Moving On

 It has been a wonderful summer, but the days are getting shorter and the temperatures are dropping.  It is time to start heading south. We tried to make the most of our last week on Ocracoke.

There were several trips to Portsmouth Island with the dinghy.

Pengi riding to Portsmouth

There was some very good fishing and shelling this past week there.  We caught several species of fish.

Keith caught several nice flounder, but they are out of season and had to be released.

One of the large flounder Keith caught this week (remember your lesson, this is a left eyed flounder).

He also caught several Atlantic sea bass (aka blackfish).  We did not keep these guys, but they are cool looking fish.  They are a smaller fish reaching up to 24 inches long and 6 to 9 pounds.  Any blackfish over 4 pounds is considered a citation.  One curious thing about this fish, it is a hermaphrodite.  Most are females when they first spawn and then as they grow, they become males.  Most of these fish under 8 inches are female.  Once they grow larger than 8 inches most become male.  This is not actually all that uncommon in the fish world.  About 2% of the world's fish  display some type of hermaphoritism, which represents 500 species worldwide.  Some start as females and becomes male as with the sea bass.  Others start as males and become female, and still others can switch back and forth and even self fertilize their own eggs.

Here is one of Keith's sea bass

This fishing thing is so easy even a retired veterinarian can do it.  I caught a gray trout and a black drum.  To keep drum they must be "in the slot".  This means that they are between a minimum and maximum length.  Here in NC black drum must be at least 14 inches and no more than 25 inches to keep.  Each angler may keep up to 10 black drum that are in the slot daily.  The NC record black drum was caught in the Cape Fear river in 1998 and weighed 100 pounds.  

My black drum

This was my gray trout (aka weakfish).  They get the name weakfish as their mouth is much softer then many species of fish.  You do not need a hard hook-set with this species.  If to much force is put on the line and hook, it can pull right out of their mouth.

One of Keith's gray trout

I also walked the beach in Portsmouth ( because it's what a shell-o-holic does).  This was some of my loot from the week.

Here are some other pictures of Portsmouth Island I took while walking the beach for the last time.

The wind had made some cool formations in the sand around the point of the inlet.

Here are a bunch of coquina clams.  There are thousands of these on the beach at Portsmouth.   These colorful, little clams are only a fraction of the size of your finger tip.  They live in the sand right at the surf line and when a wave recedes, they can be seen wriggling back down into the sand.  They are also called the butterfly shell clam because when the colorful shells are empty and open they look like tiny butterflies.  You can tell the age of the clam by counting the lines in the shell.  A new line appears with each years growth.

Wednesday of this past week was the best day off-shore, so we decided to make one final fishing trip.

It was "Slick Cam" on Wednesday

Dolphin playing in our boat wake

 The weather was great, but the fishing was a struggle.  Even the professional fishermen we know out of Ocracoke were having trouble getting bites.  They all decided after several hours to go bottom fishing.  We headed farther north along the area we often fish and kept trolling hoping for some decent sized wahoo or tuna.  We caught several junk fish such as barracuda and bonito, but finally at 1:30 PM we hooked a wahoo.  He was slightly bigger than our previous one from several weeks ago.  He weighed in at 29 lbs.  I vacuum sealed the meat into dinner sized servings for the two of us.  It made 14 packs.

Keith and his Wahoo

It was a good thing we went fishing on Wednesday, because Thursday the winds began.  We experienced sustained winds of 25-27mph and gusts up to 47mph.  Keith and I drove north up the island to see the road where the ocean often washes over in heavy winds.  We thought it was likely the road would be closed for a day or two with the winds predicted to be so bad.  There was a gale warning issued for the Pamlico Sound starting Thursday afternoon through Friday.

The road north of the village in Ocracoke.  Sand blowing off the dunes and water off the ocean looks like snow.

The Atlantic Ocean is literally right on the other side of the dunes.  This picture is out the Jeep window.

It has been a truly magical couple of months here on Ocracoke.  We cannot wait to return.

Sunset on Ocracoke's Silver Lake Harbor

However, as wonderful as the summer has been on Ocracoke, it has come time for us to move on.  We are heading to Wrightsville Beach, NC for the month of November to get a few small boat projects done and then it is onto Florida for the winter.  We have made so many great friends over the summer and we can't wait to come back in the spring.

One More Week to Go

 It has been a relatively quiet week here.  The weather has been cloudy, but no real rain.  The wind was a bit blustery as well.  This meant it was not exactly beach or fishing weather.  The dredge finally showed up the other day and dredged the channel.  Now the ferries are back to a regular schedule (until the next wind storm shoals in the channel again).  

