10.16- "Skywatch Friday" - Sunrise & Moonrise

Sunrise over the Neuse River

Yesterday I was out boating before dawn... then again out boating after sunset. Two different trips.

The sunrise series above was taken from Captain Keith Bruno's Carolina Skiff as we headed down river to pull Capt. Bruno's gill-nets for fish.

You can meet Capt. Bruno, a really interesting guy, in Part One of my feature essay on Bruno, posted October 14 (scroll down to posting, or click here)... more of the essay is coming soon in Part Two...and maybe even Three.



Later on yesterday, I rowed across the glassy windless waters of river, in the Bauer 10, out to Oriental Marker No. 1, where the "Coriolanus" was drifting around for a Hunter's Moon watching party (see right). There was so little wind that even without an anchor, Coriolanus stayed within 50 yards of the same spot for about two hours.



Before I rowed out, I got the below picture of the moon rising over the river from the end of the Lou-Mac Fishing Pier.

Another dinghy-rower appears in the lower left, going into Whittaker Creek (you can tell it's Capt. Jesse by the bent oars!!)... the familiar Whittaker Point on the left... and a lone sailor trying to find wind on the right side of the picture:

(Click on picture or here for full size)

While I was happy with the picture I got of the Oct. 14th Hunter's Moon, I was disapointed to have missed it coming up over the horizon... Then I learned from University of Texas' "Earth and Sky" that the Hunter's Moon was on the 14th AND the 15th, so I went out yesterday before moonrise and got the following series of the second night of the Hunter's Moon rising:



HAPPY SWF EVERYONE!
I look forward to seeing the other Skywatch pictures from around the world on the other SWF sites listed at:
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9.25- Skywatch Friday - River of Light

A shrimp trawler rides a river within a river... a river of light in the cloud shadows
on the Neuse River... into Oriental Harbor under skies darkened by extratropical storm 94L

Click on picture or here for full size

Today's SWF picture was taken about 1:00 p.m. local time, Thursday Sept. 25, from the Lou-Mac Park fishing pier on the Neuse River, facing southwesterly.

Extratropical storm 94L is quieting down after bringing heavy winds and a bit of rain to eastern North Carolina overnight. Rainfall in Oriental was measured at one half inch, but some gusty winds in the 40 mph range tore through town last night.

The prevailing northeast winds brought in by this storm over the past three days caused an unusually high wind tide along the coast, no exception for Oriental...
See my posts from earlier today and yesterday for views of the risen waters: scroll down or click here

The waters rose a bit more last night, but have been dropping steadily this morning.

The center of the storm is about to go ashore near the North Carolina-South Carolina border, and should quickly dissipate, though we may be in store for more rain over the next few days.

As the remnants of the storm move up the coast, the wind will veer, and the high waters will be blown back out into Pamlico Sound.

Read more about "L94" on WeatherUnderground at Jeff Masters' Wunder Blog.

See radar images of L94 from NOAA.

I look forward to seeing the other Skywatch pictures from around the world on the other SWF sites listed at:


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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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9.05- SkywatchFriday - Here Comes Hanna!

About 20-25 mph winds buffet the flag on top of the Hwy. 55 bridge as an outer rain band of Tropical Storm Hanna crosses over the Neuse River and Oriental at about 2:30 p.m., Friday September 5.

An hour and a half later (about 4:00 pm) , as I am writing this post, the sun is out and large puffy cumulus clouds are zipping over us, headed westerly.

All around town boats have been pulled, lines have been doubled, lawn chairs put away or set upside down, a few windows have been boarded, and the picnic benches at Lou-Mac Park have been lashed to the old live oak tree.

Now we wait. I don't know if I'll be able to get any pictures of the scary stuff, since it will be coming in after dark. I'll add more photos to the slide show, above, if I do get any more.

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

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8.29- Skywatch Friday - July 8 storm retrospective

(For best results, click on "->" to start slide show, then click Pause and use arrows to advance slide by slide)
(For best results, click on "->" to start slide show, then click Pause and use arrows to advance slide by slide)

SkywatchFriday special retrospective report. I never did post these pics from July 8, but the rainstorms on Wednesday reminded me I had these pictures.

The captions tell the story.

But I do have a question for my fellow Skywatch Friday visitors, and would love to hear your inputs, perspectives:

I am used to posting photos the day I take them... in fact I have just started participating in City Daily Photo on my other blog, Oriental Daily Photo. The sky today, however, was quite boring, and I didn't really have any good sky pics from this week, even. So, my question is:

Is it more appropriate for me to post Skywatch Friday pictures taken on the each current Friday? Or at least from the week preceding each current Friday?

Or does it make more sense to do as I have done today, that is post pictures I have taken at some point of interesting skies, regardless of when they were taken?

I am very interested in hearing the views on this issue from my more experienced (more experienced than I, that is... this is my second SWF entry) Skywatch Friday participants on this one! Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

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See more views of the heavens from around the globe at Skywatch Friday.