10.26- Harbor full

Boats anchored in Oriental Harbor after sunset

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There were a total of 17 boats at anchor in Oriental harbor tonight as the sun set. Mostly sailboats, but a few trawlers.

Town Dock and many transient slips at the marinas were also full.

Many of these boats are "snow-birds" heading south on their winter cruises. A few are probably boats that have been parked up north during hurricane season for insurance purposes... Hurricane season ends on November 1, and boats will then begin moving en masse back south of South Carolina, where policies often do not cover risks during the season.

Here is another view of the harbor, looking back towards the Oriental Harbor Marina and the Point Pride Seafood docks:

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9.24- "Slow No Wake"

A driver ignores the "No Wake Zone" sign posted at the Hodges Street causeway, which was inundated by rising "wind tide" waters as a continuing Nor'easter pushes Pamlico Sound waters all the way up into Raccoon Creek.
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... But of course this is not an official town of Oriental sign...

These three notorious pranksters (identities obscured) were photographed in the vicinity of the sign soon after it appeared... one of them carrying a roll of duct tape...
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Sandy (on right) rescued the Farmer's Market signage from the rising waters covering the Farmer's Market area,
Melinda (left) and Sandy then stored the signs in the "Witts End" building, where they will be marginally safer from floating away...
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Town Dock, also on the Hodges' St. causeway, was crowded not with boats, but with "street-gulls" who were enjoying undisturbed (mostly) access to the dock and to the 18 inches of water covering the roadway... Jack (the canine), who normally claims control of the centerline of Hodges St. by lying down on it, decided to let the gulls know just whose house they were in:

The seagulls adjusted to the unfamiliar sight of water-covered Hodges St. by gravitating towards the more familiar...

The mural on the side of the Garland Fulcher Seafood Market building... perhaps they were hoping some by-catch would be tossed from the "Brooke-Morgan"...

OK, here is the artsy shot of the day... You know it's artsy because it's monochrome... for full artsy effect, click on picture or here for full size:


Thanks to the Nor'easter, Capt. Ben didn't even need the dinghy to get out on the water today... the Dinghy Dock itself did the job nicely!

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9.17- Dive Master Ralph

Dive Master Ralph Evey cruises Raccoon Creek in his Carolina Skiff

While I was helping Capt. Dave tie up Hirondelle at the Oriental Yacht Club, Dive Master Ralph cruised alongside in his Carolina Skiff (full of diving equipment) to say hello and chat... from the looks of the cup-holder in his chair, he was coming from The Bean coffee shop next to Town Dock.

Ralph runs the "Oriental Dive Company," a commercial diving enterprise here in Oriental. ODC can clean your bottom (your boat's bottom, that is) while it is still in the water, retrieve your heirloom necklace or new stainless steel bow pulpit that fell in the drink, and perform any kind of diving service you may need.

He is also just about the friendliest guy in town, and in Oriental that is pretty darned friendly.

Ralph can often be seen cruising area marinas, harbors and creeks in a boat bearing diving flags, or driving around town in the "Big Unit," a former radio station promo-mobile (and probably an ambulance before that) which he has converted to carry his diving equipment. I will have to get a picture of that thing in a future post, for sure... it is a riot.

Here, by the way, is a picture of the Hirondelle at her new berth, right on Raccoon Creek at the prestigious Oriental Yacht Club:

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9.12- Casting net from Town Dock (SkywatchFriday is next OLDER POST, below)

Casting a net for bait fish at Town Dock in Raccoon Creek, Oriental, NC.

This gentleman and his wife arrived at Town Dock in their inflatable dinghy this afternoon... while the wife went to The Bean for some coffee drinks, the husband took out his cast net and began casting for bait.

The couple live aboard their boat at Pecan Grove Marina, right across Smith Creek from Oriental (straight ahead as the camera points.) "Yeah, this dinghy is our car, and the boat is our house," the wife explained to me.

Both I and the wife pointed out to the husband that there were thousands of Menhaden swimming around in a tight ball near the Hodges Street bulkhead, 30 feet from Town Dock, but the husband wanted Pinfish, and was not interested in Menhaden... "They fall apart too easy," he said.

