather where the temperatures stay above fifty degrees Fahrenheit at night and below eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

Daytime highs are usually comfortably in the mid-seventies.  At night we have very nice sleeping weather with lows from the mid-fifties to mid-sixties.  Sometimes we get out of that comfort range, but it does not often heat up early like it did this year.

March of this year was really a warm one.  The unusually nice weather let us do some activities that are usually reserved for later in the year.  I was wading around in saltwater up to my knees.  I even took a dip in our neighborhood pool on a really warm late March day.

As April has rolled around, our temperatures have become more seasonable perhaps even a little cooler than normal. The few weeks of early summer that we enjoyed in March seem far away now, but it all a matter of perspective.

Late in the third week of April 2012, I spent a couple of immensely pleasurable hours out on the White Oak River in my kayak.  Sitting in less than a foot of water astride a huge oyster rock in the middle of a coastal river nearly two miles wide is not something you do when the weather is ugly.

Grabbing the good weather when it is around is one of the enduring traits of living along North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks.  However, I would argue that our good spring weather would pass for exceptional spring weather in most other parts of the country.

For much of March and April, our heat pumps have been silent.  It is not unusual for us to sleep with our windows open now that the pine pollen is gone.  At the end of April 2012, and our windows have been open more often than not for the last few weeks. 

They might not be open all day, but it would be an unusual day when they were not open for at least part of the day.  Living with fresh, clean air in your home is one of the benefits of living here. 

We enjoy it now because we know that each year will bring us a few weeks in the summer when our home's air conditioning heat pumps create a refuge from the worst of summer's heat and humidity.

The nice spring weather brings with it other benefits.  Each year sometime in the first couple of weeks of April, we get treated to fresh local strawberries.  They herald the beginning of the local produce season.  Greens, asparagus, lettuce and other vegetables are usually ready at the same time.

This spring we have been enjoying lettuce for months from some heads that overwintered in a warm, sheltered spot near our home.

One of the really nice things about spring on the coast is that it comes on you gradually. In the western part of North Carolina and southwestern Virginia, spring sometimes explodes on the scene.  All of the sudden the grass needs mowing twice a week sometimes even when it snows.

Here on the coast don't get swamped by spring mowing. You get a chance to ease into the mowing season.  Our warm season centipede grass doesn't grow a lot in the spring. 

It was unusual that I had to mow our coastal lawn the first time in March this year.  Most years, the first mowing is usually not until April.  Even with this warm year, I have still only mowed twice this spring, and it is almost the end of April.   I will probably get a third mowing in before April ends, but it could easily stretch it to May.

We also don't get the intense explosion of spring color that you see inland in North Carolina and Virginia.  With more pines than hardwoods, our change is more gradual.  We do get a taste of color with azaleas and other flowers, but it is not like a mountain spring.

What we sometimes miss in flowers, I think we make up in other ways.  The water and sky go from their the intense winter shades of blue to the more subtle and muted spring colors.  In spring we often get that first taste of the beautiful emerald color that the area waters use to bedazzle us in the summer.

Warming weather also brings out many of our beautiful birds.   These photos of my feathered friends are from a couple of walks that I took recently in our subdivision. Beauty is usally just a short, warm hike away in the spring.

My photos from the Point at Emerald Isle were snapped recently on beach hike that will keep me inspired for a long time.  From experience I know that my next walk there will produce photos just different enough to keep me going back over and over.

With spring moving towards summer, we gradually start to see more visitors.  After a very quiet winter, visitors bring a sense of renewal and new life here on the coast.  Our crowds are never huge, and those who visit are here only for a few short weeks.

Other than changing when we shop for groceries or go out for meals, visitors have little impact on the average Crystal Coast resident.  They are a welcome part of life here.

Usually visitors start coming just about the time the fish start biting.  We had company the first week in April.  With good weather and quiet winds, we took advantage of the opportunity to fish. My fish-loving guest had a great time and was able to take four nice bluefish home in a cooler.

If you could sum up spring life on the Crystal Coast, it would be more of an unfolding of life instead of an explosion.  We don't go from spring to summer in a couple of days like some places.  We have cool days mixed with warm days. As the season progresses, there are fewer cool days and more warm ones.  Being so close to so much water moderates our temperature much of the year.

We go from short walks on the beach early in the year to long hikes as the water gets more inviting.  Boat rides go from short ones on the river to ones that stretch out beyond the beaches.  The few businesses that close for a couple of months in the winter are usually all open by Easter.

In a good year our spring will stretch from March through June.  Then one day, we will realize that summer has sneaked up on us, and we will venturing on the beaches later in the day, and our boat rides will often be early in the morning before the heat of the day comes.  Mowing our yards will be come a game of strategy.

With warmth comes more time on the beach and even a chance to visit the islands in the Inlet.  Spring is missed, and summer begs to be enjoyed just as thoughts of wonderful warm, humidity-free fall days start to tempt us into wishing that summer's heat would disappear.

Enjoying the unfolding of spring and the other seasons is a full time job here on the North Carolina coast.  It is one that I treasure.