Emerald Isle is one my favorite spots.  My wife and I like to advantage of their very nice walking trails during cooler weather which seems to have found us this week.

We will often go park at one end of town and walk to the other end of town.  It is a very pleasant walk, and it is even fun to do when the tourists are in town.

One of things missing on our walking tour was a place to relax and reflect a little.

I took some Emerald Isle pictures over to the new administrative offices on Tuesday and noticed what nice rocking chairs they have on their front porch.

I got a note back from Mayor Art Schools thanking me for the pictures.  I had mentioned the rocking chairs in my note making sure he had gotten the pictures.

His note back to me encouraged me to take advantage of the chairs when hiking around Emerald Isle.

Today might be a good day to do one of those hikes.  The temperatures are certainly pleasant, and those chairs look very inviting.

Cool air has penetrated the beach area for the first time in a long time.  This morning we awoke to a thermometer reading of 53F.

Fortunately this will be a short-lived cool snap as lots of us have hoped.  We will be in the middle seventies today and back to the low eighties by the weekend.

I had another closing yesterday. It sure would be nice if I had as many next month as this month.  We went over to the beach about 4:30 PM to pick up our company's portion of the commissions from the sale.

We made the most of the trip and drove down Coast Guard Road and cut into Ocean Oaks.  I took a quick hike out one of the CAMA access points to see if the surf had settled down a little.

I talked to one swimmer who confirmed that the waves and currents were much lighter than yesterday.  I also saw three or four four wheel drive vehicles on the beach with fishermen out trying their luck.
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The 55th Mullet Festival will be held Sat., Oct. 10, in downtown Swansboro. There will be food, games, parade, live music, arts and crafts, vendors and more. For info call 910-326-7370 or go to www.swansborofestivals.com.

The 23rd annual NC Seafood Festival will be Oct. 2-4 in Morehead City at the waterfront.  This is a free celebration of seafood and the cultural heritage and traditions that surround commercial fishing.  There will be musical entertainment, amusement rides, arts and craft vendors, an 8k road race, family fishing contests, sailing competitions and the 6th annual free boat show. There are also fireworks and a blessing of the fleet service. There is also a playground for little ones.  Friday will run from 5 to 11pm; Saturday, 10am-11pm; Sunday, 1am-5pm. For info, call 252-726-6273.

We went to bed with the winds about to blow the flag away.

This morning there is no wind, and the temperature is about sixty degree Fahrenheit.

The skies are that special blue you get after a strong front pushes through the area.

This should be a great week here on the Crystal Coast.

It looks like we will have almost no rain which is certainly a change from the over 12 inches we have received since Labor Day.

With the NC Seafood Festival and the Mullet Festival both coming up in the next two weeks, everyone would appreciate some nice weather.

It appears my second crop tomatoes survived yesterday's winds with their green tomatoes still hanging on the vine.

Blue skies are always a welcome sight, but after all the rain we have seen in the last few weeks, they are especially welcome.

Today was a beautiful day as long as you did not want to sit on the beach.  About the only creature that seemed not to mind the wind and the waves was the pelican in my picture.

It is great to blue skies and know that they will be here for a whole week, but if this wind keeps up, we will not be fishing for a while.

I tried a little surf fishing late yesterday afternoon but the water was too stirred up.  We ended up just enjoying the beach. 

Today I stopped and had a quick peak at the beach before deciding that there were more productive things to do.

I am a little worried that all this wind will damage my second season tomato plants, but I will not die if that happens.

We are supposed to get some very cool weather the next few days before warming up again on the weekend.

If it drops into the fifties that will make a difference in the water temperature.  We can always hope the wind will stop and the fish will start biting.  read more »

It looked like we were going to have a cloudy misty day today.  It was sprinkling rain when we got to church and when we left church.

We were finishing the celebration of my wife's September birthday by heading over to Rucker John's to have lunch and collect her free birthday brownie and ice cream.

