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Crystal Coast Living - April 2009Wednesday, April 29, 2009
One of the things that attracted us to Carteret County was the relative lack of crowds. During most of the year, Carteret County has about 114 people per square mile. That compares to 2,636 people per square mile in Fairfax County, Virginia is where I spent most of my corporate working years. It a huge difference. Actually the difference is even bigger than that since the people per square is calculated using just the county's land area. If you added in the county's over 821 square miles of water, our population density drops to 44 people per square mile. While we have very few people living on the water all the time, we have lots of people who spend a considerable amount of time on the water. If space, freedom from crowds, and the ability to lose yourself on the water or a beach are important to you, the Crystal Coast has space for you, but there is more than that to it. More...
Saturday, April 25, 2009
 Today we saw some real warmth. Areas inland started cooking a little early this year. Northern Virgina, Maryland, and parts of New Jersey all reported temperatures in the nineties. We were lucky here along the coast. The water temperatures are still in the sixties so we got a cooling breeze off the water for most of the day. I suspect we barely made it to eighty. Today's warm temperatures were still a real treat. Before we made it over to the beach, I managed to go kayaking. In spite of a strong headwind, I paddled out to the White Oak River with little difficulty. However, it appeared challenging enough with the wind blowing so hard that a neighbor, who was headed out in a powerboat, offered to give me a tow. I declined since I always enjoy my kayaking exercise. Besides as it turned out it would have been a quick trip to nowhere since my neighbors only made it to the first buoy before turning around because of the choppy conditions. More...
Friday, April 24, 2009
 It has been a long wait for that first comfortable time on the water, but today the wait was over. A little after eleven AM this morning we pulled away from the dock behind our house. A few minutes later I was reeling in the first fish of the season. I was excited even though my first fish was a small croaker that I immediately threw back. It was not the last croaker of the morning. We must have caught close to twenty of them. They were all too small for anything besides bait. But for a few minutes, we were having a lot of fun just being on the water under blue skies on the relatively quiet waters of the White Oak. It was just great to be out on the water without a jacket and with the knowledge that the water temperature was in the sixties. More...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
 My first thoughts about this topic had nothing to do with Blackbeard's treasure. Nor did it revolve around our many miles of pristine beaches. The idea for the post came to me while driving up Highway 58 this afternoon when I saw the sign that the local strawberries were ripe at Buck's Corner Farm. It occurred to me that in the few years that we have been living here, there have been some special things have made life on the Crystal Coast unique. Having local farm fresh strawberries in the month of April happens to one of those things which I treasure. For many years we lived along Canada's Atlantic coast. Strawberries were something that you hoped for the first week in July. The idea that strawberries could ripe in April was completely foreign since the ground often still had some snow on it in April. There are a lot of other Crystal Coast treasures. More...
Sunday, April 19, 2009
 You will not live on the Crystal Coast very long before you find that you have more friends from where you moved now than you did when you lived there. There is nothing mysterious about the situation, people love to travel, especially when there is a beach in the area. Having a personal tour guide makes the trip even better. If you add the prospect of some fresh seafood, and great weather after a cold winter, the idea of visiting your old neighbors becomes irresistible. We love having company from places we have lived previously. Often you end up getting to know people better when they come to visit than you knew them when they were neighbors. So far we have only had positive experiences. Perhaps details of a recent visit we hosted will show how much fun can be had by everyone. More...
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
 In the last two days my rain gauge has gathered 1.6 inches of precipitation. Part of my yard feels like a giant sponge. Still I know that the weather is changing. I can feel it, the sky has a different color in the evening. Other signs are all around. Azaleas and tulips are blooming. There are some ripe strawberries showing in the rows of the local u-pick farm. It is the heart of spring on the coast, and we are likely just a few days from our first really warm weather. I knew that would be the case before I checked the long term weather forecast for the Crystal Coast. And I was pleased to find that on three of the last four days of the month, we should see our temperatures rise into the low eighties. That is the way it should be, and eighty degrees with a nice coastal breeze is just about the perfect temperature for lots of things. More...
Monday, April 06, 2009
 It is no secret among those of us who live here on the coast. There are two special places that people come to the Crystal Coast to visit. The better known spot is the beach with its waves and hot sands. Then there are people who come to the coast just to enjoy Bogue Sound. Some never even make it to the beach. In fact if you counted the number of residents living year round on the sound and compared that number to the number of people living year round on the ocean, my guess is that the sound would win. There are number of reasons why people love the sound and the lifestyle that it brings. Perhaps the number one reason is that you can have a boat, kayak, or small sailboat. Having easily accessible water transportation leads to lots of fun on the water. Of course there are a number of other reasons to love the sound. More...
Sunday, April 05, 2009
 This is the kind of weather that we live for here on the Crystal Coast. I love the warm days and cool nights. I do most of my writing at night, and there is nothing that I enjoy more than feeling the cool evening breeze through my office while hearing the fish jumping in the water behind our home. This has been close to a perfect weekend here on the coast after a couple of days of rain. The azaleas have started blooming, and not to be outdone the dogwoods have also opened up over the last couple of days. Today and yesterday, I even saw folks put their boats in the water for some early spring boating. It was a little windy on Saturday, but the winds backed off some on Sunday. While I am waiting for a little warmer weather before hitting the water, we did have a busy weekend which is typical of this time of year on the Crystal Coast. More...
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