I really love to drive the Beach Road when I travel to and from work, or simply from place to place up and down the coast on work errands. I can keep my eye on the surf conditions. But today I saw a succession of things which underscored what it's come to now, especially for those living on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, say between Old Station (Black Pelican) and Kitty Hawk Pier. It reminded me of my childhood on the beach.
Many of you have heard us talk about moving sand around before in this blog. So let me set the mood before I describe what I saw.
Remember when you were a kid building a sandcastle on the beach at the very edge of the wet tide line? We usually started by building a mound dug from a small trench or moat in a semi-circle around it, the future castle replete with drip-sand towers. This was something worth protecting and defending from the ocean's ravages. On the ocean side of the moat we would then build a seawall from sand dug from the first moat and another moat to the ocean side of this new sand wall.
All the while the ocean wash would occasionally roll up over some or all of our new structures built ever so close to the water in the tidal zone. We would quickly repair our sandcastle and if the tide was outgoing, find we could then embellish the castle with more elaborate detail. However if the tide was incoming, we would call for our friends' and work furiously together to stop the onslaught, digging the moats deeper and the sand seawalls taller. And despite our best efforts, the ocean would roll right through anything we built. As little children, this is how we learned not to build our sandcastles in the tidal zone, unless we chose this conflict with the ocean. And if we did, we always knew we were doomed to its overwhelming power.
What I saw today as I drove along the stretch north of Old Station after a high tide, were quite a few Bobcats (the mini front-end loader/bulldozer-type equipment) parked or hard at work around oceanfront homes, a bulldozer, a contractor with dump trucks delivering sand to a particularly endangered section of Beach Road sand dune, and people with shovels helping defend both the Beach Road and homes along the way. I thought of my childhood learning where to build our sandcastles.
Of course this is way over-simplified. When most of these homes and the Kitty Hawk Beach Road were built, the beach stretched before them was far wider, with the pack sand (sand wet or dry depending on the tide)in the tidal influence far to the east. Now the pack sand is beneath many of these homes and on even a garden variety-type northeaster like the one we just had---a measly 20-knot blow---ocean overwash reaches the homes on the west side of the Beach Road.
But the bustle of activity and the call for help to defend what had been built years before, is identical to what I felt as a child protecting my very own sandcastle. So when it blows hard northeast here this time of year, the TV newscasters run down from the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Greenville area of North Carolina and train their cameras on the modest old homes along this stretch hoping to capture sensational live shots of the ocean taking homes from their piling perches.
The ocean forms escarpments in the new sand trucked in along the frontal dune. That sand is in turn, dragged seaward to help form new sandbars and many times better surf breaks. Or the sand is simply transported south toward Oregon Inlet and is deposited at other sandbars. Our mission is to find the new breaks and do our solemn duty to insure its waves are ridden. I shall do my part, I promise...more later. Keep at it.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Month of Maypril on Our Coast
Welcome to the half-way point in our coast's month of Maypril...the cruelest month of all. It's actually more than a month because it won't let us go until about the 10th day of the month we used to call May. At that time we are jolted from 52-degree air to 95-degree air with 95-percent humidity.
Maypril is the nastiest season on our coast because it loves to mess with our hope and expectations about great weather "just around the corner". Most normal people think of this as the Spring season. The harsh weather is about to dissolve gradually away into glorious, clear and temperate air somewhere we hear.
But alas, there is no gradual progression to such soothing caresses by airy breezes. In fact, forecasters here can relax during Maypril. They need only predict wind direction. Almost every day here the Maypril wind blows in excess of 20-25 knots and often gale force. Wave upon wave of low pressure systems grind off the continent as the days roll past. Northeasters blow up about every week. And yeah, that's salt water ponding on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and South Nags Head. (So drive your new SUV through it fool, just like the car commercials on TV. Then take it home and wonder why it's rusting away.)
Carry one of every kind of clothing you own with you every day---from shorts and tee shirts to winter insulated coveralls, from board shorts to 4-3mm full wetsuit with booties, gloves, and hood. You can sample any type of weather here during this hybrid month.
The beauty in it though, is having a head-high to overhead swell every week for the past 4 weeks. That's right Maypril, give us the left hook and then your right jab. Give the dolphins their wave playground and pound the sand on the bars into molecules. Show us your passion. Then pull us all through your keyhole into the sweltering summer lull. Maypril on our coast, is the cruelest month of all.
Maypril is the nastiest season on our coast because it loves to mess with our hope and expectations about great weather "just around the corner". Most normal people think of this as the Spring season. The harsh weather is about to dissolve gradually away into glorious, clear and temperate air somewhere we hear.
But alas, there is no gradual progression to such soothing caresses by airy breezes. In fact, forecasters here can relax during Maypril. They need only predict wind direction. Almost every day here the Maypril wind blows in excess of 20-25 knots and often gale force. Wave upon wave of low pressure systems grind off the continent as the days roll past. Northeasters blow up about every week. And yeah, that's salt water ponding on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and South Nags Head. (So drive your new SUV through it fool, just like the car commercials on TV. Then take it home and wonder why it's rusting away.)
Carry one of every kind of clothing you own with you every day---from shorts and tee shirts to winter insulated coveralls, from board shorts to 4-3mm full wetsuit with booties, gloves, and hood. You can sample any type of weather here during this hybrid month.
