The Crystal Coast, Salt water on my feet

Dreams do come true

Most of this post was written on May 8, 2006.  At the time I was still dreaming about being on the North Carolina coast. 

I did not let go of my dream, and in September of 2006, we moved to western Carteret County to a place on the shores of the White Oak River.

Moving to a new place is never easy, but a lot of the best things in life are that way.  In the nearly two years since we moved down here, I have grown to love the area even more.

I now know that the dreams were what got me here.  They kept me moving until I got to the point of finding the right spot and buying it.  My kayaking requires only sliding it into the water.

Now I have become a boater and can enjoy this waters whenever I want as long as the wind and weather cooperate.  We walk the beaches sometimes several times a week. Our coastal scenery never fails to excite my soul.

Once in a while, like the other night, we go for an ice cream over on the beach.  The girls in the store know we are locals so we often get to hear about their day.

Becoming a "local" has been worth all the effort, all the worries, and all the challenges.

My new thought is that if it is worth dreaming, it is worth working to make the dream come true.

Someone once said if a dream is really important to you, you will figure out how to make it happen.

I did, and I am proud to be a resident of the Crystal Coast.  I love living near Swansboro, Cape Carteret, Emerald Isle, and Cedar Point.  The small town feel of the area is just what I wanted.

The following was written over two years ago.  Today our temperatures are headed for the mid-eighties which feels pretty good when you are near the water like we are.  The water temperatures are right at 70 which is just right for fish.

Roanoke May 8, 2006

This morning the temperature is the same as when we went to bed, 44 degrees Fahrenheit.  The view of downtown Roanoke is still fog enshrouded.

I decided to stick up a picture of where I want to be instead of where I am.  We just attended the graduation party of a neighbor's son.  He's just managed to snare a job in an area where he's dreamed about living.  That's actually a great way to start a career.  If you can find a job where you want to be, it makes life a little happier each morning.

We love the Roanoke area, but I've had this life long love of the ocean.  I moved to Nova Scotia after college to own a chunk of short frontage.  I think the salt seeped even farther into my blood up there.  The challenge with the salt water there was that the only creatures who enjoyed swimming in the water were Labrador Retrievers. While we lived in Canada our kids thought that turning blue was a natural result of going swimming in the ocean.

Then one year we took them to Wrightsville Beach which isn't my favorite beach by any stretch of the imagination, but the water was warm.  It wasn't too many years later when we moved back to the states, and while living in Columbia, Maryland, we made the trip to Cape Hatteras.

My addiction returned.  Except for the period that I lived in Canada, from the time I was three years old  until now, I've pretty well managed to stick my toes in the warm salt water of the Carolina coast every year.  I've camped on Ocracoke, and in fact was there during the first moon walk.  I had to check into the only motel there at the time to catch it on television.  Our family stayed on the idyllic Bald Head island.  We've wander the sands of Corolla, and most recently enjoyed the waters near Cape Lookout which is where the photo was shot.  I do have a Beaufort, NC travel guide posted for those interested.

I may be on the verge of my 35th college reunion instead of just graduating, but a fellow has got to have dreams, and mine is to warm my feet in some Carolina salt water on a regular basis.

If I were walking on a beach with warm salt water I might not care so much about all the stuff going on in the world where I can only control my actions.

Warm salt water with a few gentle waves and a pleasant breeze has a way making a lot of your troubles go away.

I am all for that.

Mother Nature, my favorite cooling system

It doesn't matter whether we are at the coast or in the mountains. Natural cooling is the way I like to go as long as is possible.

In the evenings it means throwing open some windows and of course the weather has to cooperate, but as long as the humidity isn't too great we get by quite nicely.

The only problem is perhaps listening to some neighbors cooling systems running.  When the temperature outside is 55 degrees Fahrenheit, like it has been recently at many places along the east coast, it is a shame to be burning electricity to keep cool.

The only people that are happy when we do that are the folks selling us electricity and the people selling the electricity plants coal.

Last night when we got home from a visit to Beaufort and Morehead City, I ran upstairs and opened the windows before I did anything else.  It was well timed since the temperature was at 79 degrees which is just below where we have the upstairs air conditioner set to begin cooling.

Downstairs the temperature was 77 degrees which was one degree below the 78 degrees where it is set to start working.

We had started the morning with lots of windows open and an inside temperature of 64 degrees Fahrenheit.  We made it all day without our cooling systems working.

We seem to be able to do that unless the temperature gets above 86 degrees and then we need a couple of hours of cooling.

Last year this system worked at the coast until the last week of June when the humidity descended upon us.  Roanoke is a little trickier since it isn't quite high enough to really get a lot of cooling, but it is much better than a place like Raleigh which seems to cook most of the time.

Of course here at the beach if the weather gets too warm, we just head off to the beaches for a nice walk along the water.

Zucchini of the sea

The following post was written on July 14, 2007

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Friday morning I was lucky enough to get an invitation to go fishing with my friend and colleague, Ed.

While we live on the White Oak River which is the big body of water behind Cedar Point in this map, Ed lives right on the Intracoastal Waterway.

It is a straight shot from his house out the channel to Bogue Inlet where I snapped this sunrise picture.

We left Ed's dock at almost exactly 6:30 am and were fishing withing ten minutes.  We were meat fishing since I had asked for some trolling lessons using planers and Clark spoons.