Lunch took a little longer than we expected, but we had nothing planned so we headed  home for a Sunday afternoon nap while watching a little footfall.

About the middle of the afternoon, I noticed that the clouds were disappearing and the sun was in control of the sky.

I started a quick campaign to go to the beach.  After some initial resistance, I was successful.  We loaded the beach chair and my two surf rods and headed over to Emerald Isle.

As usual there was only one car in the Third Street parking lot so I was encouraged that we would have the beach almost to ourselves.

There was just one group of people on the beach, but the waves were far stronger than they had been at the end of the week.  In fact they had cut a shelf into the beach.
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This morning it has been a seesaw battle between the clouds at the sun.  When I first got up, it looked like the clouds were going to win.

Now the sun has managed to work its way through the cloud banks.

The weather radar shows that most storms have moved off shore.  But we know that they can easily spring up and head on shore.  In fact that is what the forecasters have planned for us today.

"Additional showers will move onshore over Carteret County. Up to one
half inch of rainfall can be expected in the heavier showers."

From my walk this morning, I can tell you that the ground is very wet, ever waterlogged.  With 12-14 inches of rain this month, that comes as little surprise.
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As my mother used to say there is nothing wrong with a good rest day.

This Saturday ended up being just that.  I had floor duty at our office in Cape Carteret.  There really was not a lot of rain this morning in Cape Carteret.

However, I did have to drive out to Silver Creek Plantation on the White Oak.  There was a pretty steady drizzle there.

I had a chance to go surf fishing, but in addition to Carpe Beach Diem guiding my life,  I feel pretty strongly about grabbing some Saturday college football whenever possible.

Today was a good opportunity.  Va. Tech was playing Miami.  I sort of expected Miami to win, but I was pleasantly surprised that the Hokies took the Canes to the woodshed.
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I had high hopes for another wonderful evening on the beach.  I figured that I had earned it by not only mowing the yard in the heat of the day, but by also writing an Applepeels post which was my second in two days.

We were just getting ready to think about heading over to the beach for an extended afternoon and evening trip when the skies begin to darken.  I checked the weather radar, and the stormed appeared to be headed right for us.  We decided to wait which was a good thing.

The skies opened up, and we got hit with a deluge. It was so impressive that my wife and I stood on upper porch and watched it for a minute or so before lightening drove us inside.  I managed to capture a couple of minutes of video on my Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS-1 camera.  I posted the video to YouTube as a good example of a southern thunderstorm.  read more »

Yesterday was a busy day for me.  I had a closing and a couple of other real estate things to do, but the whole day I kept in the back of my mind the idea that I was going over to the beach to fish a little.

I had a form to be signed to extend a listing which required a trip to the island.  Then I had another meeting where I was dropping off house warming gifts for a recently closed house that required driving back up highway 58.

By the time we were done with all of that the clock was ticking towards 6 PM.  Still we made it over to the beach with plenty of time to fish.

The full fishing story is here.  The summary is that I hit one of my favorite beaches just as the Bluefish were jumping just beyond my casting range.

As luck would have it, the Bluefish moved closer to shore just as the sun was setting, and I managed to meet my goal of a catching a nice 16" long Bluefish.

It was lots of fun since I caught the Bluefish on the light rod that I bought for trout last year.
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I'm a visibility consultant that uses social media to make connections for clients, and I also teach/speak on social media. I actually found this site via Twitter and in a given day, will begin relationships more than a dozen potential clients, channel partners, endorsers and collaborators for my own business and to help other people.

Whenever I run into a business owner who laughs and says they don't have time to "play on the Internet," I just smile. If only they knew what was happening. The Internet isn't a trend nor is your computer a gameboy console. It's a serious business tool. Knowing how to use it and the opportunities (like social media) is key.  read more »

Yesterday was hot here on the Crystal Coast.  It was definitely a beach day if you did not have to work.

