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 Island Living: Lessons
to be learned from renovating or repairing your houseIsland Free Press columnist Joy Crist says that those first few days of unexpected home-gutting were tough, and she found herself getting irritated and angry at a huge house re-do that she never signed up for. But she says there’s always a silver lining to any life-changing event, even if you have to really reach for it. So for those of you who have had to deal with a total remodel and reconstruction, hurricane related or otherwise, Joy Crist shares with you the good stuff she has discovered during her massive home repairs. Read more |
 Island
Living: Stupid New Year’s resolutions to forget and a couple good ones
to keepIsland Free Press columnist Joy Crist is throwing away her sensible, rational, and altogether stupid list of New Year’s resolutions, and creating a list of new New Year’s resolutions that might actually end up making the year a lot better. Read more |
 2011:
The photos of the year…..WITH SLIDE SHOWIsland Free Press photographer Don Bowers shares some of his best and his favorite photographs from 2011. The year, of course, was dominated by Hurricane Irene in late August. Read more |
 Island Living: A Visitor’s Guide
to life in the Real WorldBut let’s face it -- a trip to the Real World can be a little strange and a little intimidating. It’s not like we islanders can’t function if we’re not close to home, it’s just that we get so used to our lifestyle, which is quite different from the rest of the world, that when we do finally take a long trip elsewhere, there are a few cultural differences that we might miss or might not be used to. The holidays are just around the corner, and for many of us this marks the first extended trip we’ll be taking off-island in months, as our friends and family are not very bright and decided to live elsewhere for some reason. So before you pack up the truck and head over the Bonner Bridge, you might want to read over these key differences between our island community and the rest of the country, also known as the “Real World.” Read more |
 Island
Living: We are all people who are naked in our glass beach houses Island Free Press columnist Joy Crist had an encounter with a friend recently that got her to thinking. Since we all live on an island, and more or less all know each other, aren’t we therefore all living in glass beach houses, on public display all the time? And if so, how many times have we embarrassed ourselves in front of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, and not even noticed it? However, she concludes, “So I suppose it’s time to stop worrying about my odd public persona and embrace that fact that island living sometimes means weird fashion choices and accepting that you can be yourself amongst everyone around you because islanders are weird and awesome people who will just accept you for who you are. Read more |
 Hatteras
waterman and his family are thankful for his ‘miraculous’ recoveryTall Bill Van Druten set three nets in the ocean on the morning of Oct. 1, and at 8:20 a.m. began to fish the first one back in. When he engaged his hydraulic net reel to retrieve his first set, he suddenly realized his coat was caught in the net. He was not close enough to the switch to turn it off and quickly found himself being wound around his net reel. After an hour and a half, he was rescued by other watermen. He thought he would die. Doctors thought he would be a paraplegic. But today, he is home, recovering from his terrible injuries and making what his family calls a “miraculous” recovery. Read more |
 The story of one Kinnakeet family
and the struggle to rebuild after Hurricane IreneThe Fullers are your typical Hatteras Island family with two young children. There’s curly-haired Grace, who will turn 5 in January and is too adorable for words, and Big Jack, who will turn 2, also in January. Mandy, the mom, is a marketing associate and photographer at a local real estate company, and Jamie, the dad, is an established construction worker, affiliated with a number of respected contractors on the island. They are your typical successful local family and community members. But these days, unfortunately, they are typical for another reason as well – they are one of the many families that are still adjusting to an altered, uprooted life after Hurricane Irene and will do so for months to come. Read more |
 Island Living: Getting by with a
little help from our friendsIsland Free Press columnist Joy Crist found herself embarrassed or even ashamed dealing with an insurance adjuster. Why? “Really, if you think about it, Hatteras and Ocracoke islanders are very strong-willed people,” she writes. “And admitting that we’re struggling and might need a hand from someone, whether it’s the government, our neighbors, or fantastically kind strangers, is even harder. Read more |
 Island Living: Getting back to
normal – whatever that isHas anyone else noticed that with each business that reopens, we’re all super excited and all feel a little closer to normal, even if we have no intention of going there? Or in being “normal,” for that matter? And as every new restaurant starts serving grub, every store starts peddling souvenirs, and every fishmonger starts mongering fishes, then we can relax with that faint feeling that the worst is behind us, perseverance conquers all, and getting back to normal -- whatever that is -- is within our reach. Read more |
