Waiting for Summer

Raymond's Gut, just off the White Oak River three miles up river from Swansboro, North Carolina

Even along the North Carolina coast which traditionally has great weather, it seems that we are always waiting for the next season.

Spring has been a little cooler than normal this year, but we are making great progress towards a greener landscape.  The early flowers are gone, the tomatoes are blooming, and some yards including ours have been mowed.

Of course spring presents it own challenges such as winds and frequent showers but we have to be careful to not complain.  A few years ago those spring showers were absent and the summer thunderstorms never came.  We had a very dry year. We had blue skies every day from months. While I love blue skies, our sandy soil needs rain so I am pretty happy to see the spring showers come this year.  Watering everything just to keep it alive is not much fun.

This year we are stuck without extremes.  The winds have not been particularly bad this year, but the combination of slightly cooler temperatures, more showers, and enough wind to keep things interesting have conspired to keep me off the water except for a few times.

That we are having to wait until May to really get going with our boating and fishing is not that unusual and waiting until after the middle of April is about normal, but as the month moves along most of us will start to get impatient.

I renewed my fishing license last month and have listened with interest as a few fish are being caught over on the beach.  Still I know it is a little early for action in the marshes along the river where I like to fish the most.

All I need is an early morning high tide, some blue skies and warm temperatures and I might go chase some of those early bluefish with my skiff while I wait for the kayak fishing to improve.

If you are interested in visiting the Crystal Coast area and the beaches and waters of Emerald Isle, our 2013 Emerald Isle Travel Guide has been released.  We are doing free downloads on May 1 & 2 so it is a great time to take a virtual trip to the beach.  The Kindle book can be read on just about any device.  For more information on the download and the software for your device, please visit the free books page on my main website.

Before the Blow

We're lucky to be living tucked in by the water not far from the beaches of Emerald Isle, North Carolina.  Being protected just off a big river without pine trees close around your home is a pretty good recipe for staying out of trouble in the winds and storms of the Crystal Coast.  It is also very convenient when you want to enjoy the area's waters.

Our home is on Raymond's Gut a little more than half a mile from the center of the White Oak River.  The White Oak depending on how you measure its width is close to two miles across where we live.

Swansboro and the Intracoastal Waterway even with some zigging and zagging around oyster rocks are only about three miles down river.  The beach over by the Point at Emerald Isle is about six miles away as a pelican flies. 

A trip down the river in our skiff takes only six or seven minutes once you have idled out our inlet.  The total ride is about ten minutes and another ten minutes will put you well out Bogue Inlet and almost in the Atlantic Ocean.  We live in a place where the water provides easy access to many neat areas including Hammocks Beach, the Point, and Bogue Inlet.  These pictures of a ride down to the marshes south of Swansboro provide an idea of the beauty of the area.

It does not take many years of living near the beach to learn to appreciate a few miles of separation from the Atlantic Ocean.  Usually the wind blows a lot harder over by the beaches.  The cold seems to penetrate a little more by the ocean, and in the spring it seems to take a little longer to warm up the ocean compared to the river.  The beach is a little cooler in the summer, but I have heat pumps for that if I can't find some water to cool my body.

I truly enjoy going to the beach, but I don't mind the short commute from our home.  It comes with a lot of advantages.  One of those is protection from most storms.  As we are sliding toward the holiday season, the weather is definitely changing.  We are seeing more frequent storms and being a little farther away from the incubator of the storms is definitely an advantage.

In the last three weeks, we have witnessed Hurricane Sandy and two Northeasters.  When the storms are coming that regularly, any protection from the power of the Atlantic Ocean is welcome.  Of course as we have all learned, no place is immune from the power of Mother Nature.

Timing and location are often very important.  We have been lucky to to be witnesses to the formation of the Northeasters instead of seeing them at their peak power.  We also ended up on the less powerful end of Sandy.  My wife and I were traveling in Canada when Sandy started up the coast.

As soon as we realized the magnitude of Sandy, we turned and headed down the coast.  It seemed like we were seeing the stormy weather of Sandy from over a thousand miles away.  Yet being those six miles inland often provides a more protected life on the coast even with a huge storm like Sandy.