In fact you could almost guarantee that yesterday would be a hot day, because it was the day set aside for Bluewater GMAC to take its annual company picture.

It is one of the few times of the year that everyone from Bluewater from the builders, rental, maintenance, and sales groups gets together. 

You can predict the weather usually since standing around on the beach in anything other than a bathing suit on a hot day is not much fun.

It is always a challenge to get everyone there on time and posed for the picture.  Once you do get people organized into the group for pictures, you immediately cut off any ocean breezes.  Then you can also guarantee that there will be stragglers who need to get in the picture.

We have yet to have an athletic straggler who could jog across the soft sand where you enter the beach.
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The posted phone number 910 326-4757 is the correct phone number. We tried it this morning.

However, it is a church secretary, and they are only there in the morning. So if you try it in the afternoon, you might only get an answering machine.

You can buy tickets at the door, but they do not guarantee availability if you do that.

Your best bet is to call, leave a message if they are not there, wait for a call back, and buy some tickets over the phone with a credit card.

There will be a place to eat the dinner at the church. Last year they had a tent outside the church. There were some tables, chairs and nice ladies to make sure you had everything you needed.

The dinner includes the lobster, baked potato, slaw, and homemade cookies along with beverage which I think is iced tea.

The lobsters were wonderful last year.

The southern coast is no stranger to rain.  We can get some real deluges.  Our first couple of summers here, we were always on the edge of being dry.

That has not been the case this summer.  I think I used my sprinklers for the yard two or three times this summer.

Last week we were enjoying some nice cool evenings where we could sleep with the windows open.  Things have been different this week.

We are back in the tropical flow of air.  We are warm and humid, and we are getting plenty of rain.

On Labor Day we got 8.3 inches of rain.  Last night we got another 2.6 inches of rain.  Between the two storms we have seen some miscellaneous rain which has easily put us over eleven inches of rain for the month of September.

I suspect we have gotten over a foot of rain, but I guess I will have to start keeping a weather diary so I do not have to rely on my memory for the miscellaneous rains.  read more »

My years of living on the mountain overlooking Roanoke, VA and capturing sunrises trained me to on the alert for unusual light in the morning.

I scared both my wife and the cat who was curled up at her feet when I bounded out of bed this morning.  Red light streaming in my window alerted me to something strange happening.

I pulled on my shorts and tee shirt, grabbed a camera from the kitchen, and bounded up the stairs with the cat hot on my heels.  He assumes that he gets a deck walk when I go out there to take pictures.

I quickly snapped a few shots and ushered the cat back inside.  The red light coming over the pine trees was pretty impressive and not a good sign for the upcoming day.

After fortifying myself with a cup of coffee and an apple, I headed on my morning rounds.  I was shocked to see a rainbow over the new section of Bluewater Cove.  In fact when I looked closely the southern end of the rainbow was actually showed hints of being a double rainbow.  read more »

Yesterday was another pleasant day on the Crystal Coast.  One of the great advantages of living here is that it is not very far to other parts of the Crystal Coast.

We can be in Beaufort in 35 minutes, Morehead City in 20minutes, and Atlantic Beach in 25 minutes.

After church, lunch, and watching a little football on the backsides of my eyelids, I decided that we needed to get out and enjoy the great beach weather.

My wife, who had been diligently clipping coupons to take advantage of the Morehead City Harris Teeter's triple coupons, agreed as long as I would drop by the grocery store on the way back.

Just in case things looked fishy I stuck my trout fishing gear in the back of the car, grabbed a couple of cameras, and we were off.

The high rise bridge in Atlantic Beach is always a treat to drive over.  Yesterday I was surprised to see how few boats were on the water, and then I remembered about the boat races in the harbor.
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It did not take long for the sun to work its magic this morning.

We headed out in the skiff a little after ten AM.  The fog was completely gone and the skies were Crystal Coast blue.

