Ocracoke Waves on Squarespace

While the White Oak River gets more pollution that I would like to see, it is minor compared to the pollution that I have read about going into NY harbor.

I am proud that a pollution study in our area found that we can improve the health of the White Oak by slowing the water flow into the river after storms.  That is not a major reordering of our world.

We are lucky to have no city to really pollute the river.  I love seeing the shrimp and mullet compete for space in our inlet.  At one time the inlet was filled with mud and decaying vegetation.  Today it is swarming with life.

With help from millions of oysters, we already have very clean water, and we can make it cleaner.

It would be nice to have a fish management plan to go along with the plan to improve the water.

I think if there were fewer gill nets, we might see a resurgence of fishing.

I wounder if the oysters or crabs will eventually own the river?  They are both survivors.

More information on NC's CRystal Coat can be found at the Crystal Coast Living Blog.

Harkers Island IbisI like to write late into the evening, and this time of year I enjoy it even more.  April is one of my favorite months. Perhaps it is because I  regulary get to have the windows open at night and let the breezes blow through my upstairs office.

We live in a small subdivision, Bluewater Cove, on the White Oak River. (Area map) Raymond's Gut a part of the White Oak comes up behind our home.  Most evening I can actually hear the fish jumping.  As the water warms, they get very active.  This past Saturday night, it seemed as if they were throwing a party in the Gut.

Ten years ago the waterway behind my home was filled with silt from poor farming practices in the area.  Now after it was cleaned up during the development of our subdivision, it is an amazing marine nursery.  Depending on the time of year, it is filled with mullet, shrimp, or other bait fish.  With the bait fish some bigger fish feeding on the small ones.

With all the pollution in the world, it is nice to live near water that has gotten better and is now positively impacting our marine envirnoment.  Of course we have a lot of oysters which are great at filtering water.  Then there are the blue crabs which will clean anything that falls into the water.

I am pleased to live in an area that is blessed with natural beauty and lots of wildlife.  We had a really neat visit to the Core Sound Museum up on Harker's Island recently.  I wrote it up on our Crystal Coast living blog.

If you want to have a look at a neat white Ibis rookery, check out this slide show.

We have a lot of neat places in Carteret County for sale if you are interested in finding a home in the midst of natural beauty.  Check out our listings on the Crystal Coast Electronic Village.

Oysters in Raymond's GutI cannot remember when I first learned about the oyster's amazing ability to filter water.  It was probably a long time ago.  I do recall the best demonstration that I have seen of that capability.

Last summer on August 2 we visited an open house at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort.  There we were shown a bucket of murky water and another of clear water which contained oysters.  For a demonstration they had dipped two buckets of water and placed oysters in one.

At 50 gallons of water per day per oyster, it did not take them long to clear up the water.  We live on the White Oak River which at time appears to be one giant oyster reef at least from the perspective of someone piloting a boat down the river to the Intracoastal Waterway.

I snapped the shot of the oysters in this post while walking on the boardwalk around our clubhouse in Bluewater Cove.  We have had very little precipitation in the last couple of months so the river is absolutely clear except for the brown tint that it always has.

We were out on the river not long ago and noticed a boat working one of the channels.  It turns out that the boat was a deep water clam rig.  One thing that you can be certain of is that if they have opened the river for clams or oysters, the water has tested very clean.  They are very careful about shellfish.

Some folks don't like the brown tint of the White Oak.  It is actually called a blackwater river.  In spite of that the water often looks very blue as it does in this slide show that I created after a recent run on the river.

I don't mind the color of the water.  I actually enjoy the variety of colors that our local waters mirror.  I especially like the wonder blue-green colors that we often see when the light is just right and the sky is very blue.  A good example would be these slides from last summer.

I am glad we have oysters around.  I love to eat them, I am proud our waters are pure enough that the oysters do well here and can be eaten most of the time.  We have a tremendous variety of marine life in the area.  The slides taken when we visited the Duke Marine lab have pictures of what hides in our waters along with some random ones taken that day.

I also did slides from our recent visit to the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores. There are plenty of marine neighbors there.

Somehow when your back steps lead to the water, you feel the need to get to know your neighbors.  It happens to be one of my favorite preoccupations.

Raymond's Gut open waterWe have just been through some snow here on the Crystal Coast.  The low temperatures that brought us the snow also brought us ice on many of our waterways.

The morning after the big storm I was doing my normal morning survey of our homestead when I noticed a strange area of open water.

It looked like a skiff had started down Raymond's Gut towards our home.  However the straight edges made me suspicious. I really doubted that you could back a skiff up without breaking more ice.

I walked over to our clubhouse where I could see the water leading to the White Oak River.  It was pretty obvious that no boat had come in from the river.

I sent the picture to one of my college roommates who suggested that I should check on my crop circles.  On closer examination I could see splash patterns that looked remarkably like water that would fly out onto the ice if ducks were using this as a runway.

It just so happened that I had noticed some Mergansers in the water behind the house before the snow.  I started wondering if their swimming had kept the water open.

This afternoon after the ice had mostly melted, I saw the Mergansers swimming in the same area.

I am pretty sure they are responsible for the open water.

I guess we all had to make some adjustments since this is the first snow in six years for the Crystal Coast.

My chosen home port has the unfortunate recipient of some unseasonably cool weather this fall.

We have also had more than our fair share of gloomy weather.  That has kept me on the lookout for great sunsets and scenery to brighten the winter.

With the economy in a tailspin and the weather not giving us those warm fall days that we had last year, the pressure has been building to find some relief.

After a holiday weekend in Roanoke, VA where we even saw snow on some of the roofs, I felt the need to get out to the beach.

We managed a trip up Emerald Isle on Tuesday of this week and I shot some video which I posed on YouTube.  It was a simple video designed to highlight the peace and quiet of a winter beach. If you watch it, try the high qualtity version if you have the bandwidth.

Going over to the beach is great, and with clear winter skies we have been treated to a color show for the last few weeks when the clouds have not interrupted the sunset.  On Thursday of this week, I snapped these photos at the Croatan Trails access point in Cedar Point.

They were a good dose of color to cheer up my winter spirits.

Still I can hardly waite for spring.