Dredge going out to work on the ferry channel.  You can see the ferry just in front and to the left of the dredge also going out the channel.

There have been some beautiful sunsets even with the cloudy days this past week.  

Here is a view out the channel from the dock one evening.

In this one the evening ferry is just coming in at sunset.

We did get some boat projects done this week.  There was a leaky seal on our port steering ram that Keith had to fix.  After taking it off, he had to take it across to Hatteras on the ferry and leave it in Buxton.  From there it was picked up and taken to Wanchese, NC to be fixed.  Then the reverse trip sent it from Wanchese back to Buxton where we were to pick it back up.  There was a little confusion until we finally got it back to Ocracoke (it comes with living on an island); but we did get it back.  Keith installed it back on the boat and all is working well.  Keith also replaced a water tank sensor and I put some UV protection on the teak deck this week.  

I have also been making a good bit of smoked fish dip.  Giving some away to friends and some to the marina staff.  I told Keith we just have to catch more fish to smoke.  We are also considering purchasing a small, lightweight, fish smoker.  We are liking the smoked fish so much we figured, why not?

Gail's Most Excellent Smoked Fish Dip

Our friend Josh (first mate on "Dream Girl"  charters) has come by to visit and talk fishing with Keith.  It is killing Keith that we cannot get back out to the Gulf Stream to fish right now due to windy conditions.

Here are Keith and Josh from earlier in the summer at the fish cleaning station (one of their favorite places to be other than on a boat fishing).

I continue to work on my diamond star quilt.  This has been quite a learning experience for me.  I love the pattern and will do it again, but it is a tricky pattern to do.  With very small strip sets (1 inch wide) and multiple set-in-seams, it has been challenging.

Here is the diamond star top layered onto the batting.  I still have q good amount of work to do on it, but I am getting there.

And here is a small lap quilt I made with the scraps I just could not bring myself to throw out from the diamond star quilt.

At the end of the month when we leave Ocracoke; I will be heading to Pennsylvania for a few weeks.  I cannot wait to replenish my fabric stash.  I will probably have one more post from Ocracoke as we are looking at leaving next weekend.  

Time is Running Out

 Our time on Ocracoke is drawing to an end.  We cannot believe the summer is over and our time here is nearly at an end.  It certainly has been wonderful.  What a treat for me to be able to enjoy the island for several months and not have to think about going back to Raleigh to work.  We did another fishing trip last week since the weather was good (make hay while the sun shines applies for fishing off-shore as well).   We had good fishing.  There were blackfin tuna around and we hooked 4.  There were also some monster bonito out there.  The bonito is a fish related to tuna and mackerel, however they are a much stronger tasting fish and unless you bleed, filet, and put them on ice right when you catch them; they can taste quite fishy.  Many people throw them back or use them for making bait.   We kept one to make bait strips.  We also caught a King mackerel.  So overall it was a pretty good day of fishing.

Our fish in the handy-dandy fish bag

Here are the fish we caught.  Top to bottom a King mackerel, 4 blackfin tuna, and a bonito.

Keith used the bonito to make bait strips that I then froze for our next fishing trip

Pelicans hovering in hopes of some scraps

Even the birds are fishing.  I photographed this guy on the dock a few days before when we were having a little rain shower.

Below are the bait strips in brine (basically, non-iodized salt).  This dries the meat and makes it more durable when put on the rig for fishing.  Adding baking soda also helps preserve the color, making the bait more appealing to the fish.  Since doing our own brine, Keith has ordered a ready prepared brine.  This might be even easier.

Our ready made brine

We had some very shallow water getting out the inlet on this last fishing trip.  There was a small area where we even touched the bottom, but made it out OK.  On the way out in the morning around 7:00 AM a tug pulling a barge contacted us via the VHF radio.  He was just getting ready to come in the Ocracoke Inlet and wanted some information on the depths.  His draft (how deep his boat sits in the water) was deeper than ours.  We told him we did not think he could get through the channel at low tide.  Even at high tide, it could be very tricky.  He thanked us for the information and decided to give it a try anyway.  When we came back in the inlet that afternoon around 3:30 PM, the tug and barge were still there.  He was just finally getting through the channel and heading up the sound.  We called him and he said he had quite a long day.  He had been stuck for hours and was finally loose and moving.

Tug and barge finally underway in the channel with the ferry just off to the right in the picture.

We smoked the kingfish and made fish dip.  It was awesome.  We have gotten the recipe for smoked fish dip down pat.

