Theater of Wind and Waves

Greens are turning to yellows, some reds are popping up, and I'm a few days out from my 2012 hiatus.  This is when man and dog escape from the hustle and bustle of society to work in solitude, explore, and recharge.  I've got a few things to do around the house in Raleigh, fix dings in the surfboards, and everything else should fall into place.

Aside from my excitement about the whole ordeal, now is also the time when I think back to earlier trips.  I found some pictures from this year.

Back to July...

5:30AM

This year wasn't unlike any other  in terms of weather; hot, muggy, barely a breeze.  Water temp was in the solid 80s, and with that, barring a storm, comes crystal clear water for a few hundred yards off of the shoreline.

I saw a lot more nature this year.  Schools of bait fish were pretty constant, along with diving birds and dolphins.  I don't get the chance to get close to dolphins too often, but let me tell you from experience--those fuckers are pretty big!  Flipper may look cuddly on TV, but bottle nose dolphins can get upwards of 12 feet, and have the brass to back it up.  Years ago, when Matt and I were surfing, we saw a pod approaching, and I paddled over to get a better look.  I didn't see anything at first, but noticed movement below my line of sight.  I was sitting on my board, and a full grown dolphin slowly swam right under me, on its back, looking up directly into my eyes.  It was a pretty powerful experience, in a non-hippie kind of way.  I suppose he was just checking out what the hell was going on in his ocean.

Jensen and I had paddled out to a sandbar about 75 yards from shore to mess around on some 1-2 ft junk waves.  There were a few other people around swimming.  As we sat on our boards, waiting for the next set to come in, floating up and down, I saw a looming brown/grey mass under the water about 30 ft away.  Jensen immediately said "what was that?"  I replied, "We should paddle back to shore now."  I'm over 6 ft, and this fish had a few feet on me, putting him somewhere around 8-10ft by my estimate.  I've seen sharks before while in the water, but never anything over a few feet.  I wasn't overly worried, given that it was probably a sand tiger shark, which is harmless, but there's no way to know.  Sand tigers eat small fish, things like that.  The other possibility was that it was a tiger shark, which is quite different.  They eat things like fish, turtles, humans, squid, tin cans, family pets and Volkswagens.  Pretty badass fish, and not the kind you want to be swimming with.  Regardless of what it was, it's always cool to experience things like that in the wild.  Even better to experience it when you reach shore with all limbs intact.

There are always good reminders of past storms and shifting land on the island.  We drove south down highway 12, looking for something to do.

About 20 miles down the road, some clean, 3 foot waves were breaking outside of a new inlet created the year before by that raging biatch Hurricane Irene.  When Irene came through in 2011, it was one for the ages, and we were at a place where the times are defined and marked by storms.  They have historically altered the landscape, creating new inlets, closing off current ones, swallowing beaches, homes, and anything else hanging around.  At this particular spot, the winds blowing off of the sound side had connected the Atlantic ocean to the fresh water ponds on the other end of the highway and boom, a new inlet was born.  Pretty cool, unless you live on Hatteras island, in which case you're totally fucked.  This is the only highway connecting you to somewhat important things like food and fresh water.  They had to do everything by ferry for months after the event.  I remember reading an article while down there and the author described the island as a "theater of wind and waves."  I've never heard of a better way to describe the Outer Banks, particularly in the off season.

After mother nature kicked man in the junk, man got up and said "well, get a load of this shit," and threw together a new bridge.  This temporary bridge looks like a patched pair of jeans, but it works.

Here's the bridge over the small inlet.

This spot broke for the next few days, and if you got there early enough in the morning, you could basically have it all to yourself.  The one morning we saw a manta ray leap clear out of the water.  It sort of makes you wonder if he was just showing off for the ladies or on the run from something bigger.  We had a few hours there, but by mid morning it was getting crowded.  When you drive down Highway 12, sometimes you'll see cars parked along the side of the road at seemingly random places, meaning that something's up.

This will be my fourth hiatus, and the song remains the same:  working, surfing, exploring, relaxing--the vast majority of the time, just the Jack dog and me.

