Strange weather today

Extremely windy straight from the north, then one minute we are having a snow flurry, the next it's bright sunshine again! But hey, this is the Outer Banks! Weather's always changing!

Snow pix

A few from the Nags Head area this morning. It's all changed over to rain now, so what we got is disappearing fast. A few hardy souls were already playing on Jockey Ridge this morning.

Light dusting of snow here today

Woke up to a light dusting of snow here on the Outer Banks this morning. I know we get excited over just a little, but it's something we just don't see very often! The roads are clear at least though. Thirty degrees, and hoping for a little more....

Well, spoke too soon about the roads. Just heard there was already a wreck on the Manteo-Nags Head bridge due to ice. Currituck bridge is iced over.

The Outer "Banks"

There are MORE banks springing up daily at the WalMart intersection at the Kitty Hawk, Southern Shores line. East Carolina Bank just found its old building not good enough anymore, so they tore it down this week and built a new one! Across the street there is a new Gateway Bank AND a new BB & T going up. In the Marketplace shopping center, there is a newly remodeled branch of the Bank of Currituck. And not to mention the previously remodeled Wachovia right next to the East Carolina Bank. Five banks within sight of each other. Hope we now can store all that money!

Sand tax repealed

The Outer Banks Sentinel is already reporting as of 9 pm on Tuesday night that the sales tax has been repealed by a wide, wide margin of 79 to 21 percent. Dare County website is reporting 78 to 22 percent for the repeal. Vote count was 5363 for repeal and 1531 against repeal of the tax.

Kitty Hawk new berm

I took a ride over to the beach road in Kitty Hawk yesterday to see the new berm being built, and what all the hoopla is about. Yes, it is ugly dirt! The beach road is blocked from Eckner(Winks street) north a few blocks to Bennett. The large dump trucks are hauling this yucky dark gray mostly claylike material from a borrow pit in Currituck and stockpiling it between two oceanfront houses somewhere between those two streets named above. Then a large clamshell bucket machine is loading the material into these several large offroad dump trucks, which haul the material on the beach north to the Kitty Hawk pier area. At this point the berm has only been started up near the pier. I assume they intend to build one of this material south at least to the point near Eckner. That would be approx. one mile of beach. Below are a few pix of the operation. I got there late in the day, so the quality of the pix is not great- sorry! IMO, I can't think of a better boost to those supporting the repeal of the sales tax, than looking at this messy yuck on the beach! By the way, I voted yesterday.

Smoke/ emergency at Solo, Kitty Hawk

When passing the Solo gas station yesterday, Kitty Hawk Fire dept had one lane of the bypass blocked off and firetrucks on site. Apparently there was an emergency with one of the gas station isles. When we returned by there last night all the pumps from that isle had been removed.

Fishin' frenzy!

Ever wonder why the back of most OBX contractors trucks contain fishing rods?



Well here's why!!!!



Tuesday the rockfish were pounding the beach from Kitty Hawk to Corolla. This nice twenty plus pounder was taken near Winks in Kitty Hawk.

They've been running, along with the big blues (15 pounders or so), for several days now. Many locals are calling this the biggest blitz they've ever seen. On Monday, the coconut telegraph lines were a humming about the speckled trout being so thick they were taking a walk on the beach! Literally, no pole needed. Our crew picked up 19 specks right off the sand where the bluefish were chasing them into shore. They had to stop collecting fish because the cooler got too full. It was all two men could do to drag the 90 pounds of trout outta the truck up to the cleaning table. Sure was good for supper! As I am writing this the big rock is being cleaned for tonight's feast.

Several days last week, one of my framing crew took his kayak out in the ocean, along with a pole. The fish he hooked were so big they dragged him and the kayak three streets south before he could land it on the beach. That's what you call dedication to the sport.

They even start training the young ones early.



Did you hear that? That was the sound of nailbelts on construction sites all over Dare County hitting the ground. That coconut telegraph.... No wonder I can't get any work done!

Typical Wright Brothers day

It was cold and windy from the northeast and overcast from time to time, as observors gathered on the "hill" to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the first powered flight made by Orville and Wilber Wright in 1903. The gathering was treated to several different skydiving sessions. One flyer carried a large American flag unfurling to the ground. Another carried a smaller North Carolina flag. The plane flyover was sparse compared to the previous two years, but exciting nonetheless. Many of the locals gathered all along the Colington road to watch the spectacle from a distance, without braving the chilling winds up on the hill.

Manteo Christmas Parade 2005 pix

The webpages are up with the pix of the Manteo Christmas Parade 2005.
It was bigger and better than ever with over 70 entries. The Grand Marshalls this year were the owners of the Christmas Shop, Mr. Eddie Green and Mr. Richard Lacerre. There was a generous turnout in chilly but sunny weather to see the nautical themed floats. Many boats, beachlife creatures, surfboards, and marching bands, intersperced with Elizabethan flair and the Queen herself along with Sir Walter Raleigh on horseback. Have a look!

http://www.outerbanksvacationhomes.com/Manteo_Christmas_parade05.html

Manteo Christmas First Friday

It's First Friday in Manteo, and the town kicked off the Christmas season with a celebration down town on the Courthouse steps. The Oakwood Waits and Queen's singers gave a rousing chorus of Christmas tunes. Haskell Fitzsimmons read "Twas the Night before Christmas" to the childran gathered around his feet, and certain distinquished guests waited in the audience.







