Fall On The Coast Hits Its Stride

Fall Sunset Near Raymond's Gut

One of the best things about fall on the North Carolina coast is the great weather. While a visit to the Southern Outer Banks does not come with a guarantee that the fall weather will be fantastic, we have enjoyed some spectacular fall weather since we moved here in 2006.  Each summer we eagerly await fall.  Our August humidity usually disappears as fall comes and any lingering crowds from summer quickly disperse and best of all we hardly ever have an early cold snap that actually produces serious frost or below freezing temperatures.

There are exceptions like the October 28, fishing trip that I took the year before we moved here. I nearly froze while fishing a few hundred yards from Beaufort's Front Street.   Fortunately I caught enough fish that the weather did not really matter.  In 2013, we got a touch of frost in a few spots on October 26, but I had some uncovered tomato plants that the light frost did not harm.

A good part of the reason that we have such temperate weather in the fall is that there is water all around us.  From our big coastal river, the White Oak,  to the waters of Bogue Sound, and the Atlantic Ocean,  the warm water surrounding us helps keep early fall cold spells inland.  In spring as the water is slowly warming it keeps us cool in the early part of summer.  Often it takes so long for our water to cool down that we stay relatively warm through early winter.

In addition to temperatures that please almost everyone, our fall skies are often a gorgeous blue like the ones in this picture taken while I was kayaking on the White Oak River.

While it might be hard to believe, I wore a bathing suit and waded in the surf with bare legs when I went surf fishing on the Point at Emerald Isle this past first weekend of November 2013.  With a surf temperature of 60F, the water was a little chilly but not bad for a few minutes at a time.

As one of the rare places which consistently amazes me, the Point was spectacularly beautiful this weekend.  I posted several pictures of my Sunday, November 3, hike on the Point.  While the fall scenery, weather, and quiet waters make the Crystal Coast really special during the fall, one of my favorite things about living on the coast is that as the holiday season approaches things get more peaceful here on the coast.

There is a little bit of a reverse migration as December arrives here on the coast.  Even the most hardy visiting fishermen generally take leave of the area.  On top of that many residents who have welcomed visitors all summer take the opportunity to go visit inland relatives during the holiday season.  Some restaurants close for a month or two and we actually seem to miss the holiday rush here on the coast.  It is fine with me.

If you have never had the opportunity to enjoy a vacation on the coast in the fall, do not miss the chance if you get it.  It you need help planning your fall vacation or Thanksgiving at the beach, check out our Emerald Isle Travel Guide.

Coastal NC, An Interesting Mix of Old and New

I recently ran into a tide table dated 1969.  It came from a restaurant in Morehead City.  It is likely that my uncle Austin and I picked it up on a fishing trip that summer nearly forty two years ago.

In those days what is now called the Southern Outer Banks or the Crystal Coast was a pretty undeveloped place.  We drove across the bridge at Morehead City and eventually cut over to the beach when the roads disappeared.  We managed to drive down to the Point at the end of Emerald Isle.

The Point is a much different place today.  The area is filled with homes, Coast Guard Road, and in the summer, a fair number of people.  I made a recent visit to the Point to take a picture of snow on the beach and gather material for a post on the colder than normal winter that we have endured this winter of 2010-11.

The previous Saturday a snowstorm had come about as close as you can get to snowing us in down here on the coast.  It brought back some memories of years and blizzards in Canada, and even got me to decide that just maybe being snowed in isn't so bad even on the North Carolina coast.

Having a day to contemplate things and fix our computer network gave me a chance to contemplate what an interesting mix of life we have along the North Carolina's beaches.

One the one hand, ancient birds like pelicans are our everyday neighbors.  We live in area rich with wildlife.  Just today, I have enjoyed herons, pelicans, and hooded merganser ducks, and I have not even walked more than 100 yards from my house.  There was also a grey fox that I caught sight of this morning.  Having 158,000 acres of the Croatan National Forest on one side and the fifty-six miles of the Cape Lookout National Seashore does not hurt.

Yesterday as I took my afternoon hike, I had to marvel that I was recording my hike with my Android based Droid phone.  After I got back I was able to send the GPS track of my hike to my Google maps.