Lord of the Manor Title

For the world championship:

This just reeks of arrogance.  Picking up strong notes of smug disdain for the middle and lower classes of society.  Pure contempt, truly the face of a self-centered prick.

I took last year's to another level with some added bitterness toward those less well-to-do.

The stars were aligned for this one.

Lake Activities

Down here in North Cack, we've got some pretty big lakes.  There's practically a subculture in these areas; mainly that of rednecks who like to party at lakes.  I may not be a redneck myself, but I likes to get down at the lake as much as the next guy.

Anyway, my good friend Bill, who lived with me for several years, used to have a 28 ft pontoon boat, upper deck and all, and a bunch of us spent the good majority of the summers of '08 and '09 living it up at Jordan Lake.  Trust me, there are few things as fun as floating around a boat at night with a bunch of friends, occasionally getting a beer thrown out to you by someone on board, your own campsite not too far away.  Bill used to talk once in a while about eventually living on a boat, and I'll be damned if the son'bitch didn't go out and make that happen just a few months ago.

He pulled the trigger on a 39ft Sea Ray up in Maryland.  It's not a houseboat, but it's got ample room to live aboard, and plenty of room for a bunch of people to hang out on.  At one point, due to construction and highway regulations, he thought he'd have to bring the boat down to North Carolina by way of the Atlantic. This would be roughly a 3 day journey, likely consisting of dodging tankers and sand bars, fishing, sunburn, dehydration, piracy on the high seas, drinking, and sleeplessness.  I told him that if he had any inkling of a thought of going on this adventure without me, I'd probably never speak to him again.  Unfortunately, however, my dreams were shattered as he found a transport service for a reasonable rate.

Here's a pic.  Bill was wise enough to provide a sense of scale--that matchbox car next to the boat is a full-sized F250.

So the other day he sent me a quick e-mail saying something about how people are able to surf behind boats if the wake is big enough, and that we should give it a shot.  It sounded like a good idea to me, so that weekend I hauled out my long board to see if we could make it work.  You get some pretty strange looks from the 'necks at the lake when you show up with a surfboard.  Some seem to get it right away, and others look at you thinking "the hell's that idiot gonna do with that thing?"

His boat/home, at the right speed, will create a wake about 3 feet high, and in turn, a "never ending" wave behind it.  The best part is, it only costs several hundred thousand dollars in gas money to run at this speed.  After a few tries, we got the whole thing wired and sure enough, it works.

Here's a clip pulled from one of the runs.  I know I know, the beer thing.  We just wanted to see how it would work out.



 After a few runs we really started getting the hang of it.  I'm thinking of using a different board; something smaller with a little more drive to allow for deeper turns, but for cruising around in general, you can't beat a 9 foot long board.

No shortage of finding things to do around here.  Life is good.

The Kingdom is Shaping Up

 I've been doing some work to my kingdom lately.

For one, I just put up my hop trellises.  The goal was to not have to buy any lumber or hardware; instead just using scrap pieces that I had in the barn, and although they aren't exactly beautiful, they're functional.  Come late summer I'm hoping to have hop vines hanging off of the deck, and come fall to be hopping my brews with the freshest, handpicked, homegrown hops.  This is going to take local beer to a whole new level.  I'll be enjoying fresh brewed ales while lounging under a hop vine.  It's an experience, really.  If you're one of those people who claim to actually enjoy your little Miller Lights, it's just too advanced for you, so go put on a pink button-down and watch Entourage or something.

Anyway, the rest of the place has really taken off.  I feel like I'm a traffic director for mother nature sometimes.  Back in the summer of '08, I said fuggit' and bought two bullfrog tadpoles from a garden shop down the road.  Evidently one was male and the other female, and now there's at least a dozen bullfrogs in my fish pond.  It's cool to hear them at night and everything, but I need them to sack up and cut back on the mosquito population.  More on that in a moment.

