an infrequent repository of mostly new stuff
Warm and sunny today, with a mild breeze. Has me thinking about sailing again. The photo above was taken by Tony Thatcher from his Melonseed as we sailed in the sound behind Assateague Island.
More of this please, soon.
Also, I miss that hat.
Hey, that’s my boat!
I’ve been reading a lot lately, which feels good. I’ll share here the ones that really rang a few bells in the old brain pan.
I found this one through a backdoor. When looking for the source of an image, I came across this exhibit of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
That lead me to a book by the same name.
It’s a fascinating piece of history. The stories correspond to a few elucidated in greater detail by David Celceski, a historian who grew up in coastal NC in his book,
The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina
It’s a detailed compilation of how centuries of black enslaved and freemen of the Outer Banks and coastal NC learned the dangerous trade of navigating those waters from early settlement, so their white owners wouldn’t have to take the risks. But this skill gave them a valuable advantage when it came to vying for freedom, or assisting others in escapes, as the Civil War approached. (Thanks for the recommendation from Steve Earley.) In some cases, they joined the Northern Navy and assisted in raids and blockades of Southern ports, because they knew the dangerous shoals so well.
The photo above, though, was included in the Sailing to Freedom book. It looks very similar to the larger version of my Melonseed skiffs, which is what caught my eye. What a fascinating backstory to the engraving.
A group of slaves escaped in this boat by sailing from Norfolk all the way to Philadelphia. That’s hard enough to do now, with modern weather forecasts and GPS, when you’re assured of getting help if you need it.
I can’t imagine doing that in the mid 1800s, when contact with anyone at all could mean capture and/or death.
By morning, the wind has swung around 180 degrees out of the north, and blowing hard. Within hours it goes from almost still to gusting over 40mph. Wind driven tides rush in through the northern inlet and pile up against the now closed southern end, submerging the dock again.
Breaking waves roll down the Bay, and we see more sand moving southward in the surf.
The temperature drops as quickly as the wind rose. I retreat to shelter along the inside of the island, behind what remains of the treeline windbreak. There are signs of the previous shorelines, old dunes, former marshes. The bleached bones of old cedar trees in what once was forest.
And artifacts of human history, too. A date carved in a picnic table still standing, somehow, for nearly 40 years.
We retreat to the house to stay warm. The sunshine of the morning is by afternoon replaced with wind driven rain. We read, do jigsaw puzzles, arrange shells and artifacts on the mantle, make soup, nap.
Just before sunset, the clouds begin to clear. A small waterspout is kicked up by the wind in the fast moving front, twisting and dancing over the water. It briefly catches the last bit of sun, and blooms into a brilliant golden rainbow before dissipating moments later.
Quite the epic finale to end the week.
The slick ca’m carries through sunset, moonrise, and late into the evening. Perfect for a bonfire on the beach to welcome the lunar eclipse.
The boardwalk over the marsh points almost due west like a compass rose. From the end, there’s a broad view over the marsh in every direction – the setting sun tips spartina grass with hot copper, followed by the full moon rising in the east over the treeline.
The evening meal is dispatched quickly. We head to the beach with chairs, and gather driftwood on the way.
While still low on the horizon, the moon is draped with an eerie shroud from the mist on the water. It grows bluer and brighter as it climbs the sky, bathing the whole scene in cold astral light.
We build a fire below the high tide line to keep the chill off. It catches quickly and feels good, makes a nimbus of warmth and warm light in the clear cool night.
We won’t wait up for the eclipse, which doesn’t begin until 4am, but we know it’s coming. One of those astronomical events, like a solstice or equinox, that adds gravitas to the evening, even when you can’t actually see it.
Hours later, the last of the wood is used, and people start to wander off by ones and twos. Some will wake before dawn to watch our shadow pass over the moon, wrapped in blankets on the dock. Tom and I stay up past midnight until the fire is just a bed of glowing embers, then bury it in wet sand.
In a few hours, it will be erased by the tide, along with our footprints.
In the dialect of a Tidewater waterman, a “slick c’am” is a slick calm, when the air and water are so still the Bay lays slick as glass. It’s a strange effect on a body of water so large that you can’t see across it. The whole world feels close and quiet.
Late fall is the transition season, when winter works up courage and summer grows weary. Cold wind from the North > then calm > warm wind from the South > then calm. We will have it all, twice, in the span of a week. Every day is different.
With the air so still, a mist gathers over the water like smoke on the horizon. That and the high clouds mean a change in weather is come; but for now, it’s shirtsleeves and sunshine.
We saw where the sand ended up; we want to see where it came from – the North end.
The dock is wet and slippery. Tonight is the fullest of Full Moons, the night of an eclipse, so tides are especially high. Water lapped the bottoms of the kayaks on top of the pier where I tied them down to pylons.
By early afternoon, we can walk the deck without wading, but the wet parts are slick as greasy ice.
Following oxbow creeks, it’s about two miles to the north inlet. At least it was last year, where inlet was.
It’s an easy paddle on a calm day, riding the outgoing tide. We pass a couple of new duck blinds, the remains of an old one – storm battered, bent down on one knee – another repaired and ready for the coming season.
One by one, the creeks converge on the way to the bay, growing wider and deeper, the current stronger. We round a curve and I have a hard time making sense of what I see. Where before was island and sand and marsh grass, I see an unbroken horizon of blue water.
We paddle beyond the break to what’s left of the sandbar, beach the boats to look around.
Amazing. Last time I paddled to this spot, there was ¾ mile of more creek before reaching the inlet. The island was narrow in places, mostly sand, but very much land. Most of that is gone. This last bend in the creek exits right into the bay.
The former island tip remains apart, a small islet of sand and grass surrounded by water. Clearly won’t be there much longer. The new wider north inlet now extends more than a mile to the mainland. Much of the sand here is washing out in shoals, or sifting into the marsh. Root stubble pokes up through waves of the Bay now, what had been all marsh behind the barrier island, for now still gripping marsh mud.
You can see the dramatic change in recent satellite images. Here is the whole island shot ten years ago, with the north and south inlets still deep and navigable by large boats.
And these are the south and north inlets last year, before the winter storms.
And here is the island now, showing both inlets. I’ve edited this to show the current conditions on the satellite image from last year. There’s a new break in the last bend of the creek. The bar just beyond is now water. And the south inlet is a wide sand beach.
You can see the change best if the two images are overlaid and animated. If the animation below is not playing automatically, click on the image to open it.
I knew this was coming, and said so to T. But did not expect it my lifetime; certainly not in the span of a year.
Not sure what we’ll see if we come back next year. A lot less, if the trend continues, and no doubt it will.
Gear and groceries stowed, we headed south to see what weather hath wrought in our absence. It’s a short paddle to follow the old channel around to the inlet, or at least what used to be the inlet.
Amazing to think that within my lifetime, steamers could enter through this inlet and anchor in a protected deepwater harbor. Now a broad beach runs from what last year was the southern tip of the island to the mainland, with a dry sandbar three feet high. I knew this was the way it would end up eventually. It’s a process ongoing since the north inlet was formed, cutting the long spit off from the shore and forming the island a century ago. But I did not think it would happen so soon, let alone a single year.
The skin-on-frame kayaks will float in just two inches of water, which came in handy. At low tide, that’s all the water in some places inside the bar and the inlet.
Later, we walked down the beach, and across the bar over what last year had been crashing waves, to the marsh on the mainland at the far end.
Lovely.
Nothing is amiss, all looks as it should.
And yet not at all like it was.
The wind died down with the sunset, replaced by calm, a gibbous moon and sky full of stars.
