It seems like I hardly have time to record what is happening these days.

I knew I was in trouble when I started seeing the signs for the area’s famous Bogue Sound Watermelons.

We have been enjoying tomatoes since June 1 and local corn since the first part of July, but watermelons are a sign that cannot be ignored.

When the watermelons come in, you know that the end of summer cannot be far away.

I wrote some Canadian friends and told them we were just sitting around waiting for the sweet potatoes to come in and the snow to start flying. I was trying to make them feel better since they have been fogged in for several days.

Obviously we will be waiting a long time for the snow to start flying. I have not seen any in my two years here.

Unfortunately I haven’t had time to be sitting around either.

I think part of my problem is that I am not as young as I used to be and that I am getting more physical exercise which means I have to call it quits usually by 11:30 pm.

There was a time when I could write until one in the morning and get up at six with no real problems.

Maybe living at the beach has made me appreciate sleep more and consequently need more sleep to function properly.

Today with the morning devoted to mowing and triming our yard, I barely had time to finish my real estate work in the afternoon. By the time I helped cook and clean up dinner, there isn’t a lot of time left for writing tonight.

In the mornings I have taken to riding my bike whenever the humidity isn’t oppressive. That takes up another half an hour.

All in all I am sorry that I’m not posting as much as I did last summer, but at least I have taken the time to stop and taste those Bogue Sound Watermellons.

Tonight’s seedless edition was delicious and nearly perfect.

Tags: Local produce

Summer is slipping by us very quickly.

It seems like June 1 was just the other day. Now July 4 is on the horizon.

So far it has been a great summer with only a week of really hot, humid temperatures. I ended up swimming in the ocean four times that week.

Ocean water is the best cure for heat in my book.

It must be true that time acclerates as you get older. I try to seize every day, but getting up very early and working hard sometimes requires a catch-up nap.

On Sunday afternoon after church and a quick lunch, I had to pull four hours of duty at our Cape Carteret real estate office. When I got home a little after five pm, it was the end to a very busy week.

This past week, I went fishing twice when we were on the water at close to 6 am.

One day we fished until 11:30 am when I stepped off the skiff while the lift was still rising.

I ran in, showered, shaved, changed, and gathered all my real estate stuff together, and met the family for lunch at Fairway at 12:10 pm.

They had already ordered my food. There nothing like knowing the specials menu by heart to get speedy service.

I finished eating by 12:40 pm and drove to the office where my clients pulled up just as I was getting out of the truck at 12:45 pm. They were fifteen minutes early. I felt lucky to have managed to get there when I did.

About an hour and one half later I was waiting for an offer to be picked up.

That night after a Chamber of Commerce reception I got a call from the seller’s agent. The sellers had countered with their bottomline. I called my buyers, and they accepted.

It was a nice change to find buyers and sellers on the same wavelength.

After all that we came home, and I cleaned the fish we had caught the previous morning.

Of course by then it was after ten pm, and a little late to start scrubbing the boat.

Saturday morning I managed to clean the worst of the dirt off our skiff before our much needed rains came. I even got the the tomatoes gathered.

Saturday afternoon the long week caught up with me. The after lunch nap of ten minutes turned into a snooze of two hours. I was dead to the world.

In the evening I managed to crank out an update to CoastalNC.org, a slide show of our trip down Hammocks Beach and one of our trip out the White Oak to Bogue Inlet one morning when there weren’t even any ripples.

By the time I got to the third slide show, one of the Arts Festival in Swansboro, I didn’t have the energy to do captions.

By the time you throw in some biking, swimming, kayaking, and beach walking, it is no wonder I sleep well at night.

Perhaps I should check those two posts, Technology cannot replace common sense and The great coastal tomato crop, that I wrote Saturday and Sunday, I am pretty sure I still have keyboard imprints on my face.

We were all hoping that it did not take as long to open the Cape Carteret Walgreens as it did the one in Swansboro.

Fortunately that turned out to be case. It quietly opened around May 21.

It certainly is nice to have a drug store right in Cape Carteret. It's a good gas saving measure.

The holiday passed without too much excitement unless you tried to go buy groceries.

We made the mistake of going to the Emerald Isle Food Lion last Thursday morning. It was like Thanksgiving.

After that we stay away from the island until about 4 pm each day.

We did get over to the Sweet Spot, our favorite ice shop, on Memorial Day evening.

The ladies said that the day had been busy. We got to see their ice sculpture before it melted away.

Of course we also enjoyed some great ice cream.

From all indications the Memorial Day weekend was a very successful kick off to the tourist season.

We managed some boating, a few beach walks, and a trip to Morehead City and Beaufort (pardon the cat, tomato, random shots of things of interest only to me.)

I can even take the sprinkles of rain that we are getting today, since the forecast looks pretty good for the next couple of weeks.

I keep the beach pictures close to my heart so a little rain isn't going to bother me.

Tags: Cape Carteret

I have been patiently waiting for the season to come.

The last couple of weeks have finally brought some shrimp relief.

The shrimping boats are bringing in local shrimp and other assorted delicious seafood.

Today we actually saw one on our walk down the beach at Emerald Isle.

We have enjoyed a couple batches of fresh local shrimp recently. We did one our normal way of creating perfect shrimp, and I grilled one batch.

Both were excellent and confirmed my belief that there are no better shrimp than the ones that come from NC.

The weather is approaching perfection. We just need for the winds to drop a little more and everything will be right with the world.

I finally got time to stick my GPS back on the boat so today we headed down the White Oak and went out Bogue Inlet to the Point. It was good to be back out in the water.

I posted a set of slides of the trip from Swansboro up the ICW and out Bogue Inlet.

I will do a more exhaustive job of taking pictures the next time. I was busy piloting the skiff today

You have to watch where you are going with boats getting stuck near the ICW.

Tags: Seafood