I'm all for some of the simple pleasures in life.  If you want to see some discovery channel type action, just stand still in my yard for a few minutes and let it unfold.  The other day I was watching two lizards fighting along the edge of a pond for a few minutes.  After a bit, two eyes appeared in the water right below them, and a frog leaped out trying to grab one.  Unfortunately he missed, but how awesome would that have been?  For that brief moment, it was like I was a little kid catching anything that moved down at the crick.  That's right, we say "crick" instead of creek in Pennsylvania.  If you didn't catch frogs and snakes growing up, you missed out, so go do it this weekend.  Especially if the snake is shaded with light and dark browns in a camouflaged pattern; be sure to go after that one.  Anyway, all of this commotion has attracted the newest member of the group, Reeves:

Reeves is a shitty hunter, but I still like him.    Maybe he just didn't have any role models growing up.  Instead of sneaking up on the bullfrogs, he just slithers right up to them like he's approaching a buffet.  As far as I know he's batting zero, but he may have a few notches on his belt.

The chain will probably carry on further from here.  I'll try not to be surprised if the hawk scoops him up one day, but I hope it's not for a while---the bullfrog population is getting out of line.

Since the frogs haven't seemed to do much damage on the mosquitoes, I've decided to take it a step further and build a bat house big enough for about a hundred bats.  Why sit there in reactive mode, swatting away and showering yourself in deet, when you can call in the cavalry?  Own it.  Turn the hunters into the hunted.  One bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes every hour.  I'm trying to figure out where to put this bat house, and at this point all things are pointing toward right up on the back of my house-house.  Jensen is less than thrilled, but she's still cool with it.

Aside from that, it's officially wedding season again, and by year's end I believe we'll have been to another 6 weddings.  That's 5 in 2010, 6 in 2011, and another 6 in 2012.  Three beach trips lined up within the next month or so.  Life doesn't suck.

Blowing Rock

Just took a trip out to Blowing Rock, North Cack.  It's a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, about 3 hours due west of Raleightown.  Been meaning to get out here for a while now, especially since it's an easy drive and a beautiful place.

The first day there we checked out the old town, which spans for about a quarter mile. 

On Saturday, our plan was to head to Grandfather Mountain, about 15 miles southwest of us, but upon arriving we learned that those dirtbags wanted like 20 bucks just to drive up to the ledge, so out of spite we carried on down highway 221.  The drive up there is pretty wild.  You are winding up a mountain at ridiculous angles.  I couldn't take my car out of third gear or I'd lose ground.  The bends are so sharp that you just sort of hope that there aren't any cars in the opposite lane, and if they are, you just hope they know what the hell they're doing--there isn't a guardrail-- just air, and a steep drop.  This kind of thing doesn't bother me much, but Jensen made a few comments about it, and that was all I needed to jerk the wheel toward the edge every few minutes to keep her on her toes.

Then we hit the Blue Ridge parkway.  This was the first time I'd ever been on it.  It's known for being the place to ride if you've got a motorcycle, but being that I sold mine 5 years ago, the Sube would have to do.  The Blue Ridge parkway isn't some big highway; it's a small, narrow two lane road, with a max speed limit of 45, and it winds up and down through mountain passes.  Perfect for enjoying the view.

We stopped a few places to check things out, and found hiking trails that led to some pretty cool views.  Here's one that looked out over miles of trees and hills:

  Down the road another 15 miles or so we found some trails that led out to a big waterfall.  It's a shame it wasn't warmer out- the water was crystal clear.

 




The Cherokees called these mountains "The Great Blue Hills of God." 

At night the moon just hung right out over the sky, like it was dangling from a string, just above my head.  When it came out the second night, I planned on taking a pic of it, but forgot.  In retrospect, I'm glad I forgot:  camera phones weren't meant to capture this, and it would never do it justice.  Now I don't know about what goes on in others' minds when they look up and see this, but if conditions are clear and quiet, I always think back to what things must have been like before "modern" civilization and science--before we knew what we know now.  I can see how people conjured up ideas of inanimate objects having life.  In fact, sometimes it's easy for me to convince myself that the moon is not just a rock, but a living thing, coming out to watch over everything each night.

This trip, I also discovered the Mountain Limp - it's the often subtle, slight limp or dragging of just one's leg, while everything else looks completely normal.  Ever see some hilljack yocal walk with a slight gimp?  Well that's it.  I saw a few of them, but the best example was the one lugging himself into Food Lion in town with his larger-than-life son, and let me tell you, his son may have had the most graceful Mountain Limp on this side of the Carolinas. I didn't think to take a picture of it, but I guess that would be rude.  Then again, so is talking about it.