I had hoped to get out on the White Oak River very early, before the winds picked up.  It being Saturday morning that just did not work.  Raymond's Gut, our inlet to the river from Bluewater Cove, was still very calm when we left.

The tide this morning was also high like yesterday when I went kayaking.  It was so high that some of the white PVC pipes marking the channel out to the river were covered by water.
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There were no warning of fog this morning from the weathermen, but that is okay the fog seems to be burning off. 

At a little after 8 AM we are seeing lots of blue sky.  That will make a huge difference in the day

While I had a great time yesterday kayaking in the overcast conditions, everything is always more fun with blue sky.

I am planning on heading to the beach this morning for a walk.

We drove over to Emerald Isle last night and at 7 PM there were only two cars at the Dairy Queen.  Up until to just recently their parking lot has been packed.

Jordan's as is customary for Friday night had a good crowd for their Carolina fried seafood.  However, I did not see people waiting on the porches which is common during the summer months. Kathryn's Martini Bar and Bistro also had a good crowd.
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There is something to be said for ignoring the clouds if you are comfortable with getting a little wet.

This morning we had a very high tide.  High tides can cause damage especially during storms, but this high tide came at a time when we had no winds or storms.

I could not resist the call of the high water because the other thing that a high tide does is let you get to places that you normally might not be able to visit because there is not enough water.

A high tide is like increased sea level from global warming except that it does not hang around for very long.

After I had determined that the sputtering precipitation was likely to remain light, I quickly grabbed everything that I needed for a trip out on the White Oak.

In my case, I take my life vest, a fishing rod with a top water plug, a couple of extra plugs, a camera, my cell phone and a few emergency items.  All the small things go into my yellow floating bag that is always with me whether I am in the kayak or at the helm of our skiff.
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Some weather patterns are just irritating.  Our current one which gives us mostly clouds and offshore winds without any rain is one that I would not chose.

I am a morning person, and I thrive on blue skies and sunshine.  I can store up enough sunshine to get me through two or three days of clouds, but if it goes beyond that my glass will start looking half empty instead of half full.

This morning you had to look very hard for a touch of blue skies.  My walk out on the dock brought no sign of the sun shining through the clouds.  The waters are still and black this morning.

When you get nearly a perfect reflection, the morning breezes have not started.  It was actually very quiet on the gut behind the house this morning.  There was only one swirl of bait fish visible along with a circle from a jumping mullet.
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This evening I attended an event at Cape Carteret's Mac Daddy's.  The Carteret Chamber of Commerce September Business After Hours Program was held to celebrate the first anniversary of the opening Mac Daddy's.

Mac Holz, the owner/proprietor, told me that he was very pleased with Mac Daddy's first season.  The expectation is that more and more people will find out about Mac Daddy's state of the art facility.

Not long ago we often heard the lament that there was nothing for the young area visitors or residents to do on a rainy day at the beach. 

With the opening of Mac Daddy's, that complaint about the Crystal Coast has disappeared.  With bowling and a fantastic arcade, there should be something for almost every youngster up through the teenagers.

There is also a sports bar for the parents and plenty of tasty food.

Tonight we sampled their kettle chips, pizza, wings, and ribs.

All the food was very good.  read more »

Blue sky and sunshine energizes me.  Yesterday morning I got up had a cup of coffee, looked outside, and decided to take the boat down the river.

I had the boat dropped in the water and was heading out Raymond's Gut before 7:30 AM.

Morning on the White Oak River is my absolute favorite time of the day, and yesterday morning was a particularly spectacular day to be on the river.

As you can see from the picture there was no traffic and the water was close to glassy calm.

The picture was taken from this spot just up the river from Swansboro.

Other than a couple of diving ducks, and lots of fish on my fish finder, I did not see any signs of life.

But I know most of the White Oak's life is below the surface, and it is hard to see even those shrimp that I have enjoyed.

I spent just enough time out on the river to clear my head and get ready for the day.
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