It's hard to believe it's December. Just a few days ago it did feel like winter, but today it's almost 70 degrees. However, even with the warm temperatures, there will be no frolicking on the beach today. The wind is blowing 20 mph or more at times and the forecast is for rain most of the day. Once this blows through perhaps there will be good shelling on the beach.
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Click on the photo below to view a selection of wooden kitchen items from Village Craftsmen's online catalog.
Click on the photo below to view a selection of wooden kitchen items from Village Craftsmen's online catalog.
Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is a history of the early twentieth century Doxsee Clam Factory on Ocracoke island. Click on the following link to go directly there: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news112110.htm.
See if you can find whole Scotch Bonnets, Philip. I found one in October and it had interesting, old barnacles attached to it. It was darker than the cream/white ones I've found in years past. I was most pleased as usually I find only parts of Scotch Bonnets.
ReplyDeleteSpending a morning or afternoon shelling on beautiful, serene Ocracoke Island beach is clearly a worthwhile endeavor!
Shelling on the beaches the week of Thanksgiving was rather lean, though we DID find three complete Scotch Bonnets. The mother lode was at the northern tip of the island. We parked at the small lot near the rest rooms at the ferry docks, then walked over the dunes to the north and hung a right, walking along the edge of water toward the ocean. Found olives and about half a dozen augers along this sound water shore, which ends after a few hundred yards, at which point you can continue northward on foot across what I guess would best be described as a stretch of sandy tidal flats. This stretch continues northward for several hundred yards itself, toward the actual ocean inlet between Ocracoke and Hatteras Island. I was cautious walking here because I'd swear 10 years ago or so the entire area was under water, perhaps gradually filled in by shifting tides and sand over the years. Or perhaps I was just there at low tide his year. Nonetheless, I proceeded carefully with an eye open for "soupy" spots. (Don't know if quicksand would be an apt term.) Found another dozen and a half olives across this stark, blustery plain.
ReplyDeletePhilip--Do you have any knowledge of this area of the island? How it's changed over the years? When we visited this year there was a crew working on some sort of pipeline along the sound shore. Perhaps related to dredging.
The north end of Ocracoke Island is constantly changing under the influence of wind and tide. The first US Life Saving Station was built nearby (on a rise called Cedar Hammock) in 1883. In the mid 1950s a series of hurricanes dealt the final blow to the station and surrounding land which had been eroding for some time. The station collapsed into the sea. Today only the pilings remain. Sometimes the pilings are surrounded by sand...at other times the beach retreats so far that the pilings are far out in the ocean. Inlets are typically dynamic areas...thus the shells and quicksand. The pipeline you saw was almost certainly part of the apparatus the state uses to dredge the ferry channel.
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