A fun Outer Banks retreat.
The owner shares some beach experiences.

Monday, September 12, 2011

After Irene

Authorities allowed property owners onto the island starting September 10th.  Remember the storm hit around August 28th.  Access was via an emergency ferry from Stumpy Point, a 2  hour ride.  I headed down on September 11th and arrived at the ferry just after sunset.  My ride experience to the island was great. Only an 8 minute wait and then a beautiful ferry ride across Pamlico Sound.  There was a full moon shining off of the undulating water driven by a balmy breeze.

Once on the island I delivered some tools to my neighbor who owns a house in Rodanthe.  After a soda and some chatting I headed down to Avon.  The house looked great. Just a little muddy residue on the concrete.  The interior was perfect.

On Monday I picked up my new SUP from Wind -NC.  It was a free replacement of my broken board.I took it to Avon pier and although choppy in-shore breeze I caught a wave on my first try.  Out the back again I saw a weird patch of water on the outside and realized it was water churning due to a school of fish being agitated.  Not wanting to meet the agitator I took the next wave into the beach and headed to Frisco after visiting Andy and getting some loop tips.  At Frisco I caught one wave paddling but it was choppy and surf was poor.  I put up a sail and had a fun hour sailing back and forth.  Then headed up to Rodanthe near sunset to check out damage.  Visited Rod, who invited me to dinner.

Pretty empty beaches

Tuesday
A pretty fun southside SUP session.  Moderate surf with some fun rides.  Dave joined me to try his first ocean SUP session.  With a huge "lounge" and mostly waist high surf, I thought it would be a good first day.  However when Dave showed up some larger sets started coming in increasing the shore break.  There was also an onshore breeze making the water slightly choppy and making it harder to get out.  Unfortunately Dave didn't make it out.  It was a pretty rough day to start ocean SUPing.  SUPs are pretty hard to handle in shore break.  I recommend getting very deep, holding the board near the nose with it trailing behind you before climbing on.  Then get to your knees and give several strong strokes to get past that impact zone near the shore.

Wednesday
Surfed the cove with a local fellow.  The cove has a really unique wave wrap and from the perspective of standing near the point, the waves go down the beach rather than into it.  Saw a couple dolphins and a big game fish jumping.  That one kind of creeped me out as I wondered what may have been chasing it.  The waves looked beautiful, peeling lefts.  Catching them was much harder tha I thought it would be.  Although some were head high when jacked up, they broke very gently.  I found myself stepping on the tail too early or too agressively to avoid a pearl and then losing the wave.  I finally figured that out and stayed forward on the board longer which resulted in some successful rides.

Driving to the cove

Thursday
Awesome cove surfing and then I saw at the same time: the rising sun, the setting full moon, a water spout, a double rainbow, and dolphins jumping out of the swells!
Heading back home!