Having 3G phone service here on the edge of the continent is not that amazing given the reach of technology these days.  Of course 3G service doesn't come in a lot of flavors down here.  If you are an iPhone lover, you might be out of luck.  However, Verizon does do a good job here so I guess you could switch carriers if you just cannot live without your iPhone.

Several years ago I wrote a post about the Instant Economy  and how easy it is easy to find the services needed to start a business.  I was living in Roanoke, VA at the time, and it is a much more populated area than the Southern Outer Banks.

After being down here over four years, I cannot see much difference between the technology I find on the Crystal Coast and what I find in Roanoke.  It might be easier to get a Macintosh computer repaired in Roanoke, but that is about the only thing that I can see.

In fact my cable modem service provider is a little more reliable here on the coast.  Where our home is in Roanoke, it is still impossible to get Internet phone service through the cable provider. We can do that here on the coast and save a few dollars by bundling television, Internet access, and telephone services.
 
Winds, storms, and water have a huge impact on our life here at the coast.  We are close to the land and sea.  We pay attention to the weather, but at the same time, we have all the conveniences of modern society like grocery stores, shopping malls, restaurants, health care services, good schools, and very good roads.

In fact you might say that we get the best of both worlds.  Our services and stores end up being over built to handle the short influx of visitors that we have during the summer tourist season.  In the winter, late fall, and much of the spring, we are here by ourselves.  Our stores and roads are uncrowded, and everything moves to a slower pace.  It is not a bad way to live. 

We have almost the best of the Internet world in a place where there are still farmers' markets along the roads, and you can still buy local fish fresh off the boasts.  It is a little like a wired paradise.

We enjoy the visitors in the summer. They bring some hustle and bustle to a normally very quiet area. Other than crowding the grocery stores some on the weekends, there are almost no challenges that come from our summer visitors.  We are blessed with a tourist area made up almost exclusively of single family homes.  While there are a few condo complexes sprinkled around, the density of housing for our summer visitors is very low, so we just don't get the crowds that other places have.

It does not hurt that we also have four lane roads coming at the area from two different ends, and that we have the Northern Outer Banks to handle many of the tourists who often have never even heard of our area.  Myrtle Beach also helps us by drawing off the golfers, and Wilmington picks up many of the day trippers.  We have our own little niche, and in this case it is not so bad to be a niche player.

So while many of us feel very close to the sea and the creatures that swim in it and fly over it, it is very possible to be a person immersed in technology here.  You can twitter and post to Facebook just as easily as you can in more urban areas.  You might even be more likely to actually know the people online than you would be in a city.  While you might not have access to Verizon FIOS, you can probably survive quite well on the technology that you find here on the Southern Outer Banks.

Few people may have heard of Foursquare, but you might find it easier to get to know a real mayor.  In fact if you come down and buy a beach house from me, I will make it a point to introduce you to the mayor of Emerald Isle.   He is a very nice guy and much more accessible than your average mayor.

I have not seen any limitations that come from living in this beautiful area.  That is one of the reasons that I am proud to help people find homes in this special spot.  It is a beautiful area, and I am excited to wake up here every morning.  You just never know what you might find in the Gut behind our home.

You might even get to do some heron noodling.

Gabrielle brushes by us

As noon eastern time slides by, Gabrielle continues to amble towards the coast.

I have been watching the storm forecasts with great interest most of the week.

Though the picture to the right might look like we have a lot of water. The levels are normal and about what we would expect to see based on the tides.

Friday evening I wrote a post, Quiet Waters before the Storm. I was impressed with the peaceful waters of the White Oak River near our home which is on the water near the Silver Creek Golf course on the linked map.

Then I wrote a post, Storm Watch. At the time my favored weather service, Accuweather, up in State College, PA was making the prediction that Gabrielle was going to turn into a Category 1 hurricane before coming inland.

I think they might be better at football up in Happy Valley than they are at hurricane forecasting. Their most recent 11 am Sunday synopsis says this.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center expects landfall along the North Carolina coast between Jacksonville and Cape Hatteras by early Sunday afternoon.

Jacksonville, NC happens to be almost twenty miles inland. This morning I was pretty convinced that all the weathermen (especially the Weather Channel ones) were trying to wish Gabrielle into a hurricane.

