How Crowded Was It---How Crowded Is It?

I live one mile by road, from the Atlantic Ocean's high tide line in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Lately I'm reminded more than ever of the effects of the sheer numbers of people congregating, living on the coast. Don't worry I'm not about to lament how it used to be. I do have a fairly long retrospective given my age, but I just want to talk mostly about what it's like here on the coast now.

We live in a remote coastal region of the U.S. East Coast on a barrier island, 75 miles from the nearest urban center. I've lived on this part of the coast 28 years and along this part my whole life except a few years in Hawaii, Greenville, N.C., and Washington, D.C. This place offers the most naturally dynamic environment with surf, I've ever seen. Ocean, marine geology and weather systems cavort and romp across the landscape with impunity. When people are added to the recipe controversies spring up in succession. Here's the latest.

A few months ago two environmental groups, The National Audubon Society and The Defenders of Wildlife, employing the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit against the National Park Service (paraphrasing here) demanding an injunction to stop off-road vehicle (ORV) access and use of beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until such time as the Park Service establishes rules limiting beach use by such vehicles. Their apparent intentions are to protect endangered species, for instance piping plovers and sea turtles which nest on the beaches in the Seashore.

(Editor's Note: For you firebrands out there, I'm not expert on the law in this area, nor trying to show off my understanding of the background political nuance on this issue, nor taking sides. If you desire what I consider keen local political perspective and insight, I refer you to three excellent local blogs: View From the Ridge, Outer Banks Republic, and Island Free Press (Ocracoke Island.)

I truly understand the ORV users'(of which I am one) desires to drive on the beaches. I'm familiar with all the arguments supporting continued use. I drive on the beach once in-a-while to access surf breaks and I used to surf fish quite a bit till it got so crowded. I am familiar with the rallying cries: "My family's been driving on these beaches since I was a child", "This is how I make my living (dory fishing)", "I love picnicking on the beach", "I've surf fished in tournaments down there for over 30 years"...and so on. I truly respect all of these folks' experiences.

We're at a critical point on our barrier islands now. I believe planning decisions now must be more slowly transitional toward larger strategic goals in how ever increasing population here will have to live and behave. All the signs are there, however they keep jumping up one at a time. Here are a few examples.

In one of my earlier posts ("Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town", Friday, November 16, 2007) I told the story how a deal to mandate the use of surf leases was made in Kill Devil Hills years ago in order to keep swimmers safe from loose surfboards. To surfers, the deal also helped avoid restrictions requiring surfing only in specific areas or only during certain hours of the day. The "deal" still holds. But there are other signs of too many of us here as well. It doesn't help that we all are somehow imbued with an overwhelming sense of entitlement about having it our way whatever "it" may be: personal right to drive on the beaches or economic right to profit from others doing so.

Now that much of the oceanfront is developed in the towns, we're naturally trying to come up with ways to protect our investments and tax base. The oceanfront development approach used to be, "build light structures which can be lifted and moved back from the encroaching ocean." It has now become, use giant sandbags, proposed beach sand re-nourishment, and any other man-made structures to arrest the erosion and migration of sand to protect our tax base.

Other little day-to-day behaviors have had to change too. Many locals are now walking their dogs on leases, following behind them with bags to pick up their excrement in a responsible effort to avoid fecal coliform pollution of estuaries and canals from runoff---too many people, too many dogs. (I have one too and love him.) There are so many of us here now that it's come to this, to reiterate---we're carrying bags of dog poop around behind our animals. Doesn't this say something to someone about the local demographics and where it's going?

So now it's vehicles on the beach, many vehicles brought by their many owners...many, many vehicles and many, many owners. Arguably the most beautiful, pristine beaches in the nation, now replete with traffic and parking lots just above the tideline. The convenience of having all your stuff at hand on the beach is not lost on me. As I said before, I'm out there too.

But here is another way I reacted to having my truck on the beach with me once. Years ago my wife and I were on Ocracoke Island for a few days and decided to drive down on the beach and relax. We parked tailgate to the ocean, pulled out beach chairs and set up. Other ORVs pulled up and parked near us as the day went on. They kept coming. It dawned on us we could have nearly the same atmosphere if we took our ORV and beach chairs out to our little, local, shopping plaza parking lot and sat in the sun (except for the ocean, of course)---vehicles all around us.

We didn't come here to sit oceanside in a parking lot of oil and hydraulic-dripping vehicles. There's this personal desire by all people to use the ORV advantage to get right where you want to go (because with these vehicles we can), however for us there was also the undeniable conflict with the natural setting exacerbated by the arrival of more ORVs.

I understand the economic, tourism benefits of vehicle access to these beaches. I really do. I just wonder if there might be a way the multitude of ORV users can see through a different lens how this is transforming our beaches, and how each of us is a part of this process. Only then will we all be able to come together to affect a solution that may temper the intensifying use, lest we trample and destroy the very thing we all love so much albeit in different ways.

If the transition is a soft one toward a different approach to beach access, I truly believe the local economies will adapt and ultimately benefit from this change. But not until we all see ourselves desiring the same end result---beautiful beaches with more room for more people and wildlife, but maybe a little less room for traffic and parking lots and ORV clusters. Consider the ultimate lesson our barrier islands teach us---the only constant is change, so adapt.

