Company

This past week we were treated to company.  Best friends Ron and Robin Terry found a little time off and a plane, and hopped over to Ocracoke from Raleigh for the weekend.  They arrived Friday afternoon.

Ron and Robin selfie just after landing at the airstrip in Ocracoke

Here is their transportation (Piper Seneca) tied down for the weekend at the airstrip

We had a group of 4 couples on the boat for dinner Friday evening:  (Ron and Robin our friends from Raleigh, Shay and Margaret from Ocracoke, Russ and Michelle from Ocracoke, and Keith and I from wherever we happen to be ). As usual there was too much food.  We had appetizers, then lobster tails and fillets as the main.  Sides of cucumber salad, antipasta salad, and broccoli salad rounded out the main meal.  Margaret made fig cake that was "to die for" as desert.

Surf and Turf for dinner Friday night

Margarette's Fig Cake  

Some of you might remember from previous Ocracoke posts that fig trees are abundant on the island.  Locals have been using figs in baking and preserves for decades and fig cake is one of the island's best known treats. 

The next day (Saturday) we took Ron and Robin around the island in the Jeep and got them out four wheeling on the beach.  We even were able to take the dinghy over to Portsmouth Island with them for some shelling.  It was high tide and the beach is seeing a lot of vacationers right now.  I only found one small Scotch Bonnet with a small hole in it.  Things have been picked over pretty hard.  But we still had fun.

Saturday evening Russ and Michelle Reynolds had Ron, Robin, Keith and I as well as two other couples to their house for dinner.  We had quite the spread with appetizers wings, chicken, and London broil.  If you see a pattern here with food, you might be onto something.  It was a great evening.

Sunday we took Ron and Robin to Eduardo's for lunch before they had to fly back.  This food truck is a landmark on Ocracoke and I think has some of the best food ever.

Eduardo's

You can not beat the fish tacos as the fish is always fresh

Trigger fish tacos for lunch

The weekend went much too fast.  It was time for our friends to head back to Raleigh.   Since we will be here through the fall, we are hoping they will be able to return: maybe even for a little longer than just two days.  We saw them off at the airstrip.

Off they go back to Raleigh

A Fishing We Will Go

This was a week of both stormy days and sunny days.  The storm that rolled through one evening had all the boats, even in the protected harbor rocking.  This was a quick video a grabbed from out of the window of Southern Style.  The worst of the wind was already over by the time we had secured the boat and I grabbed the camera.  I really wanted to see if it would come out on the blog.

Rocking in the Harbor

The storm clearing out

After the storm

We had the chance to take a sunset dinghy ride one night

I also continue to do some kayaking.  I get a kick out of looking at all the shells the hermit crabs and other marsh critters have found for their houses.  Can you spot the Scotch Bonnet among the shells?

Here was a crab trying to steal a shell from another crab

Here is my trusty kayak after a big paddle

Friday July 17th the weather was perfect for off-shore fishing.  Keith and I got up at "0 dark 30" and headed out.  It was a beautiful morning, but just breaking daylight as we left the harbor.

Ocracoke light as we came out of the harbor Friday morning

Fishing rods are ready to go.  The crescent moon can just be seen over the top of the rod.

We caught two blackfin tuna.  The fishing was slow for everyone out there.  The water is getting too warm, and the fishing is not as good as in the spring and fall.  The charter fishing boats went to bottom fishing after they did not catch anything in the morning.  We stuck it out and bagged the two tuna.  Keith and I were the only boat from Ocracoke to catch anything while trolling.  If you check out our "SPOT" locator (located on the right-hand side of the blog page) you can see exactly where we were trolling off-shore.

One of our two tuna ready to be cleaned.

Fun and Fishing

Well the big 4th of July holiday has passed and we had a great time with our friends Dave and Janet.  So glad they could come visit.  We hope they had a nice relaxing vacation.  Dave and Keith got in some dinghy fishing on the 5th and 6th before they had to leave to cruise back to New Bern.  Dave and Keith were catching both trout and flounder.  Below are some of their catches.

Gray Trout

Speckled Trout picture courtesy of Dave Hawley

They caught several flounder. (Too bad we can not keep flounder yet).  Recreational flounder will open back up for fishing on August 16th and go through September 30th.   The size minimum is 15 inches and 4 legal sized flounder per person per day.  We cannot wait as it would be nice to have a little flounder in the freezer.