In addition to fishing we also decided to do a beach day.  Pengi was begging for a day at the beach and the weather was perfect for it.

View down the beach

View up the beach

There were several dune buggies on the beach the day we were there.

We also got to spend some time on Portsmouth one afternoon.  Keith caught several flounder, unfortunately the season is over and we could not keep them.

He also caught a small black sea bass

We walked the inlet beach and found some treasure there.  Some Scotch bonnets as well as a large helmut shell and large welk shell

It has been so nice to have several days of good weather.  The upcoming week looks pretty windy.  Probably no off-shore fishing this coming week.  At least it does not look like there will be rain, so hopefully we can come up with some other things to do other than fishing.  Keith might go into withdrawal. 

Trawler Fishing

 As fall has arrived, we have been anxious to get some quiet weather for offshore fishing.  Fall tends to be better for fishing as the water cools off.  Fish appear to prefer slightly cooler temperatures (I agree with them).  This week we finally had the winds lay down for a few days, so we made a mad dash out to the Gulf Stream Tuesday October 6th.

Ocracoke Lighthouse at dawn as we headed out to fish

The seas were a little lumpy during the first part of the day, but bearable.  As usual, I drove the boat so Capt. Keith could fish.  Our starting spot was to be the "triple zeros" (an old Loran spot in the gulf stream about 30 miles out).  When we first arrived and started to fish, we did not see anyone else around.  Keith and I began to think maybe we needed to pick a different spot.  It was not long however until friend and professional fisherman Stevie Wilson on his boat "Dream Girl" showed up.  Now we knew we had  to be in the right place.

Stevie on " Dream Girl" with first mate Josh and their charter guests

Because we have been getting more and more into fishing, we purchased a fish bag just in case we hooked up with something to big to fit into our cooler.  Below is the fish bag we found on Amazon.  It was well worth it, as we put it to good use.  You can see how it compares in length to the cooler (much bigger fish can fit into the bag than the cooler).

Southern Style hooked up with a small blackfin tuna and a nice 25 lb wahoo.  Here they are in our fish bag on ice.

Keith with the wahoo

Close-up of the blackfin tuna.  He was small but tasty.

This was our first North Carolina wahoo.  We caught two in the Bahamas last winter, but this was the first one here in the states.  It was quite exciting to get one.  I have now got a ton of wahoo steaks in my freezer.  We had such as good time fishing Tuesday, that we went out again on Wednesday, October 7th.  No wahoo that day but several skip jacks ( a type of tuna), one blackfin tuna, and the highlight; a sailfish.

Leaving again at the crack of dawn.

Lighthouse and Ocracoke Island

Other early-birds on the point at Ocracoke Inlet as we went out the inlet channel.

Sunrise from Southern Style Wednesday morning as we head out to the Gulf Stream.

Nice and calm this morning.

Now on to the fish pictures.  Keith and I were so excited to have had the opportunity to land a sailfish.  It is a pretty big deal.  Keith can get a citation certificate for the catch.

Here  comes the sailfish toward the boat as Keith was reeling it in.

We had to get the sailfish onto the swim platform of the boat for Keith and I  to get the hook out of him.  Sailfish are not really commercially fished or used for meat in the states. They are typically a catch and release species. We did it as fast as we could and set him loose.  His right eye got bumped in the process, but he seemed to swim off OK.  We hope he does well.  He measured 57" long.

Sailfish are a type of billfish.  They are in the same class as marlin and swordfish.  Billfish are apex predators.  They eat smaller fish and marine cephalopods.  They live in deep waters using a specialized swim bladder allowing them to descend to great depths (up to 1,150 feet) to hunt.  They are also migratory generally living in tropical to subtropical waters.  They are of course best known for their long bills, called a rostrum and large dorsal fin called its sail..  The bill can be used to hit and stun prey.  Sailfish are considered the fastest fish in the ocean, able to swim up to 70 mph.  They can live 13-15 years and grow to 11 feet in length and up to 200 lbs.  

This is a picture from the internet of a sailfish in the water

It was a great 2 days of fishing this past week.  Even through our boat is not really a fishing boat, it has done a wonderful job for us.  Even the professional sportfish boats here in Ocracoke have given us respect and help with our fishing.  We have made many fantastic friends and learned so much from them.  Normally when you catch and release a billfish, you fly a white flag from your boat for all to see as you return to the marina.  We did not have one, but one of the professional sportfish boats even offered to tie one to a marker in the inlet for us to pick up on the way back in.  We thanked them for their kind offer but declined so as not to have them go out of their way.  How kind of them though.  It really made us feel good.