 The
real winners in the Fun Run are Hatteras cancer patients….WITH SLIDE SHOWThe location of the Hatteras Island Cancer Foundation’s annual Fun Run was changed just three days before the event. The run, which had been scheduled in Salvo, was moved to Avon because of a misunderstanding with Dare County about access to the tri-villages. However, supporters of HICF didn’t seem to care which village they raced in, as long as cancer patients on the island were on the winning side of the day’s events. Read more |
 Island Living: Attack of the
KinnaskeetersThe heavy rain from Hurricane Irene last month and the additional rainfall from heavy storms off and on for the past two weeks has hatched a healthy mosquito population on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. You can’t go anywhere on the islands these days without having a conversation about the biting insects. Read more |
 How I Spent my Summer EvacuationIsland Free Press writer Joy Crist of Avon describes her evacuation adventures – or more correctly her re-entry adventures. She says that on Tuesday night, Sept. 6, at the ferry docks in Stumpy Point there were dozens and dozens waiting and waiting for ferries that did not run. “It’s hard to describe the scene, but it resembled a rock concert parking lot with children, pets and babies,” she writes in this article. Read more |
 Security
screeners are at work at the ferry docksThose yellow-shirted folks at the ferry docks asking for your identification are doing the job the Coast Guard requires them to do—security screening of a certain percentage of cars using the ferry. If it seems like they just appeared last summer, maybe it’s because they became more visible. But Lucy Wallace, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division, said they are ferry personnel and they’ve been there all along, according to requirements by the U.S. Coast Guard, which controls the nation’s waterways. Read more |
 Cape Hatteras Wounded Warrior
Project welcomes its first visitors….WITH SLIDE SHOW AND VIDEOAt just 22 years of age, Lance Cpl. Aaron “Danny” Ruck has been through—and survived—more than most people will experience in a lifetime. But, early this month, the Cape Hatteras Wounded Warriors Vacation Project had the honor of helping Ruck and his family do something they had never done before -- vacation on Hatteras Island. The Rucks—Danny, his wife Megan, and their two young children, Austin, 4, and Kaylee, 6 months—were the first of several families that will be invited to stay on Hatteras as part of the project, and they arrived on Hatteras Saturday, June 4, for a week of hard-earned and much-deserved repose. Read more |
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 Late
summer and fall surfing on Hatteras….WITH SLIDE SHOWIsland Free Press photographer Daniel Pullen didn’t get to surf or photograph surfing as much as he would have liked from late summer into the fall. Hurricane Irene got in the way and caused him to move his family north of the Bonner Bridge for weeks. But he did manage to get some pretty impressive shots of surfing and the ocean from mid-August until late November. Read more |
 Stand-up
paddleboarding is an increasingly popular watersport on the islands….WITH SLIDE SHOWStand-up paddleboards have become increasingly popular on the shores of Cape Hatteras over the last several years. They are versatile, easy to learn, and good in a variety of wind and water conditions. As with many other watersports, Cape Hatteras is a perfect place for this growing sport because paddleboarding is fun on the flat waters of the Pamlico Sound but also in the surf on the ocean. Read more |
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 Island
Cooking: Beans are warm and satisfying, healthful, and economicalThe other morning, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in two hours and winter arrived. It is time for rich, warming, and satisfying food. Dried beans fill that bill. And they are healthful too, not to mention economical. An inexpensive one-pound bag goes a long way. They are available in many varieties and in every grocery store. If you want to get “fancy,” there are heirloom and traditional imported varieties just a Google search away. Read more |
 Island
Cooking: Crazy Johnny Conner’s beef brisket and other fall recipesIt seems everyone is talking turkey now but for our columnist, the magic word is brisket! A visit with Crazy Johnny Conner led her on a quest for a recipe and a method to cook this less than prime cut of beef to perfection. Four briskets later, she achieved a moist, tender, truly beefy roast. Read more |
 Island
Cooking: Dolphin DaysThese are the dolphin days - the steamy summery and early fall months when this tropical delicacy is pretty easily found hiding and feeding beneath the Sargassum beds in the Gulf Stream. That is, if you can find the beds. Dolphin now appears regularly on local dining tables, restaurant menus, and in seafood markets. Read more |
 The