Once in a while, it's great to get outta town and not have it be a big weekend of partying and debauchery.  When this Sunday came around, I was actually recharged, instead of vise versa.

On a side note I just ordered my hop rhizomes; I'll be growing my own hops for my craft brews this year.

Catching Up

It's been a busy few months to say the least.  I'm a creature of habit, and I got out of the habit of jotting things down, so there's been a long gap here.
I had some photos laying around from when I disappeared from society to the Outer Banks in November.  I didn't get a full two weeks in like I wanted, but I've making up for it now in February.

Floating back to November~~~

Whenever I get the idea that I want to head to Nags Head, I have to go immediately.  I was coming off of a weekend of total debauchery, the most of any wedding on the circuit the last few years, then had to run a local seminar for work, drive to Atlanta for another meeting, then drive back the following day.  I arrived back in Raleigh around 9PM, and almost left for Nags Head at 10.  I decided to have patience, and bumped it back a few hours to 4:30AM.

Leaving early in the morning is practically a ritual for me.  It's only a three hour drive through eastern North Cackalack.  By the time daylight breaks, I only have an hour to go.  That way I get to see the very first light onward, and I'm heading due east the whole time, right into it.  Ever been to Eastern NC?  Well the whole damn place looks like this:

Pretty much nothing but soybean fields and factory farms.














Nags Head never disappoints in the off-season; chilly, windswept, and grey.

Having the Jack Dog along is a must.  Mattafack, I don't even know if I'd want to come out here for these trips if he couldn't.  He goes everywhere with me here.  At night he's on full guard and if he hears a bump or loud rattle from the wind, I hear a low-pitched, deep growl, or warning bark.  Here's the large guy doing his thing by the water.

That's his expression for being really happy...the same expression he uses for every other emotion, including frustration, anger, contentment, deep thought, exhaustion, and that one where you know there's absolutely nothing going on in his head.

Each sunrise is a fresh start.  Everything is quiet and calm--not even the wind is up yet.  It's the time when all in the world seems innocent, as if it hasn't yet been corrupted by the chaos of everyday life. 

 
Anyway I paddled out and caught a few waves.  I'm usually out with others, which I love doing, but being alone is fine as well.  Sometimes it's eerie being out in the middle of winter, without even another soul on the beach- the water is cold, often rough, and foamy.  If anything it makes me appreciate the warmer months, where I'm not confined to a wetsuit, and I don't get ice cream headaches every time I duck a wave.
I always tell my coworkers that if I'm paddling out early in the day and not on the 4PM conference call, that mother nature has won.

At night, I let Jack out and while he roams around, looking for the perfect place to take care of his business, I stare up at the sky.  If you look up here on a clear night, you forget about how cold it is.  I had no idea there were even that many visible stars.  It's like stepping out into a theater.  You can see the milky way streak across the sky.  There's something very humbling about the night sky without light pollution.  I'm not kidding when I say it nearly knocks the wind out of me.  I could sit out there and watch it every night for the rest of my life.

I've been trying to figure out the feeling I get when I'm here, and I think I'm finally onto it.  My family has had this place since I was 13 years old, which is over half of my life.  Homes, aside from being shelters, store memories.  Each time I'm here, I can practically see a film reel of the last 14 years of my life.  Not so much in terms of vacations or time spent here, but more so the chapters of my life that they represent.  As strange as it sounds, I was talking about this same concept before with my friend Rollen, who also plays guitar.  We were talking about how difficult it is to sell old guitars, even if you don't play them much.  They all represent different time periods of my life.  I've only sold one of them, and it was to my best friend's dad.  Even that was difficult.  I've got acoustics laying around everywhere at home.  As your boy Bill Shakespeare might say, "though this be madness, yet there is method in it."


I found this picture from home over Christmas.  I had to put it up somewhere, but figured it would be trashy to post on facebook.  As you can see, it's ok for a man to wear an apron, as long as it's a badass apron that gets your point across.