The Friday weather forecast called for storms and rain in the afternoon. In an effort to catch some sun and surf before what seemed like a series of damps days, we headed to the beach Friday morning.
We wanted some peace and quiet also, so we headed up the island to Third Street Beach. From our home it is seven miles to the intersection of Coast Guard Road and Emerald Drive (Route 58). Third Street Beach is another eight miles up the beach. With some traffic it usually takes us 20 minutes or so to get there.
As luck would have it, there were only a couple of cars in the small parking so got our wish for privacy. There was plenty of room on the beach.
The winds have been blowing all week so I expected to see the water a little stirred up. I had planned to do a little surf fishing following own road of six shrimp to enlightenment.
We got down to the beach, my wife dropped her chair on the sand and headed off for a walk. It only took about two minutes before the wind blew my straw hat off, and I had to go for a short jog to catch it.
The water was wonderfully warm and actually very clear in spite of its stirred up condition. I got one nice bite on my first few casts. I was using my old reel from my childhood. I was hoping it would also prove as capable in the surf as it had been in the boat.
That was not to be the case. Some type of anti-backlash mechanism kept kicking in and stopping my casts in mid arc. That is not a good thing when you have three ounces of lead on the end of your line.
Finally it kicked in early in a cast, and I lost all my rigging. At that point, I decided to give up and feed my last four shrimp to the whatever might be cruising in the waters.
I still had a great time, and my wife really enjoyed her walk on the beach. We still managed to stay nearly an hour which is about our limit in twelve noon sun.
On the way back down the beach we stopped at Captain Willis Seafood in Emerald Isle and bought some trigger fish to cook as fish tacos. We got them in some lemon juice and cilantro marinade not long after we walked in the door. My wife whipped together some yogurt-mayonnaise sauce while we enjoyed some fresh salsa that we made from our German Queen tomatoes the day before. It had taken us two days to find cilantro. I guess our area tomato crop is very good compared to other places.
It did not take long to grill the fish and put our tacos together. They were very tasty. We will have to ad the recipe to our collection of beach favorites. In the middle of it all I got a phone asking if I could show some property later in the afternoon. We managed to finish that at about 5 PM and then head on down to Harris Teeter in Morehead City where we took advantage of their blueberry deal, four pints for $6.
Around 8 PM we finished the day with some blueberry pancakes while listening to the severe storm warning which never materialized.
This morning there is a growing patch of blue sky to the east south east. Perhaps the next few days will turn out better than expected. I hope so since I am showing property again today.