‘Best of Summer’ seafood dinner to enjoy with friendsSummer suppers are meant to be easy and it is not hard to achieve when there is such a variety of fresh seafood and produce around. For a dinner with some good friends, I decided to use as many fresh food items as I could reasonably fit into one meal without spending all day over the hot stove or even turning on the oven. This was as easy as it was meant to be and, if I may say so myself, the meal was filled with freshness and complementary flavors. Read more |
 Island
Cooking: Seafood boil and homemade ice cream for July 4 on
the beachFor your July 4 picnic this year, try a seafood boil that features seasonal shellfish and veggies in one pot, which is perfect for a beach picnic. Top it off with homemade vanilla ice cream with strawberry and blueberry sauce. Read more |
 Island Cooking: Local, sweet crabmeat is the star in these recipes Lake Mattamuskeet, over on the mainland, is our source for oversized blue crabs. The delectable lump meat sold in the local markets is cooked and picked and ready to eat, making it very easy to use -- hot or cold. And, believe me, picking a pound of crabmeat takes time and skill, so it is sometimes worth buying it this way. Read more |
 Island
Cooking: Enjoy
your tuna catch all year by canning itThere is something to catch on a charter out of Hatteras all year round, but April marks the unofficial opening of the “season” for the charter fleet. Warmer weather and the usual abundance of yellowfin tuna in the Gulf Stream beckon anglers who have been penned up all winter. The star catch this time of year is yellowfin tuna, although other fish are taking the baits, including blackfin tuna. Both can be used the same way. And your fresh catch can be enjoyed through the year by canning it, which is not too difficult. Read more |
 Island
Cooking: Hatteras Island Cancer Foundation has an updated edition of
its popular cookbookThe seasonal change to fall prompted columnist Lynne Foster to yearn for comfort food, the meals that the whole family shared around the dinner table every night. So she planned a fall menu around some of the recipes in the Hatteras Island Cancer Foundation’s recently released second edition of “Seasonings,” its popular cookbook. Read More |
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 Soundside Shuttle offers an
alternative to waiting in line for the Ocracoke ferryLast week, writer Jordan Tomberlin had a new experience traveling to Ocracoke, one of her favorite places to visit, especially for Thai food. Instead of waiting in the stacking lanes at the ferry, she boarded the Soundside Shuttle, captained by Will Whitley of Hatteras, and joined a family also looking for a different visiting Ocracoke experience. They slipped down Ocracoke Island, traveling in the Pamlico Sound on the backside between the barrier island and the reef. Read More |
 The
new Jennette’s Pier in Nag’s Head offers summer programs for the whole
familyJennette’s Pier has been a favorite of families and fishermen for decades. The pier was built in 1939 and was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. It was rebuilt by the state of North Carolina and re-opened on May 21. The pier offers fishing, of course, but also a swimming beach with bathhouse, educational programs for the entire family, aquarium exhibits, refreshments, and a gift shop. This summer, the pier has a full program of fun and educational opportunities. There are fees for all of the programs. Read More |
 ‘The Lost
Colony is
the nation’s oldest outdoor symphonic drama about the nation’s oldest
mysteryGoing to the see “The Lost Colony” production is a multi-dimensional experience, and as loyal local regulars can testify, every season is a little different, every show is a little different, every night is different from the one before. The nation’s longest-running outdoor symphonic drama, a story of human ambition, fortitude, and love told in a meld of song, dance, violence, and laughter, is made all the more compelling because it is rooted in true history that took place --- more or less ---right where the audience sits. Read more |
 Shipwreck
museum
building almost finished, new artifacts comingAfter 12 years of spasmodic progress and fiscal near-death experiences, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras village might actually be completed before summer. That is, construction of the building, barring another setback, will finally be done. Exhibits will still take another four years or so to complete. The museum, which is free and open to the public, is also expecting some new shipwreck artifacts. Read more |
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 Beachgoers
rescue stranded dolphin on Thanksgiving Day…WITH VIDEOFrank Jakob of Salvo was fishing on the beach in the tri-villages about mid-afternoon on Thanksgiving Day when he came across a group of beachgoers trying to help a stranded dolphin back into the water. Jakob notified the authorities, and then he grabbed his camera to film the effort to save the dolphin. Read More |
 North
Carolina’s loggerhead sea turtles will not be listed as endangeredLoggerhead sea turtles that spend at least part of their lives off the coast of North Carolina have been maintained as threatened on the federal Endangered Species Act list, unlike their U.S. Pacific Coast counterparts which are now listed as endangered. The final rule issued last week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration changed the ESA listing for loggerheads from a single threatened species into nine distinct population segments. Of them, the Northwest Atlantic population --- those found on North Carolina beaches --- and the Southeast Indo-Pacific population were not uplisted. Read More |