Our goal was to catch some Spanish Mackerel and be back at the dock before 8:30 am so Ed could make it to work at 9:00 am.

We first trolled down in front of Bear Island, the location of Hammocks Beach State Park.  We had two rods out and one hand line.  One rod was using a weigh instead of a planer to keep the spoon down.

As we turned and came back up Bear Island we got our first Spanish on the hand line.  It turned out that one was the only one we got by Bear Island.

As we got up around the Inlet we started seeing small schools of Menhaden.

Each time we trolled through one of the schools, we would pick up one or two fish. Unfortunately they all were not Spanish Mackerel.

In fact we started catching more Bluefish than anything else.

I think we ended up with four Spanish Mackerel and five Bluefish.

Ed showed me how to expertly fillet the Spanish, and told me to keep the Bluefish if I wanted them.

I stopped at the tackle dealer on the way home and bought a scaler. When I got home I sat on  the dock and cleaned the Bluefish with the full knowledge that to a certain extent Bluefish are the unwanted seafood delicacy or as I like to call them, the zucchini of the ocean.

While I like them grilled outside over an open flame, I was not able to sway any taste buds when I grilled one.  The rest of the group was unimpressed with the Bluefish.

At the same time, I put on the grill a small piece of King Mackerel and some Mahi-Mahi.  When that was all done, I quickly fried up a pan full of Spanish Mackerel to go with the other grilled fruits de mer and Shrimp.

It was an unanimous vote that the fried Spanish Mackerel was the best fish of the evening.

I'll keep trying with the Bluefish recipes, but I have my doubts that I will be find something to make it nearly as good as Spanish Mackerel.

My favorite spot for grouper

I've been coming to the North Carolina coast for over five decades. We also lived in Atlantic Canada, another seafood heaven for seventeen years. We have eaten seafood in Australia, San Franciso, Seattle, Alaska, and in Europe. 

I find that the closer you get to the salt water and the real fishermen, the better the fish usually tastes.  Recently I've been raving about some seafood restaurants in Beaufort, NC.

As far as I'm concerned, at least in "Grouper category," there is a new champion.  It happens to be Riverside Steak and Seafood in Swansboro, NC.

I recently had a piece of grouper there that I believe to be the best piece of fish that I've ever eaten in my life.  I enjoyed the "House Grouper" dish which is topped with lobster buerre blanc and two jumbo shrimp.  This picture doesn't do the piece of grouper that I was served justice since from the angle of the picture you can't appreciate that the grouper was between one and two inches thick.

It was absolutely perfectly cooked, moist, tender, and flaky.  Great fish like this doesn't happen by chance.  It takes lots of practice and care even with grouper.

The entree which included a salad and the house special sweet potato muffin was very reasonably priced at $21.95.  On top of the great grouper, the lemonade which I ordered to accompany my meal was exceptional.

Glenda, my wife, had a five ounce Filet topped with oysters in a Bearnaise Sauce.  It was also done perfectly.  Glenda claims the oysters were absolutely "delectable" and her meal including the salad was less than $19.

The Riverside Steak & Seafood is easy to find.  It's on the left on Highway 24 just before the bridge in Swansboro if you're headed east.  They're open year round and open each day at 4pm.  You can reach them for reservations at 910 326-8847.

It doesn't matter even if you're coming from the seafood mecca of San Francisco, you'll still be  exceptionally surprised at the food that John Kilgore (pictured on the left below) and his very pleasant staff put on your plate.

You'll find a great meal in pleasant surroundings with watchful service.  On top of that you'll be dining in one of the most naturally beautiful and relaxing areas on earth.

That's a hard combination to beat. 

Ten minutes to escape to the beach

The other day, I was dealing with as much weird stuff as any person can take.  I needed to get away from work.  My wife and I took the ten minute trip that it takes to get to our favorite beach.

Having a beach ten minutes away is one of the advantages of living in Carteret County.

This is the take off point for the beach.  It is the end of a board walk that brings you over most of the dunes.  We usually leave our sandals on the bench and pick them up on the way out.

The day we went, we didn't run into a single person on the beach. We saw someone far down the beach exercising a couple of dogs, but that was it.  We had the beach to ourselves.  We enjoyed it for an hour and a half.

I waded out until the water was up to my knees.  I was pleased that the water while cool was actually very pleasant.  I splashed along the shore taking pictures and looking for fish while my wife tried to find a few shells to interest her.

As usual I took lots of pictures and posted a slide show of our adventure on the web shortly after we got home.  It was a great afternoon on the beach.

However, the best part was when we left the beach.  We sat down on the bench where we left our sandals to brush the sand off our feet.  We could feel and hear the wind while sitting on the bench.  Of course we could hear waves crashing in the background and the setting sun was beaming into our faces.

Then there was the occasional mournful sound of the wind whistling through one of the Bogue Inlet buoys.

We didn't talk about it, we just sat there and closed our eyes.  It is actually hard to say how long we were on the bench but it was probably thirty to forty five minutes just feeling the wind and sun on our faces and listening the waves and the sounds of the beach.

I managed to practice some of those sleeping while sitting skills that I learned so well in chapel at McCallie School where I attended military school during high school.

It was actually really hard to rouse ourselves from the trance that had been created by the beach, wind, and sun.

When we did finally leave, we both agreed that our minds had been cleansed, and we were ready for a few more of life's challenges.

Given the way things are running, I am glad the beach is so close by.