I don't know, if it's too late. Bold lines have been drawn in the sand now. Both sides stand in stark opposition to the other. And I don't believe it's just about endangered animal species anymore...maybe we're just as endangered by ourselves. There's just too, too many of us.

The Big Swell Arrives

I think the last post I was predicting a kickback swell from the northeast generated by an intensifying low moving offshore last Saturday night. I thought the surf would get right Sunday night or Monday morning. The swell was there (although smaller)but the wind was down the beach from the north-northeast and then from the south. Finally Tuesday night the wind twisted hard into the southwest, brought 77 degree air, and lined up a mammoth northeast swell topping out around double overhead. The wind tore at the wave faces at a solid 25+ knots and finally clicked around straight offshore (west) before nightfall.

Going to work on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk this morning there was ocean overwash on the road in numerous places from the earlier high tide. Years ago we learned to creep slowly through any standing water on the Beach Road during a big swell after high tide cause it's salt water. I suppose there are some who visit here in their city SUV's who don't understand this, so they blow through the water, sand, and debris as if they're doin' a commercial for a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The rust applauds them later I'm sure.

I was in Southern Shores oceanfront most of the day. Many closeouts seen most of the time. The report I got from First Street, KDH was about the same around dusk. Of course, some guys were trying it on for size, and size it had plenty of.

Water's still hanging around 50-51 degrees. We'll get there yet warm water. Watch SurfKDH.com for Micky's photos of this swell. He'll be on it as always.

The Easter tourists are pouring into town now. Will check back in later.

Change is in the Air

Water temperatures...Duck Pier 51 degrees, Oregon Inlet (the inlet at the north end of Hatteras Island) 59 degrees. An explosive looking low pressure system is coiling up like an apostrophe just inland from our coast right now. Light rain, lightning, and thunder own the night sky outside. This storm just wreaked havoc down in Georgia and maybe we're next. Tornado Watch all along the coast. Change is in the air. Expecting possible gale force wind from the northeast later tonight.

Some houses in Kitty Hawk and South Nags Head are perched on pilings over the hard pack sand within the high tide's reach on a normal day. Once again some will be gone by the time summer arrives. This is life on a sand barrier island---a grudging, grinding slow attrition of all that is man made. Some plan on this constant process, some don't. Some adapt to it, some rail and whine. The process is bigger and older than us all.

New sandbars will be shaped in new places or places where we surfed long ago as the tide lines slowly shove us all west with all our opinions and ideas and politics as to "what to do about it". This is far and away the most dynamic place I've ever lived. It's changing face is the most constant thing we possess but can never wholly own.

Hopin' for offshore wind tomorrow night or Monday morning and the possible kickback northeast swell. Open long lefts baby, yeah. We'll see.

Sites of Interest

I like to share cool sites I come across with you all as many of you share them with me. Today I have one new and one local site tried and true. They both will interest surfers or anyone with a profound love of the ocean.

Okay look to the right and notice "Oceanus Magazine" under ONLINE MAGAZINES WE LIKE. It's published online by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute In Massachusetts. This is an extremely well done publication with a myriad of Ocean related articles written to the layman reader as well as those of you with a keener understanding of ocean science, its lifeforms and geology.

First I must compliment any publication which emphasizes online publication. There's no waste of trees/paper in order to pass along current information. Maybe this is the way it should be. You think? I can't quote you the supporting numbers, but the logic goes something like this: How many trees would be saved, how much cleaner would the air be in the world, if we didn't produce so much paper in order to pass along our thoughts, simply to communicate ideas and knowledge? Do you think it would be a better way, I mean with the technology to do this in our hands now? Hmmmm...

I found articles as diverse as these. One covering the undersea search for John Paul Jones' sunken American Revolutionary War ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sunk off the British coast in 1779 after capturing the H.M.S. Seraphis.

I also found an article covering how pesticide runoff may be causing a decline in shellfish in developed countries due to the disruption of hormonal function in arthropods. You see, crustaceans and insect pests are both arthropods. So the intended disruption of the reproductive cycle in insect crop pests or even mosquitoes aren't the only ones being disrupted apparently. Shrimp, blue crabs, and lobster are being affected by the pesticide running off into the rivers, sounds, and ocean. I had heard of nitrogen-rich rainwater (from fertilizer) running into rivers feeding the Chesapeake Bay depleting oxygen causing fish kills and decline in oyster population. But I had never read a clear accounting of how pesticides affect marine life.

This is great reading cause these things affect me directly. I love eating shellfish! Thanks to "Oceanus", I get the picture. Anyway, check for yourself.

Another fine local site I visit regularly is SurfKDH.com featuring the photography of local photog, Micky McCarthy. (By the way, for you out of town readers, KDH is what we call the town of Kill Devil Hills, N.C.) In fact, Mick covers the swell we just had this week on Wednesday with some great shots of S-Turns in Rodanthe. I'll have local links up soon for you, so enjoy.

The 2008 Race Season is On with Snowball 1 Criterium

Robert Netsch goes hard to the line in the 2008 season's first race . Robert was Kitty Hawk Cycling Club's (KHCC)only team rider to compete as high as the Category 3-4 division. Robert makes the sweeping banked turn coming off the starting straight in the Cat 3/4 race. Competing in the Cat 5 division were Brad Pigage and Rob Bachman from KHCC and Chip Cowan representing Outer Banks Cycle. Read more about the race and our favorite riders from this small part of the coast at the Yahoo Groups website, "KHCyclists".