 Visitors to this eastern part of the state usually
approach from the west, and as they round the curve
to cross the county line, this is the kind of
vista that opens up. Salt marshes stretching for
long miles.
They look rather innocuous to the uncurious eye,
these areas with no trees, just water and marsh
grass. But they are teeming with life.
These ecosystems provide protection for small
sea-creatures who hatch and hide until they have
reached a more safely-adventurous size. Then they
might venture to the shallow waters that open into
the Albemarle or Pamlico Sounds, areas considered
to be marine nurseries.
|  This area of NC is very sparsely-populated, and local income is produced primarily through fishing and farming. This photograph shows a fishing trawler at sunset, a common view that I can see from my front window in the summer.
|  Here is another summer sunset picture over the water. The bays and rivers and sounds can be very placid, as seen here, but they can also be whipped into violence by storms and hurricanes.
In the summer of 1999, I watched a hurricane storm surge breach the bulkhead between me and the river. The water kept coming in waves and did not recede. Eventually it was 7 feet above sea-level, sloshing on the underside of my still-dry floor. It came no higher, and after the eye passed directly overhead, I watched the storm surge gradually recede, leaving debris and a few stranded crabs in standing pools of brackish water. I rescued them and put them back in the river.
|  Raw oysters. Some people call this delicacy "Carolina Sushi". For untold generations, people have eaten raw oysters and considered them to be delicious. My mother and all her siblings not only ate the raw oysters but also ingested the tiny crabs sometimes found hiding in them. I watched horror-stricken as they cheerfully munched away.
But not many people eat local oysters raw anymore. They're considered to be dangerous to eat because of pollution. People do, however, still fry them and roast them in the shell.
Despite pollution and overfishing for commercial reasons, the waters are usually filled with fish, crabs, jellyfish, sting rays, shrimp, squid, octopuses (from time to time), several kinds of snakes, including poisonous copperheads, water moccasins, and an occasional swimming diamond-backed rattler. I even see river otters frolicking out front from time to time. They live in the creek that flows behind my property.
Yesterday I frittered the afternoon away watching crabs in the water.
Right now, they're pretty small, the largest as wide as a forefinger is long, and they hang out in the shallow water by the edge. The water was crystal clear, so everything's really visible. It seems as though I've been gone quite a while and summer came sneaking in.
These crabs are the same sandy color as the bottom, though their claws have traces of orange/red and blue on them, which is more defined when they're bigger.
Crabs almost always move sideways, sometimes leisurely, sometimes fast. There are lots of fingerling fish in the water these spring days, small schools of them. The small crabs will scoot away from several small fish but will chase a single one. I guess one would make a good meal.
They're neat to watch bury themselves. With their fins or legs they rapidly scoop up the sand and then back into the depression, rather like sitting on a blanket and reaching behind you with both hands and pulling it up around yourself. They're always covered by the sand that they scoop out of the way. They leave their eye-stalks protruding above the sand, but you sure don't know they're there when they're buried. Unless you step on one. That'll give you the willies! You do the "I Stepped on a Crab Polka".
Crabs don't remind me of any other creature on earth.
Another reason it feels like summer is that the dragon-flies are everywhere. They love to hover over the water, and they have the most exquiste colors of any insect that I know. The ones I saw yesterday are sky-blue and an iridescent bottle-green. But the range of colors is enormous. I've seen pink and lavender ones, too. All kinds of color combinations. Some days I go bird-watching and watch dragon-flies, too. What a treat.
My cats found a huge flounder that had washed up on shore and immediately set to claiming it and squabbling over it for lunch. It was much larger than one cat, but that did NOT prevent them from dragging it all over the yard with much growling and hissing at each other. Time to go fishing, I think.
While I was away, I realized that I love the "look" of area fishermen and other watermen, sunburned, tired, dirty clothes. It seems like really honest work and those fishermen know things about nature that most other folks don't pay attention to. I am glad to be here by the water.
| |
Visitors to this eastern part of the state usually
approach from the west, and as they round the curve
to cross the county line, this is the kind of
vista that opens up. Salt marshes stretching for
long miles.
This area of NC is very sparsely-populated, and local income is produced primarily through fishing and farming. This photograph shows a fishing trawler at sunset, a common view that I can see from my front window in the summer. 
Here is another summer sunset picture over the water. The bays and rivers and sounds can be very placid, as seen here, but they can also be whipped into violence by storms and hurricanes.
Raw oysters. Some people call this delicacy "Carolina Sushi". For untold generations, people have eaten raw oysters and considered them to be delicious. My mother and all her siblings not only ate the raw oysters but also ingested the tiny crabs sometimes found hiding in them. I watched horror-stricken as they cheerfully munched away.