Here is one of the flounder (doormats) caught by Dave and Keith

The winds have been calm for several days and I got the kayak out.  It is fun to skulk around Teach's Hole and the tidal stream there.  I love watching the different kind of crabs and critters in the shallows.

Kayaking down the tidal stream

Blue crab and some bait fish

Blue crabs are common in North Carolina waters especially the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.  They are the only crab of commercial value in North Carolina. They are mature at 12-18 months of age and average life span is 3-4 tears.  These crabs are popular for eating hence there are size and other limits to harvesting these crabs.

Blue crab up close (he was not happy with me taking his picture)

The hermit crab is an interesting critter.  They do not have an exoskeleton (hard shell like the blue crab) to protect their body, so they use the sea shells of other marine critters as their home and protection.  Hermit crabs are scavengers and feed on vegetative matter, dead fish, and plankton.

Hermit crab in the sand of the Pamlico Sound

Hermit crabs will use just about any shell they can find for a home.  Here are several along the edge of the sound in sharks eye shells and even two scotch bonnets.  I was very kind and did not evict them in order to claim the scotch bonnets.

Hermit crabs certainly are not good house keepers.  Their shell houses are often very muck covered.

The last type of crab I have pictures of is the Fiddler Crab.  There are actually about 100 species of fiddler crabs around the world.  Ocracoke has 3 main types.  There is the sand fiddler, mud fiddler, and marsh fiddler.  The ones I was finding along the sound were either mud or marsh fiddlers.  The females have two small claws, but the males have a very prominent large claw.  The males wave this claw around like a conductor at an orchestra.  

Fiddler Crabs hiding in the marsh grass.

Fiddler crabs live in large colonies and the marsh was just teeming with these guys.  They are very sly however.  As soon as I got even remotely close with the kayak, they scurried into the grass and were very tough to get a good picture of them.  There were thousands along the edge of the marsh.  So many I could hear them in the grass.  It sounds like Rice Crispy cereal soaking in milk.

The later part of the week brought a tropical system spinning off the coast with the threat of rain and wind.  Wednesday July 8th was cloudy with periods of rain.  Keith and I were even bigger slugs than usual.  I have been playing with a new app I loaded on the computer to edit photos.   That along with some sewing and reading kept me entertained for the poor weather.

View of the ferry terminal Wednesday evening with the low clouds

By the weekend the weather had cleared up and we had a pretty sunset

Sequel Comes to Town

Wednesday July 1st our friends Dave and Janet brought their boat Sequel from their home port in New Bern, NC to Ocracoke.  We know they were excited to have some vacation time.  So we wanted to show them a good time.

Beach Day for everyone (even Pengi)

Dave's dog Cajsa loves to play fetch with anything, even sea shells.

The water was nice and warm.  I had fun taking pictures of the waves.  Here are a few of my creative shots.  

All 4 of us made a trek to Portsmouth Island on the 3rd.  Dave and Janet had some good finds with 28 Scotch Bonnets.  Keith and I did pretty well also.  Shell hunting at Portsmouth never gets old.  

Dave and Janet in the front of the dinghy on the way back from Portsmouth.

Dave clearly smug as the Scotch Bonnet champion today.😎

View of the sound side of Ocracoke from the dinghy (lighthouse visible)

Since it is the 4th of July holiday, the island is filling up with vacationers.  The high speed ferry also started running just this week.  This ferry carries passengers only, no cars, from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke.  Although the NCDOT is having a ferry specifically built for the Hatteras to Ocracoke run, it will not be completed until the fall.  In order to get the ferry running for the summer, NCDOT leased a ferry from Seatreak.  This company runs passenger ferries in Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.  The Martha's Vineyard Express was renamed the Ocracoke Express for this summer.  The cost is $5.00 one way and $10.00 round trip.  The ride time is 1 hour.

This is the south end of Ocracoke.  The village is located here and the large basin (Silver Lake) is where the marina and ferry docks are located.  This is also where we are docked with Southern Style.

The high speed ferry has been somewhat controversial.  Some of the islanders want the ferry and some do not.  It certainly will make Ocracoke much busier and with that there are always pros and cons.

High speed passenger ferry coming into Ocracoke

The 4th of July was very hot and humid here.  We did manage to make a scud run over to Portsmouth.  Dave, Janet, and I searched for treasures and Keith fished the inlet.  Keith caught a nice sized speckled trout but let it go.  The shellers found a few more Scotch Bonnets.  In the evening we were all invited to Russ and Michele's for a cook out.  