Barrier islands and marshes are the keys to protecting homes from storms.  We're really lucky to have Emerald Isle and its well-treed hills standing tall between our location and the power of the Atlantic Ocean.

As the wind and rain was slamming against our home on this Sunday before Thanksgiving 2012, it was easy to imagine just how much stronger the winds might be over on the shore.  I would love to open my door and go down to the beach to fish.  However, that pleasure comes with a bit more challenging weather than we have inland.

We often can tell when the weather is going to be bad.  The pelicans and herons will often abandon their more coastal haunts and come ride the storms out in our inlet.  They seem to enjoy the protection of our trees and marshes that keep much of the wind away from their perches.

I've written before about one spot where the Herons go to hide.  I'm very fortunate to be able to see that place from our upper deck and our dock.  One of the especially protected corners of the aviary requires a walk over to the community boardwalk, but I have seen several herons in there at one time.  When there is more than one heron in there, you know the weather is going to be bad because herons are not noted for being social.

Sunday morning before our latest Nor'easter, we had a pelican swimming behind the house and two great blue herons jostling with a younger great blue heron for a prized perch in the rookery.   I knew with all those big birds wandering around our cove that we would likely get a dose of nasty weather.

The rain and winds came early Sunday afternoon, but we just turned on the gas fire place logs and had a peaceful nap while the weather raged outside.  The knowledge that we were just far enough away to miss the worst of the storm made our nap just that much more peaceful.

Life by the River

Living on a coastal river is a very different experience than living on a river in other places.  One thing is that coastal river are often very wide.  The river near where we live is close to two miles wide.

While rain often causes flooding along rivers that are in the hill country or the mountains, if you live on a coastal river that is close to the ocean, the tide can often take care of a lot of problems.

In the summer of 2010 I wrote a piece called How to Enjoy a Coastal River.  Now that I look back at it, I was only beginning to understand the White Oak River when I wrote that post.

It is no joke to say that a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the summer of 2010.  In September of 2010, we had a freak rain storm in Bluewater Cove, the subdivision where we live.  We got over twenty inches of rain in less than twenty-four hours.

I have seen the Roanoke River where we lived in the mountains have serious flooding with less than half that amount of rain.  Fortunately for us the day we got the twenty-plus inches of rain on the coast, it came just as the tide was reaching its peak.  As soon as the tide turned, the high water at my dock started dropping even as the rain continued.

That the tide could take away all that water left a lasting impression on me.  Still the river had other lessons to teach.  In August of 2011, Hurricane Irene came for a visit.

Irene was an impressive storm, but our area came through in good shape.  Our power was out less than four hours.  The day after Irene came through the area, we went over to Emerald Isle and enjoyed ice cream cones.  I am certainly not belittling the power of hurricanes in saying we managed to survive in "good shape."   Another day things could have been different.

However, hurricanes are not strangers to the area.  People try not to have too many trees close to their homes here.   People in areas that are flood prone have foundations that let waters move through them.  Fortunately our beaches and marshes have not been over developed.  There is plenty of vegetation on Emerald Isle compared to many other coastal areas.

Our geography also helps us a little.  Just a little north and east of us, the Neuse River is much more subject to flooding because there is no land mass to slow the water of Pamlico Sound from blowing into the Neuse when conditions area right.

Even with these advantages life on the river has still been full of surprises.  On May 30, 2012 a very rare event happened.  We were brushed by a tornado.   Before May 30, I had heard that tornadoes normally dissipate as they approach the ocean waters.  It turns our that while it is very rare, we can have tornadoes just like the rare tornado that visited our friends in the mountains by Pulaski, Virginia.  Fortunately both in Pulaski and here in Peletier no one died from the tornadoes.  Our tornado lasted less than a minute.

The lessons of the last few years have taught me to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.  No matter where we live, we all live close to very powerful forces of nature.  Those forces are closer than we care to admit.  We just have to realize that we cannot control mother nature.