For those of you who have never used a cast net, this guy makes it look easy, but it just ain't so at first... I have been trying to learn, but I can't get it to spread out properly except maybe every fourth or fifth throw. See Capt. Robby trying to teach me at the end of the slide show on my Labor Day posting.

It seems just about every person has his or her own particular method of casting a net... just search "how to cast net" on YouTube, and you will come up with a dozen or more "how to" videos (see one example below), each involving different steps and techniques, and each one of which claims to be the easiest and most effective. The same is true of every fisher I have talked to in person... Typical instructions go along the lines of:

"You just (coil the line in your throwing hand / coil in your non-throwing hand / let the line lay on the ground), then grab the net about (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 3 feet, 4 feet down, waist-high, just above the waist, just below the waist), then grab the (front, rear, left, right) of the hanging lead-line (with your right pinky / left forefinger and thumb / in your teeth) then you grab (1/2, 1/3, 3/4, 5/8) of the remaining net in your (left / right/ throwing / non-throwing) hand, then (put this part on your left shoulder / put that part over your right leg / flip this part over your left wrist), do the hokey-pokey, blink three times, wiggle your right earlobe, and throw!"

Follow these easy instructions (!!!!) and you too can throw a perfect cast net:

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9.12- Skywatch Friday - Look, up in the sky... It's Captain Ben!

Yours truly, up in the sky!

The picture above is less about watching spectacular skies than about the spectacular feeling of going into the sky...

Earlier this week I took a ride into the sky... well, 55 feet (17 meters) into the sky, anyway. Why I was there is explained below, in my posting of "9.08- Climbing the Mast" (scroll down to prior posting, or click here for the "post" page of that entry) so I won't repeat myself here.

I've been much higher in the sky before, of course, but never in a cloth chair hanging by a rope from a pole gently rocking back and forth with the boat below.

The sensation of being in the sky in that boatswain's chair was much stronger than I have had flying in an airplane, though not nearly so strong as I had jumping out of a flying airplane.

I have also never been this high up in Oriental... even the bridge from which I took last week's Skywatch photo is a few feet short of where you see me in this picture.

I think the dangling feet adds a lot to the experience... having solid matter (like a bridge) beneath one's feet takes away from the sensation.

Okay, enough about that... how about a picture of the sky itself? Here is what the sky looked like yesterday from the Oriental Yacht Club... I took this while standing on the narrow finger-pier that extends from the covered deck on Raccoon Creek:

See more views of the heavens from around the globe at:

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9.11- Fulcher Seafood docks from OYC

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Three commercial trawlers docked at Fulcher Seafood Co. docks in Raccoon Creek, as seen from the deck of the Oriental Yacht Club.

"Betty H.," "Capt. Ryan" and "Capt. Jeff" were docked at Fulcher Seafood Co. this afternoon when I dropped by the "Oriental Yacht Club."

I'll have more to say about the OYC in the future... I need to get some more info so I don't end up telling some lies about it. It is in some pretty old buildings, though, and it has this funky covered deck sticking out into Raccoon Creek right next to the Fulcher Seafood fish-house and docks, also on Raccoon Creek.

This is my fist B&W entry in either of my two blogs. I learned photography as a lad and young man with analog cameras... by the time I was in Junior High School I was doing almost exclusively B&W photos and my own processing and printing, much of it for the yearbooks and newspapers.

I kind of gave up photography at some point in college, no longer having access to good darkroom facilities and having failed to maintain / replace my aging and abused cameras and equipment. As I re-entered the hobby in the digital age, I adopted to color photography, which was quite expensive back in the analog days.

Now I have been seeing a lot of great B&W work on "City Daily Photo" blogs, and decided to give digital B&W a try for a while... not exclusively, mind you, but now that I have figured out how to switch the cameras to B&W mode, I expect to being doing a bit more... Now I just have to figure out how to switch my brain and eyes to B&W mode; I hope it's something like riding a bicycle.

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