These were just some of the appetizers

There were also oysters, clams, tuna, and chicken on the menu.  We were stuffed by the end of the meal.  After dinner 4 of the guys had a jam session.  Great concerts like this just can't happen often enough.

Happy 4th of July everyone.  Although our country may not be perfect, let us remember that despite our shortcomings; America is one of the best places to be a citizen.  We should always strive for improvement, but never sell ourselves short for our accomplishments.  In this time of slogans, cliques, and causes we should have one cause only and that is "The Golden Rule":  Treat others as you would like others to treat you.  I think this would cover pretty much all situations; political, religious, racial, etc.  

Sunset over Ocracoke Lighthouse

God Bless America

Our First Month on Ocracoke

     It is hard to believe we have been on Ocracoke for over 4 weeks.  Where doe the time go?  I must say it has been great for me.  This is the first time I have been able to enjoy this amount of time on Ocracoke without worrying about getting back to Raleigh to go to work.  There were even plenty of times when we had scheduled a week of vacation to be here, but the weather did not cooperate.  We would not come over and I would go back to work (scrubbing the vacation).  What a treat this has been.

There are just a few days left before the 4th of July holiday and the marina is filling up fast.   People are coming to fish and enjoy the beach for the 4th.

This 94 lb Cubera Snapper was caught by spear fishermen just the other day.

Cubera Snapper are the giants of the snapper family.  They are usually found in south Florida and the Bahamas, however this sea monster was caught just off Ocracoke in about 60 feet of water.  The Cubera generally  average 30 to 50 lbs but can easily exceed 100 lbs.  This one weighed in at whopping 94 lbs.  It was really cool to see it and to think of spearing this behemoth.

Saturday Keith and I decided to go check out the new inlet that formed cutting across Portsmouth Island after Hurricane Dorian.  This inlet allows water from the Atlantic Ocean to connect to the Pamlico Sound.   It is 2 1/2 miles south of the northern tip of Portsmouth where we usually take the dinghy and go ashore.  This meant it would be a minimum of 5 miles hike round trip.  I took two ibuprofen and said "let's do this thing".   

We had a great time.  The new inlet is huge.  There is a large shallow area and then about a half mile wide section that is quite deep, reportedly 10-15 feet deep at minimum.

Keith walking along the shallow section

Another view along the shallow stretch

This is looking across to the opposite shore in the upper right of the picture.  You can see the deeper channel as the bluer water.

     Portsmouth Island is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.  The Park Service reported that 54 new inlets were formed during Hurricane Dorian along the National Seashore.  Many of them will close over naturally and quickly.  Others may remain until the next big storm.  This is part of the natural way of things on these barrier islands.

     I would love to try to figure out how to get the dinghy around and into the inlet.  There is a way as there were several other small boats and a jet ski in the inlet when we were there.  That may be a project to try in the next several weeks.

     As usual, there were shells that just had to come home with us.  I even found the top three quarters of a tulip shell, which I have not found here before.  I would love to find a whole one sometime on the outer banks.  There were 32 Scotch Bonnets on this run.

Our loot from the latest trip to Portsmouth

     Tuesday the 30th of June Keith and I had a nice calm weather forecast so we decided to take Southern Style and head out to the Gulf Stream to do a little fishing.  We followed one of the charter fishing boats out at 6:00AM.  The inlet at Ocracoke has shoaled badly after hurricane Dorian.  That is why we wanted to follow someone with  local knowledge.  There are markers that are off station and have not been corrected as of yet.  Coming back in was challenging.  Even following our morning track, we had trouble finding deep water.   Luckily we had another local coming in the inlet that saw us having trouble and radioed for us to follow him.  He got us through the shallow part and we are eternally grateful.  

View of breakers coming in the inlet.  Water only a foot deep.

We were also lucky to have caught three nice little football tuna.

3 Blackfin tuna.

Tuna Poke for dinner

Gotta say the poke was pretty darn good.  Tuna poke (pronounced POH-kay) comes from the Hawaiian's and means "cut piece" or "small piece".  This is a Hawaiian version of the Japanese sashimi and is an indicator of the love for fresh raw fish.  It started to become more popular around the United States in the 1970's and today you can find numerous recipes in cookbooks and on line.  In September, Sam Choy, one of Hawaii's most famous chefs, hosts an annual, 3 day poke festival.  The contest draws over 2,000 participants from around the world each year.