It has been a long winter for water birds.  There was a time in January when the quiet water around Bluewater Cove was frozen for almost two weeks.

We have had only a few really sunny days like Wednesday of this past week.  Mostly we have had to endure rain which would be okay except all that freshwater drives the saltwater fish to the sounds where the winds are worse.

Maps at Water.Gov show Carteret County has seen ten inches of rain since the first of the year.  That comes on top of the 35 inches of rain that came this fall.  Forty five inches of rain in four months is a lot of rain even for water birds.

Last night it rained so hard that it sounded like houses were being pressure washed.  We had some nice temperatures.  The mercury even got up to 61F before falling to 39F this morning, just eight hours later.

Sitting on a post in a cold windy weather is not nearly as nice as sitting on a post in sunny warm weather.

This truly is a winter to remember.