In spite of getting a close hand look at the power of nature, I would not trade where we live for any of the many places that we have lived or even the ones that we have visited.  There is incredible scenic beauty here on the coast.  While there are times to be very respectful of the forces that surround us, there are other times when it almost seems that nature opens its arms for us.

The third week in April of 2012 I anchored my kayak in the middle of our river.  Sitting there are the oyster rocks, it was hard to think of a more peaceful place.  Especially one that can so easily renew your appreciation of the world where we live.

It often seems like our world along the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina is one which has no walls.  There are times that the water, the horizon and the sky seem to merge in a world of blue.

Because our water is so accessible, it is a big part of our life.  The morning of June 25, 2012 on my boat ride down river I saw hardly any ripples.   The same river nine hours later is a mass of white caps and foam.  The morning river ride was a wonderful pleasure.  Yet even I wouldn't challenge the river and its impressive whitecaps later in the day.

Respecting the weather and the water comes naturally when you have seen the awesome power that mother nature can unleash.  That the calm water pictured in the post can have whitecaps on it in the same day is just one of the wonders of being alive.

What makes me happy?

dualdogwoods,
originally uploaded by ocracokewaves.

I have lived lots of different places during my life, rural North Carolina, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Columbia, Maryland, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Ste. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia to a farm in the wilderness of central New Brunswick, Canada.

Figuring out what makes you happy at any given point in your life is always a challenge. I spent a good part of my childhood trying to get away from North Carolina or Mount Airy to be specific. Now I am happy living in North Carolina.

A few years ago, we got the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the Mount Airy area. It felt like home. As we started looking for a place to spend the next ten years, we started spending lots of time looking in North Carolina.

Spring in North Carolina or southern Virginia is a pretty special time. These pictures of my family's home place in Mount Airy capture some of the spring feeling just as the Dogwood picture in the post does.

While the beauty of spring or these inviting waters near Emerald Isle, NC might attract you to an area, to be really happy, you need more than a beautiful spring or warm ocean waters.

In the end it is the people of an area, perhaps even the culture of the area that ends up being the most important factor. I have found friendly people in almost every area that I have lived. Some of the most supportive neighbors that we ever had were on our wilderness farm in Canada.

However, from that perspective I think parts of North Carolina and parts of Virginia where the local culture and traditions still survive are among the friendliest places that I have ever seen. The openess of people and the willingness to help are rare traits that are a little harder to see the farther north you go or the deeper you get into urban areas.

I think a couple of places that I have lived in Canada have helped me understand what makes this possible. One was Ste. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia which was a very isolated coastal community where the same families had lived for years with little change. My welcome to the community there was someone running down my Labrador Retriever on purpose. Outsiders while welcomed by some, were distrusted by most. It was as beautiful a place as you have ever seen in the summer, but when you don't feel welcome in a place, you might as well move on. We did.

The next place we lived was in the wilderness about twenty miles north of Fredericton, New Brunswick. We had farm of two hundred acres. We were welcomed by the community with open arms. The difference I believe was that Tay Creek had seen and accepted new comers for many years. They were viewed as the life blood of the community. We spent eleven wonderful years there and made some great friends with whom we still communicate.

I think much of rural and small town North Carolina and Virginia are similar. They have seen many changes and have adapted to them. By in large, people are very accepting of people with different backgrounds.

So if I had to put one thing high on my list of being happy, it would be acceptance by neighbors. We have had it in Roanoke, Virginia and in Cape Carteret, North Carolina. Both places have stunning natural beauty on top of friendly people.

While you might have to search for the right neighborhoods in a particular area that are open and friendly to newcomers, it is well worth the effort. Talking to the neighbors in your potential new neighborhood is also an important step in evaluating what will make you happy.

With one foot on the mountain and the other in salt water, I live in great neighborhoods both in Cape Carteret and in Roanoke. As a Realtor® I would be glad to help in Cape Carteret or refer you to a good Realtor® in the Roanoke or Blacksburg, Va. area.

If you are interested in Roanoke, you can check out my View from the Mountain blog. If you are in interested in affordable coastal living in North Carolina, check out my Coastal Paradise blog.