As you can hopefully see from this Weather Underground image, now it looks most of the rain will miss western Carteret County where I live.

For two days prior to the storm, predictions were that we would get three inches or more of rain with isolated areas getting over five inches. Finally the forecasters are acknowledging what I can already deduce from my slightly damp driveway.

...rainfall will range from an inch or less inland to up to three
inches on the Outer Banks and with isolated amounts of 5 inches possible.

I know that figuring out storms is incredibly difficult, but you would think someone would have been close on Gabrielle. It seems like everyone just has a slightly different version of wrong.

I guess this is just a really good example of how complex weather can be. We certainly don't know enough to predict what is going to happen a few hours from now. I wonder how good we can possibly be at predicting what is going to happen years from now.

All summer those of us on the coast have labored under the double whammy of a poor real estate market and a much hyped report that said Carteret County was the top target in the country for a hurricane this season. I just hope whoever paid for the report didn't pay very much.

Even as I finish this post the sky seems to be getting lighter. Today isn't even turning out to be a good rainy day.

Maybe it is time to point out that I have a new travel guide for the Emerald Isle Beaches which aren't far from us and are still open for business.

I suspect all that is happening from Gabrielle over on the beach is that the surfers are getting some nice waves. It is probably really nice time to take a walk on the beach since the temperatures are very moderate and there is a nice breeze.

We will have to wander over a little later in the day and take a few pictures of the waves. I wonder if the Weather Channel would like me to send them a copy?

It is nice to know that the Southern Outer Banks can get so much attention based on such a minor storm. Our first year here has been really nice. I was hoping that we could make it through our anniversary date without a bad storm. That date was yesterday.

It is nice to have a wish come true.

Maybe we will be as lucky next year.

Of Walmarts, SOBX and necessity

My daughter who lives in Reston, Virginia tells me that Walmarts in that part of the country are not very nice.

In her college years at Sweet Briar, she and her friends considered the Lynchburg, Virginia Walmart one of the cleaner spots to shop.

On the Crystal Coast of North Carolina, often known as the Southern Outer Banks, Walmart is a necessity whether you are furnish a new house or picking up things for your boat.

Traveling to shop has been a way of life in remote coastal areas is nothing new.

We were shopping for both the boat and house recently. We spent a couple of hours in the Morehead City Walmart. I found everything I wanted except a boat anchor, and I think they were just out of them since I got the anchor line and chains. The store was clean and bright.

There are things that Walmart does not carry so later I still stopped by one of our local hardwares where I do most of our shopping anyway. I needed some lag bolts.

It looks like we might be getting a Walmart in Cedar Point to go along with our new Lowe's Home Improvement Store in Cape Carteret. I suspect the damage to local business will be minimal since both have been available within fifteen to twenty minutes driving for a long time.

I can only take Walmart in mid-week and only about once a quarter. My contact lens solution was $2 a bottle cheaper, and I do not even want to think how much cheaper the anchor line and ropes were than if I had bought them at one of the specialty boating dealers who get plenty of my money anyway.

I think good local businesses can survive the competition from Lowe's and Walmart, they just need to specialize in quality products and maintain high levels of service.

I'll go to a local hardware store anytime over Lowe's. Recently I was pleased to find a local Ace Hardware that carried Echo trimmers. Lowe's doesn't carry them or the freshly roasted Methodist peanuts that all of our local hardwares have on their front counters. An Echo trimmer is the only kind I will use.

The challenge with Walmart is that we didn't have anything local to compete with it anyway.

Still when I am walking across the giant Walmart parking lot, I can only think about how nice a boat ride would be or maybe a walk on the beach.

The Southern Outer Banks are no Reston when it comes to shopping, and it is going to be a long time before we get much beyond Walgreen's, Lowe's, and Walmart.

In the Emerald Isle-Cedar Point-Cape Carteret area, we do not have a single chain restaurant beyond a few fast food ones. That's just fine with me, the restaurants and services we have are just about right for someone who doesn't like to shop anyway.

I figure 17 miles is about as close as I want to be to a Best Buy anyway. Anything for my photography addiction can't even be found in Reston so there is little hope ever for it here on the coast.

I think we might even escape the iPhone hype which is good since a bunch of them would screw up my new AIBRS.