The new normal: Where we can drive and where we cannot

My son was here this past weekend to help me with cataract surgery.  On Saturday, the day after the surgery, the day was sunny and unseasonably warm, so we took a late afternoon drive on the beach.

We made our last trip by vehicle from Ramp 49 in Frisco to Cape Point.

It’s a favorite beach “tour” for many islanders and visitors.  It’s about 5 miles from Ramp 49 to Ramp 44 north of Cape Point.  As usual, we stopped along the way to get out and walk, do some shelling, watch the dolphins frolicking in the breakers and the birds that were everywhere.

We got to the Point just about sunset and watched the sun sink into the western horizon and the sky turn bright colors of pink and orange.

The seashore’s off-road vehicle rule is now final

The National Park Service today released to the public the final off-road vehicle rule for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The rule will be published Monday, Jan. 23, in the Federal Register and will become effective on Wednesday, Feb. 15.

The long-awaited, much anticipated, and hotly debated final ORV rule had no surprises or significant changes from the proposed regulation, released for public comment last July.

The final rule established permits for ORV use on the beaches, but it doesn’t address – and wasn’t expected to include – the information that the public is anxiously waiting for – the cost of the annual or weekly permits.

We are not alone

“When I first started the Traveler back in '05,” he wrote, “I never expected some stories about the National Park System to be so controversial.”

“Who thought the snowmobile issue in Yellowstone National Park would still be slogging on, a decade and more than $10 million since it first arose back in 2000? And would anyone think that some birds and turtles would be such a hot-button topic at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.”

Repanshek went on to write that he figured writing about national parks would be “relatively safe, a continuing series of feel-good stories about some of the most gorgeous and interesting (culturally and historically) places in America.”

“But instead it seems there is controversy (not to mention firebrand politics!) lurking in every nook and cranny of the park system,” he says and asks readers why they think that is the case.

Controversy and politics are issues we’ve become increasingly familiar with here at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore as the effort to formulate an off-road vehicle management plan has dragged on and on for decades.

Happy New Year – we hope

Island Free Press photographer Don Bowers did a great job of looking back on 2011 in his photos.  

You can find his essay and slide show, “2011: The photos of the year,” on the Features Page.

He is correct that 2011 will be defined by Hurricane Irene, which came ashore south of Hatteras and Ocracoke on Aug. 27, 2011 and beat up the islands for almost a full day.

Storm surge from the Pamlico Sound brought serious damage and destruction to the villages of Avon, Rodanthe, Waves, and Salvo. Many islanders lost their homes and possessions.

Two inlets cut by the hurricane, one in north Rodanthe and one on Pea Island, severed Highway 12.  For six weeks, residents were dependent on emergency ferries from Rodanthe to Stumpy Point.  And for the first few weeks that visitors were allowed on the island, they had to come from the mainland by ferry to Ocracoke and then take a ferry to Hatteras, where only the southern villages were open to tourists.

Many more islanders lost their jobs and incomes just before the important Labor Day holiday.  Many businesses were closed for weeks, and many others just did not reopen.  Some will reopen in the spring, but some probably will not.

Merry Christmas from the Island Free Press

Never a Christmas morning,
Never an old year ends,
But somebody thinks of someone;
Old days, old times, old friends
--Author Unknown

 This was one of my mother’s favorite Christmas sayings, and it was printed on several of our family Christmas cards when I was growing up.

It came back to me as I was contemplating the topic for my blog this week.

The blog I posted last week, “Come the new year, we will pay to drive on the beach,” has certainly gotten attention and many comments from readers.

Frankly, I am surprised by the number of folks out there who didn’t see paying for a permit to drive on the beach in our immediate future. I – and other local reporters – have been writing about it for quite a long time.

Come the new year, we will pay to drive on the beach

Anyone who has followed the National Park Service’s efforts to formulate an off-road vehicle plan for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore knows that far-reaching changes to the traditional use of our beaches are coming.

They are changes that will affect the culture and the economy of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.

It’s also been apparent for at least the last decade that one of the biggest of those changes will be the requirement that we buy a permit to drive on the beach.

However, these changes have always been out there somewhere on the horizon, down the road, as the rulemaking effort proceeded in stops and starts and stalls along the way.

Now we are about to reach the end of the road, and the changes are just around the corner.

Why we need the Hatteras Island Ocean Center

Several weeks ago, I wrote an article about a part-time Hatteras Island resident and his plan for a fishing pier and ocean center in Hatteras village.

Eric Kaplan of Charlottesville, Va., who also has a home in Frisco, is the man with the vision for the Hatteras Island Ocean Center.

Kaplan’s idea is that the Ocean Center will be an island-wide attraction, a place where locals and visitors can go not only for the fishing but also for other forms of recreation, education, dining, and shopping.

In his description of the project, Kaplan says the Hatteras Island Ocean Center would be “much more than a replacement for the Frisco Pier,” which is in poor condition and has not been open for several years.

It will be, he says, “a place for everybody to enjoy the ocean, play, learn, and have fun.”

Don’t expect a final ORV rule from the Park Service this year

The National Park Service has pushed back its target date to implement a final special regulation for off-road vehicles on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until Feb. 15.

The date has been pushed back numerous times as the Park Service, local governments, pro-access groups, islanders, and visitors try to come to terms with the contentious issue of regulating ORV use on the beaches.

The latest delay of the final rule barely caused a ripple on the Outer Banks, where folks are looking at increasingly limited use of the seashore beaches and the economic consequences that will follow.

We are grateful

If you eavesdrop on conversations among Hatteras and Ocracoke islanders, you will hear some variation of the question, “How did it get to be the holidays already?”

It seems as if one day we were in the homestretch of a hot, steamy summer, and now Thanksgiving is tomorrow with a plethora of holiday events just around the corner.

It’s been something of a time warp for islanders since Hurricane Irene on Aug. 27.

The storm’s aftermath so consumed our lives that it seems to many of us that we had no autumn.  September and October, for sure, were just a blur in our minds.

Hurricane Irene survey, Part 4: Visitors were unhappy with Dare’s re-entry policy

The fourth part of our report on The Island Free Press Survey:  Hurricane Irene Response focuses on visitors to Hatteras and Ocracoke.

Some 623 of them took the time to fill out the survey and to send us their comments – 39 pages of their comments can be read by clicking on the link at the end of this report.