The courthouse was decked out even with a little snow!



Tomorrow is the annual Manteo Christmas parade and I'll be there to snap a few pix!

Aerial Outer Banks photos

I have a new webpage up with a few new aerial photos taken yesterday over the Outer Banks.
A preview shot: This pic shows from the Kitty Hawk/Southern Shores border looking north to Duck, NC.



See the webpage at:

http://www.outerbanksvacationhomes.com/Outer_Banks_Aerials_112605.html

Christmas Shop closing forever Nov. 27

The Christmas Shop in Manteo will be closing forever on Sunday, November 27th. They apparently were more successful in selling out their inventory faster than anticipated, as the original date given was the end of the year. There will be a huge yard sale this weekend to clear out some of the store fixtures. The antiques in the shop were not included in the sale and will be auctioned off this coming spring. I snapped a few pix for the memorabilia fans out there. Also took a stroll thru the shop to see what was left. I was actually surprised there was as much left as there was, since they will be open only another couple of days. Lots of ornaments left, a few trees, many, many lighthouse trinkets.

NC Aquarium in Manteo

Went to visit the NC Aquarium at the airport in Manteo yesterday. Wow, what a display! Many many neat things to see. The live aquariums housing all kinds of tropical fish are just amazing. The last one you encounter is about 25-30 feet long and goes up over your head and houses sharks and many other ocean fish. It even has an old shipwreck replica on the bottom. It is really something to watch the sharks materialize out of the murky depths and swim right by your face!

Manteo's incumbants stay in power

The nastiest campaign I can remember in my little island's history is now over and the mayor and three commissioners retained their seats. The fight came down to basically developers vs. those opposing "urban sprawl" and the latter won. For now it would appear that the town's people wish to slow down the rapid pace of growth on this tiny island. John Wilson is still mayor, and commissioners Farrow and Etheridge will be returning to their seats. The top vote getter, Ms. Dell Collins' seat will be filled by appointment by the board, due to the untimely death of Ms. Collins just this past Thursday.

In other towns, major upsets occurred. Kitty Hawk now has a new mayor and new councilmen. Cliff Perry is the new mayor, and Richard Reid and Gary Perry are new councilmen.

Kill Devil Hills' incumbant mayor Sherry Rollason was ousted by newcomer Chuck Ball.

Nags Head will see Renee Cahoon return to the mayoral seat.

Southern Shores new mayor will be Don Smith and new councilman will be Brian McDonald.

Town of Manteo preserves another piece of history

On Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005, the Town of Manteo held a dedication ceremony for the Manteo Weather Tower. In 1904, the Weather Bureau established the original station with Mr. Alpheus Drinkwater in charge. The tower was used to fly signal flags to warn mariners of approaching bad weather. At night, tower's red and white signal lights flashed it's message. This original tower was first placed on top of the Dare County courthouse and later moved to the family land of John Booth. Recently the town acquired permission to restore the tower and move it to Town property. The Booth family graciously allowed the town to refurbish the tower and supplied the original signal lights to be affixed upon it. The Manteo tower is believed to be one of only five operational towers still in use, and may be the only one to have all its original signal lights intact.

The tower now stands on the Manteo waterfront near the Marshes Lighthouse replica.

Still a little chilly, windy, today

The day after a small nor'easter' passed by the ocean is still a bit rialled up. There is a steady breeze from the north putting a little nip in the air but not too much for a couple of hardy beachwalkers all bundled up.



Another of the ocean up close:

Windy and wet

The weather is surprising nasty already here today. It is raining, sometimes pretty hard and steady, and the winds are gusting to about 24 mph. The low pressure cell has already developed right off the Hatteras coast on the north end of the front which picked up Wilma. The outflow clouds from Wilma are linked up with this front all the way up past NC.

Cooler tonight and a little cloudy

We have had the far outer most cloud bands of Wilma actually reaching this far today. It is cooler today, but so far has been dry. There is a rainband from the storm showing up on the local radar just offshore of Cape Hatteras but that is not an unusual place. Hopefully it will stay offshore. Also hoping the storm center passes well east of here and does not stir up too much wave action!

Cooler today but still pretty clear

It was much cooler today (around 60 degrees) most of the day, but still not too bad on cloudiness yet. We are experiencing the further outlying bands of clouds being pulled north from Wilma already. There are rainbands offshore showing on the local radar. We just hope they stay offshore. It is deadly still as far as the wind. Tomorrow promises to be wetter and darker. Let's just hope this stays far enough offshore that the wave action is not too great.