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Crystal Coast Living - July 2009Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Late July is the time of year when even those who get cold in summer have to admit that they are warm. Most people are warm all over. Our low temperature at night for the last three evenings has been staying above eighty degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature there is little cooling at night. The only choice is to abandon any fear of the warmth and the South. You have to embrace the heat. If you boldly go outside and do not worry about the heat, you will be fine as long as you drink lots of fluids. With the breeze and the ocean waters, even this heat will be a pleasant memory when January rolls around. Then you can remember how warm the sand was and the shock when you first walk from your air conditioned home into our humid blanket of warmth. Your body adjusts pretty quickly especially if you are wearing the minimum amount of clothing. Once you have embraced the heat, you might as well explore Southern life a little. The best way to do that is with some Southern food. More...
Sunday, July 26, 2009
 I like to think that blue skies are one of the reasons beside the beach that people come for visits in the summer. While there are a lot of treats on the coast like fresh seafood, when we have the blue skies they are free. In the winter we often have weeks of clear blue skies, but in the summer we are more likely to have blue skies early in the morning and then a tug of war between the blue skies and the clouds. That was the case when I snapped this picture near Clyde Phillips Seafood between the bridges in Swansboro. The picture was taken just after noon a few days ago. That morning I had gotten up to beautiful blue skies over the White Oak River. By the time I took the picture along Route 24, the river had a pretty solid cloud cover. The only completely blue skies seemed to be down the Intracoastal towards Hammocks Beach. Finding blue sky is always a guessing game. More...
Sunday, July 19, 2009
 Not a lot of year around residents here on the Crystal Coast are like me and hope to get caught in traffic on the bridge. Yesterday was one of those days when the dream ended up being reality. We showed property all day and headed over to Emerald Isle to drop a package off at another real estate office. It was just before five PM, and I could see the traffic as we were turning from McLean Blvd. onto the bridge approach. I was a little worried, it seemed to be moving a little fast. Luck was with me, and just after we got past the highest point of the Cameron-Langston Bridge, the traffic slowed to a stop. I was ready with a camera and over the next two or three minutes managed to snap a number of shots. My wife prefers this method of bridge photography to my other method which is asking her to act as a traffic lookout and warn me of approaching traffic. More...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
 There are days when the beach sand is so hot that it causes you to dance. Then there are days when the breeze is blowing enough to almost sand blast your ankles. Once in a while the waves are so rough that even the bravest swimmers stay on shore. Today was not a day that had a defect. The air was warm, but not too warm. There was a slight breeze, but the surf was very calm. It was just a great beach day. From my informal survey of the parking lots at the regional access points, there were plenty of people enjoying the beach. It is nice to have a day like today to make up for the rain on Monday. Those of us who live here needed the rain for our yards, flowers, and vegetables. While visitors might like all sunshine during the day and rain only at night, the weather is going to do what it wants. More...
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
 I have been hoping that the tides, weather, and schedules would all align properly so I could get out to Bogue Inlet on a July morning while the waters are still calm. Today we pulled away from our dock about twenty minutes until ten. One of the reasons that I enjoy getting out before the winds pick up is the smooth ride down the White Oak River. This morning there was not even a ripple on the White Oak. We did around 32 mph all the way to bridge at Swansboro where we slowed to go through the harbor. I stopped long enough in the harbor to cast at a bluefish chasing fish on the surface, but my lure was ignored so we made our way through the harbor and swung east into the Intracoastal and got back up on plane until we got to the no wake zone at the Wildlife Resources Ramp. After passing through that zone, we resumed speed and passed a catamaran under power also headed east. More...
Monday, July 06, 2009
 My guess is that if you came down to the beach this week, you are probably a little disappointed with this afternoon's weather. We had a lot of rain later in the day. In Bluewater Cove where we live along the shores of the White Oak River, we got 1.75 inches of rain in less than two hours. We actually really needed the rain. It came at a critical time for the corn and soybean crops. It also refreshed all of our vegetable crops which are just now hitting their peak. Those vegetables and also the area fruits are the southern delights that are the subject of this post. My wife and I both grew up in the Piedmont area of North Carolina not far from the Virginia border. Gardening and fresh vegetables were as much a part of summer as going to the beach or the summer sun. That tradition of enjoying fresh vegetables lives on here along the Carteret coast. More...
Sunday, July 05, 2009
 There is tremendous diversity along the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada. In Newfoundland you have fjord-like coastal terrain in Gros Morne National Park where there are almost no sandy beaches. As you move down the coast, Nova Scotia has mostly rocky beaches like Maine. New Jersey has sandy beaches with a backdrop of pine barrens. Along the eastern shore of Virginia, farmland runs to the beach in places. Along North Carolina's northern Outer Banks, the thin strand of sand is often barely held in place by vegetation. Then midway down the southern Outer Banks, out of the water springs this green strand of sand anchored by vegetation that looks to be impenetrable. Of course it is Emerald Isle. More...
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