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.

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.

Crystal Coast Fall

Some of us here along North Carolina's Outer Banks define fall by water temperature.  For me fall is here when the water in the White Oak River drops below 70F. 

On Sunday October 14, the river temperature was at 70.8F.  We've had two nights since then that the lows have gotten to 50F.  While I haven't been out to check the temperature, I would bet it is below 70F as I am writing this on Wednesday, October 17.

With fall comes clearer skies and more spectacular sunsets and sunrises.  Some years like this year, we seem to have less wind in the fall.  When it is all taken together, it is pretty easy to like fall on the North Carolina coast.

In the early spring when I wander down by the water, the air is often cooler by the water.  In the fall it is just the opposite.  When I left my house this morning for walk around our board walk, it was just barely 50F.  When I got over to the water, I could feel the warmth rising up from the water.

We have also dried out a lot in the last two to three weeks.  There for a few weeks it seemed like the rain would not go away and we were getting three to four inches of rain per week. Our last rain was October 9 so we could actually use a shower.

Fall is a peaceful season here on the coast.  Once most of the festivals are done,  things seem to slow down perceptibly.  We get our fall fishermen, but it is never as crowded as it is back in the summer.  By the time December rolls around, it is down right quiet here on the coast.

This is also a time of the year when we coastal folks tend to wander a little.  The thought of driving west or north to see some enhanced fall colors is always appealing  to those of us who live in shades of green, brown, and blue most of the year.  It should not be a surprise that most of us would like to get our visiting done before the snow flies in the colder parts of the country.

As much as I love October, and it is a wonderful month here on on the Southern Outer Banks, I think that I like November even more.  With November's arrival, you have to pick and choose your days a little more, but often November days can be even more spectacular than October days.

November 2011 was my best fishing month in a long time.  This year I've already had some great fishing near my home dock. Even though I have been very busy finishing my new book, the Pomme Company,  I have managed to sneak out a few times in the kayak.  One Saturday I even caught a nice flounder and had it in the pan not long after I put the net under him.

As the fall slides into November, the last opportunity arrives to take advantage of the fall Marsh Cruises run by the folks over at Hammocks Beach State Park.  After that Thanksgiving is here before you know it, and it is time for the old-fashioned Emerald Isle Christmas Parade.

We went away for Thanksgiving last year, but this year we are planning on being here.  I'm looking forward to it.  One of the reasons that we moved to the Crystal Coast was for the peace and quiet of the area.  Fall is definitely the best time of the year to sample it.

 

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.

 

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.

The beach is calling me

This much warmth this early in the year has brough some challenges.  It was much easier to stay off the beach when I was three hundred miles away.

Now that I am back at the coast, the waves are calling me, and I really want to feel the salt water on my toes.

Unfortunately I hurt my ankle a couple of weeks ago, so going for a long beach walk like I did on March 17 last year isn't in the cards yet.   I am thinking another day or two, and I might be able to manage a few miles around the Point at Emerald Isle.

My last walk on the Point was January 24 when I spent four hours hiking there.  Usually hiking on the Point can be a cold proposition in winter, but this year even with somewhat limited time, I found some really nice days to be over there.  It didn't hurt that  winter never stays long around here. In 2012 winter hardly even made an appearance.

While my wife and I managed to spend most of February in the Virginia mountains where we caught one of the few east coast snow storms of the winter.  It was a very localized storm, but it delivered around nine inches of snow. Fortunately it didn't stay long or cause any road problems. The snow did provide some beautiful pictures.

Even with our travels, I did get back to the coast and home for the last few day of February. My quick visit of only three days confirmed to me that winter was already on a steep downslope.  That taste of spring on the coast made me yearn to have my feet planted in sand on the beach.

During those few days I did find a little time to visit the beach, and lots of time to think about being on the water.  Unfortunately I was destined to wait until after the middle of March before we could finally get back home to the Southern Outer Banks for an extended time. Only then could I actually get out on the water with the skiff for more than ten minutes.  However, sometimes delay can lead to impeccable timing because things were really nice when we got here.

While it was early spring by the time we got back to the Crystal Coast, we already had enjoyed a full flown inland spring.  It even included some tulips and dogwoods blooming near our daughter's home on Lake Norman. For a time it seemed like someone was running loose in North Carolina and Virginia with a giant pink paint brush.

Spring is much more subtle on the coast than it is inland in North Carolina and Virginia.  We just don't have that burst of color that comes from numerous flowering trees along with all the bulbs and spring flowers.  Actually this year, the Piedmont of North Carolina was a little like the coast in some respects. 

Usually the blooms on Bradford pear trees hardly last more than a few days at the coast.  In the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina the blooms can hang on for two or three weeks.  This year the Bradford pear trees in the North Carolina Piedmont went from blooms to leaves in just a couple of days.  The mountain trees were still going strong when we last saw them, but the eighty degree heat of the last few days will take their toll very soon.

If the flowers don't hearald spring at the coast, the beach certainly makes up for it.  While there is no symphony of color, there is a renewal that comes with the warmth that spring brings.  When the sand is warm enough to enjoy with your bare feet, you know that if won't be long before the water is ready for that first dip of the toes.  Last year I stuck my toes in the water for the first time on April 8.

Because I don't walk the beach as much in the winter, going back to the beach in the spring is a time of discovery.  Beaches are ever changing, and places like the Point change so fast that it is often hard to appreciate the changes before they are gone.  Every time I visit the Point, I feel like I am mapping new territory.

Last year I spent at least three or four days a week walking on the beach in the spring and early summer.  I never saw a piece of beach that bored me.  Each hike was like an adventure and just made me look forward to my next one.

Living at the beach is a special privilege.  Not everyone gets the opportunity to choose where they live, but those of us who manage to live near the beach understand that we get to sample some of Mother Nature's best. 

Each day that we can walk with the waves that wash over the sand, our lives are enriched by the peace that those waves bring to us.  The warmth of spring brings us back to the beach and its waves.  The explosion of color that comes to beach often waits almost until summer when the sun is just right and the water turns an amazing tropical blue-green.

I'm not going to make a fool out of myself by declaring inland spring or a coastal spring to be the best. They are both a real treat.  But as the song says, "Love the one you're with."  With that in mind, the beach has my heart since it is less than seven miles away.

Friday, March 23, just might be the day that I tackle a few miles and let the sounds and smells of spring at the beach penetrate my soul and strengthen my heart.  Being on the beach is one of the benefits of living on this side of a watery horizon.

 

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.