 Students
learn a lesson outside the classroom as they help restore Durant’s PointAny Hatteras local can tell you the importance of Hatteras Harbor. It’s the lifeblood of a community, both culturally and economically, and not having it would stifle one of the most popular and productive charter and commercial fishing fleets in the state. With that in mind, students from Cape Hatteras Secondary School of Coastal Studies, in partnership with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, took a big step last week toward protecting and preserving that invaluable island resource. Read More |
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Walking Ocracoke’s beach with Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau, the American author, poet, naturalist, and philosopher, made four trips to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, between 1849 and 1857. He published the compilation of those trips in 1865 in a single book, “Cape Cod.” Pat Garber, an Ocracoke author and naturalist and Thoreau admirer, walked the length of Ocracoke Island – from the North Point to the South Point – this winter. She compares her own experiences to those of Thoreau in a four-part series, “Walking Ocracoke’s beach with Henry David Thoreau,” that will be published weekly in The Island Free Press this spring. The series is illustrated with Garber’s own sketches and sketches by Henry Bugbee Kane in a later edition of “Cape Cod.” Click
here to read Part 1. |
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 'Cape
Hatteras Boy' looks back on the Banks in the 1940s"Hi. Wally Haywood." Those words of greeting in a recent afternoon telephone call capped a week-long search for information on the whereabouts of Wallace Royce Haywood, who appeared on the cover of the June 16, 1947 issue of Life Magazine. Haywood was photographed sitting bare-footed on a dredge pipe in Avon. The caption read, "Hatteras boy scans sea from drainpipe. Wallace Royce Haywood, the Hatteras boy who this week appears on Life's cover and also on page 133, is the 6-year-old son, grandson and great-grandson of Hatteras fishermen. He lives in Avon, a tiny Hatteras Island town of 550 people that is 10 miles north of the perilous cape. Born virtually within the shadow of the famous Hatteras Light, Wallace was watching the launching of a new boat when Photographer Kosti Ruohomaa found him. To a little boy reared on desolate, nautical Hatteras, that launching was a rare and exciting event." Read the story about the “Hatteras Boy” in the Outer Banks Sentinel. |
 Dig
for Civil War cannons at Hatteras Inlet ends in disappointmentThey had maps, ground-penetrating radar images, and historical accounts all pointing to two buried cannons where the Civil War battle at Fort Clark raged 150 years ago at Hatteras Inlet. Early Thursday, under the direction of Cape Hatteras National Seashore historian Doug Stover and assisted by Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum executive director Joseph Schwarzer, Hatteras Island residents Danny Couch and Mel Covey joined an effort to recover the historic cannons in time to mark the sesquicentennial of the battle later this month. Read More |
 NOAA and
partners continue documenting ‘Battle of the Atlantic’ wrecks….WITH
SLIDE SHOWThis is the fourth summer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s investigative project, “Battle of the Atlantic,” to explore this and several other wrecks of ships sunk during World War II off the North Carolina coast, and this is the most ambitious of the expeditions to date, noted David W. Alberg, superintendent of the USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. A team of more than 30 archaeologists, divers, technicians, crew, and videographers from various private and governmental organizations, have been on Ocracoke since June 1, using hundreds of pounds of state-of-the-art sonar and video equipment to document several wrecks and locate two others in the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Read More |
 Restoring
the Blanche, a traditional Ocracoke fishing boatSeventy-five years ago an Ocracoke fisherman, Stacy Howard, commissioned a master boatbuilder, Tom 'Neal, to begin building him a fine new fishing boat. The work was finished by another island boat-builder, Homer Howard, who added a rounded cabin near the prow. Proud of his well-designed craft--a traditional “deadriser,” Stacy Howard gave it the name of his teen-age daughter, Blanche. This past spring the Blanche, now belonging to the Ocracoke Preservation Society, was once more the object of much sawing and hammering, as boatbuilders and volunteers set out to restore her to her former glory. Read More |
 The ‘old
Hatteras’ in
photographsAn Island Free Press reader who is a regular visitor to Hatteras Island and whose father and grandfather have visited here since 1953, shares some very old family photos of Hatteras village and Buxton an extraordinary view from the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. ....Read more |
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