The beauty in it though, is having a head-high to overhead swell every week for the past 4 weeks. That's right Maypril, give us the left hook and then your right jab. Give the dolphins their wave playground and pound the sand on the bars into molecules. Show us your passion. Then pull us all through your keyhole into the sweltering summer lull. Maypril on our coast, is the cruelest month of all.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Street Cred of Hurricane Forecasting
Alright, here we go again...Dr. William Gray of the University of Colorado has done it once more. He and his esteemed team at the esteemed university located in the country's middle waist have once again published their annual forecast for the year's hurricane season. How many named storms, how many hurricanes, how many major storms...you know. This event always entertains me and the carpenters I work with daily. This prediction from the people who can't really predict with any certainty, the path of one of these storms when its spinning itself up right off our coast.
Show us your "cone of probability". Tell us where you think the "eye will come ashore" one more time as it rolls over our coast.
Does the good doctor really expect us to base our annual, long range planning on these storm forecasts? What should we be doing with this impossibly unreliable information? Come on, one of you heavyweight, meteorologist, atmospheric sciences expert readers please weigh in here, help us. I welcome your comments. What good is this type of forecasting? Maybe the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction and its major insurance corporation supporters would like us to have this hurricane talk ringing in our ears as much as possible so we'll find value in the thousands we pay in each year on our flood and windstorm policies.
With the attention this gets from the media each year, these are our suggestions as ways to improve/capitalize on this annual pronouncement. Let's make it more of a media-sensational event, more festive.
First, we think Dr. Gray should stand before a microphone reading from a scroll or some similar dignified manuscript wearing a spandex suit emblazoned with his sponsors' name across his chest, replete with cap and maybe a cape (see a professional cyclist's racing kit)as he makes his grand, yearly pronouncement. You know, each year the university could sell the sponsorship of this momentous event kinda like naming rights for an arena or stadium. It all demands a fitting circus atmosphere. Attendants could be seen dressed in foul weather oilskins and Gumby-like survival suits in the background on stage.
To be completely honest, I believe forecasts like this are just one of the things that help mislead the uninformed inhabitants on the coast into believing someone really does have the ability through technology or whatever, to predict these storms. This is just one of many things that have happened in the past 20 years which give some a false sense of security in their newer structurally improved homes. This came as a result of Hurricane Hugo hitting the Charleston, South Carolina area with its whopping 21'+ storm surge and Andrew following in southern Florida in the early '90's with its record dollar value of damage. And then there was Katrina..."Brownie you're doin' a helluva job."
Some won't evacuate now because they're sure their home can withstand the carnage. Some of the new structural building code requirements born in the wake of these storms did raise the price of all homes somewhat, but had particular effect on the price of entry level homes in these high wind zone regions mostly east of Interstate Ninety-five. I believe the inverse effect is that some are left behind in newly substandard construction, not being able to afford one of these new home fortresses.
The science Dr. Gray is attempting to advance holds great potential to save lives and infrastructure some time in the future there is no doubt. But the forecasting track record in general where these storms are concerned tells us maybe he should cool out until near-term forecasting has more accuracy. However, he may as well make a visual circus of it for now if he must persist. Let's have some tabloid fun!
In the meantime, we'd like the University of Colorado and the rest of the U.S. to take a look at our lunchtime-developed, Outer Banks of North Carolina snow forecast for the nation's mid-section for next winter...
Show us your "cone of probability". Tell us where you think the "eye will come ashore" one more time as it rolls over our coast.
Does the good doctor really expect us to base our annual, long range planning on these storm forecasts? What should we be doing with this impossibly unreliable information? Come on, one of you heavyweight, meteorologist, atmospheric sciences expert readers please weigh in here, help us. I welcome your comments. What good is this type of forecasting? Maybe the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction and its major insurance corporation supporters would like us to have this hurricane talk ringing in our ears as much as possible so we'll find value in the thousands we pay in each year on our flood and windstorm policies.
With the attention this gets from the media each year, these are our suggestions as ways to improve/capitalize on this annual pronouncement. Let's make it more of a media-sensational event, more festive.
First, we think Dr. Gray should stand before a microphone reading from a scroll or some similar dignified manuscript wearing a spandex suit emblazoned with his sponsors' name across his chest, replete with cap and maybe a cape (see a professional cyclist's racing kit)as he makes his grand, yearly pronouncement. You know, each year the university could sell the sponsorship of this momentous event kinda like naming rights for an arena or stadium. It all demands a fitting circus atmosphere. Attendants could be seen dressed in foul weather oilskins and Gumby-like survival suits in the background on stage.
To be completely honest, I believe forecasts like this are just one of the things that help mislead the uninformed inhabitants on the coast into believing someone really does have the ability through technology or whatever, to predict these storms. This is just one of many things that have happened in the past 20 years which give some a false sense of security in their newer structurally improved homes. This came as a result of Hurricane Hugo hitting the Charleston, South Carolina area with its whopping 21'+ storm surge and Andrew following in southern Florida in the early '90's with its record dollar value of damage. And then there was Katrina..."Brownie you're doin' a helluva job."
Some won't evacuate now because they're sure their home can withstand the carnage. Some of the new structural building code requirements born in the wake of these storms did raise the price of all homes somewhat, but had particular effect on the price of entry level homes in these high wind zone regions mostly east of Interstate Ninety-five. I believe the inverse effect is that some are left behind in newly substandard construction, not being able to afford one of these new home fortresses.
The science Dr. Gray is attempting to advance holds great potential to save lives and infrastructure some time in the future there is no doubt. But the forecasting track record in general where these storms are concerned tells us maybe he should cool out until near-term forecasting has more accuracy. However, he may as well make a visual circus of it for now if he must persist. Let's have some tabloid fun!
In the meantime, we'd like the University of Colorado and the rest of the U.S. to take a look at our lunchtime-developed, Outer Banks of North Carolina snow forecast for the nation's mid-section for next winter...
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, March 7, 2008
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.
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.
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