I know this is not the end of winter, but I think yesterday might have mortally wounded the old man.  It might take a while for him to disappear, but we have seen spring and any return to winter will not drive the memory of yesterday's warmth away.

It was just a great Sunday. By the time we headed to church at Cape Carteret Presbyterian, I knew we were going to have a beautiful day.  As we walked back to car after the service, it felt like spring.


After lunch, we celebrated our first day with the temperature reaching to sixty by trimming our roses and hauling the waste to the trash transfer point.  It was like grand central station with pickup trucks.  Everyone was hauling yard waste.  We even saw my colleague, Ed from the real estate office, backed up to the bulk container.
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As is often the case during a storm, my wife and I went looking for the danger spots.  First we checked out West Firetower Road which is our normal route to town.  The almost one foot of rain had washed out its shoulder, forcing closure and causing us a slight detour.

Next we headed across the Cameron-Langston Bridge to Emerald Isle.  It is great place to survey the area, and if we are having serious winds you can usually feel them.   The winds were not bad on the bridge, but we run into increasing misty rain.

I wanted to check out the surfers at Bogue Inlet Pier.  It always seems to draw a crowd.  I was really surprised when we got there.  There were plenty of surfers, but the waves were not as impressive as we often see when a big storm is well off shore.  read more »

Today was another great day on the coast.  It has been a busy fall and the weather has been very cooperative.

I had enough chasing fish yesterday so I stayed home to work.  We got lots done.  I even did some painting to get the house in shape for some visitors next week.

I also got some writing done.  I did a post for the Crystal Coast Living blog that I write.

About 4:30 PM, I told my wife that we needed to grab a few minutes outside enjoying the weather instead of working.

She agreed, and we hopped in our skiff, dropped it into the water and began a leisurely cruise to watch the sun disappear into the horizon.

On the way back, I turned around and snapped this picture.  I think it was the best of all the ones I took.  It certainly caught the spirit of the moment.

You can view a larger version of the image at this link.

The seventh annual Gordie McAdams Speckled Trout Surf Fishing Tournament, sponsored by Emerald Isle Parks & Recreation and The Reel Outdoors will run from Oct. 24 to Dec. 5. Registration is free. Pre-registration is required and the deadline is Wed., Oct. 21 at 5pm. All trout must be caught by fishing on foot (surf, pier, inlet, sound) from Fort Macon to EI. NO BOATS.  The official weigh-in station is The Reel Outdoors. For more info.  contact Brittany Wood at 252-354-6350 or bwood@emeraldeisle-nc.org.

Yesterday was a cloudy day with some wind which helps if you are running a kite festival.

From what we saw and heard, Saturday was a near perfect day for the festival with steady winds blowing in from the water.

Sunday was an acceptable day with winds that sometimes were good and other times not as much as they needed.  Still everyone seemed to be having a great time.

There was music, it was warm on the beach, and the setting by the pier at the Sheraton in Atlantic Beach was very scenic.  That is not a bad scenario for the last week of October.

I was very impressed by how serious some of the kite people were.  Yet they were also having a lot of fun.  Two young girls were walking down the beach, and one of the guys flying a stunt kite chased them down the beach with the kite.

They were screaming and giggling at the same time. Later I saw them flying kites.  They were probably planning their revenge.  I am sure my reaction to being chased by a kite might have been a little different.  read more »

I recently commented that the ocean waters off Emerald Isle on last Thursday were so smooth that you could have rowed a bathtub out into the ocean.

In case anyone has bathtubs on their lifts or trailers, please leave them there.  I think the quiet seas have deserted us for a while.  I snapped the wave picture in Deerhorn Dunes on Emerald Isle yesterday afternoon.

Even the White Oak River was showing some whitecaps yesterday morning.

After the brief shower we had yesterday afternoon we found some blue sky at the beach.

The wind was blowing the mist off of the waves onto to the beach when I took this telephoto shot of the beach and the pier.  read more »

I promised myself an afternoon on the water, and it will be one that I will remember for a long time for a number of reasons.

First off the weather was about as perfect as it could get.  You could have sailed a bathtub out Bogue Inlet into the Atlantic yesterday.  The water was amazingly quiet as you can see from the picture of Emerald Isle  that was taken well off of Hammocks Beach.

The White Oak River was even smoother.  There was hardly a ripple as we approached Swansboro.  When we came home three hours later, it was the same.

More importantly it was just as quiet after we left the inlet for the ocean.  A good fishing buddy had told me to go out the Inlet and fish in the channel just where it was filling in with sand.
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