8.9- South River

(Skywatch Friday 8/22/08 -- I just learned about Skywatch Friday, and this is my first attempt to participate... I hope it works. Old Wom Tigley at Skywatch Friday informed me that I could participate with old photos, so I am testing with this one I took over a week ago. In the future, I will try to do one for the current week, if not actually on each Friday.)

Today I took a trip across the Neuse River to South River with a neighbor in his Mako power boat.

As we crossed the Neuse, a squall moved in over Oriental and the Neuse River behind us, coming in from the northwest...

While we were enjoying sun in South River, things were getting pretty hairy along the route back, as the storm was spreading and moving our way.

Weather can get very nasty on the Neuse in a very short period of time: many a boater and fisher has died out there in surprise squalls.

Not being in a boat built for weather, we decided to tie up amongst the branches of a fallen oak tree along the shore to see how the weather developed... as lightning and thunder started moving across the river in our general direction, we stepped ashore and as it began to rain we rigged a lean-to with a tarp, just in case we got stranded in a serious down-pour.

I took this picture from the bank, looking back towards Oriental and the threatening skies.

While we waited, we poked around the river bank looking for arrowheads and other artifacts... My neighbor is an avid hunter of fossils, shark's teeth, Native American artifacts and other found treasures... found no "keeper" arrowheads (fragments only) but did see this very old loop of chain.

While wading in the shallow water, I became surrounded by a huge school of menhaden minnows swimming upriver. I stood there for three or four minutes as they swam past me en masse, and more were still coming when I walked back to shore.

As it turned out, we only got a little sprinkle for a while, then the weather cleared enough for us to get back in the boat and head back across the Neuse River and up Green's Creek to the boat's home dock across the creek from Oriental.

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