This past Saturday, December 11, was as rainy a Saturday day as I can remember here on the Southern Outer Banks. We got a little over an inch of rain.
While our temperatures recovered a little this weekend from our early taste of winter, the memory of the our great fall weather is still fresh in my mind. It is hard to get excited over 55F when your body can still remember 80F.
It is hard to believe that I watched a wedding on the beach at the end of October and the bride was standing out in the surf. I doubt many brides would be standing in the surf today. Reports are that it is at 52F.
When we came home from church this afternoon, it was about 55F and cloudy with a few sprinkles. The blue skies which graced us briefly this morning were long gone.
With the knowledge that Monday's high temperature is supposed to be 38F, I decided to take our skiff for a run on the river before I have to file papers to change its use from a fishing boat to an ice breaker.
Even with boat in its winter mode, it only takes one trip of about 30 ft. from our garage to the boat for it to be ready. I have a couple of bags with gear, a bucket with a throw pillow, my emergency gear, and of course a life jacket.
It take a couple of minutes to untie the lines and another couple to attach the GPS unit which I use even for short trips. Putting the plug in the boat finishes preparations, and it is rarely more than five minutes from when I leave the garage to the time I am backing the boat off the lift and heading down Raymond's Gut toward the White Oak. Bluewater Cove is just on the western shore of the White Oak near Hancock Point.
There were some pesky showers threatening so I wore a warm jacket but for the most part the rain left me alone. When I dropped the boat in the water, the water temperature registered 52F, but by the time I got out in the river, it was down to 46F.
I figure there was a small layer of warm water on top because when I came back, the water by the dock was 48F.
Since rain was threatening I only ran the boat down the river three buoys beyond Red Sixteen. The river was smooth, and the air temperature was not bad for almost the middle of December.
There were a lot of birds, mostly gulls and cormorants on the oyster rocks along the way, and about half way along my trip, I noticed that someone had dropped their lunch, a dead menhaden into the skiff.
Given the low tides we have seen recently, I don't think there is any way that it could have jumped onto the bow which is where I first saw it.
The trip back to Bluewater Cove was just in the nick of time. I snapped today's post picture with my Android phone just before reaching the turn to my dock.
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Just as I did the u-turn for my lift, the showers started again. By the time I had thrown the lines on the dock, taken the GPS off, and pulled the plug so boat could drain, the rain was beginning to act serious.
As I made my trip back to the garage, I was not sorry to close the garage door against the approaching rains. My trip had lasted less than thirty minutes, but it did my spirit a world of good.
Every time you can put your boat in the water in December is a victory. While my boat trip was not nearly as nice as my boat trips to Swansboro September 20 this year, it certainly will help me get through the next three cold days.
