There has been some nice weather. But warm days have been elusive enough to make beach season seem out of reach.
Fortunately in the last few days I have seen enough signs of spring heading towards summer, that I can safely talk about this season.
I am happy because dreams of summers past can only sustain beach lovers for so long.
By trade, I am a writer, photographer, technology consultant and sometimes a Realtor® when I happen to connect with someone who wants a piece of this paradise that my wife and I call home.
We live in a small subdivision called Bluewater Cove in western Carteret County on the shores of the White Oak River. For us it is a great place. I can slide my kayak into the water and be in the middle of the White Oak in less than ten minutes. Or I can drop our skiff in the water and take the same ten minutes to reach the Intracoastal Waterway at Swansboro.
We can also hop in the car and be walking the beaches of Emerald Isle in ten minutes. Sometimes we have a tough choice deciding what to do.
From spring through late fall, I try to update this site twice a month. You will often find links to the Crystal Coast website where I sometimes post daily during the summer months.
I also write several posts each month for the Crystal Coast Living Blog.
I love the area. I have been coming here since I was in diapers, and they did not have pampers when I was little. Living here is a dream that I am grateful to be able to fulfill.
As someone striving to be a good writer, I try to be objective, but it is hard not to see the world filtered through your life experiences. If you want to know what some of those experiences are, you can read more at my homepage or browse the nearly fifteen hundred posts that are on my View from the Mountain blog.
I started writing View from the Mountain almost six years ago. It has content about life in Roanoke, Va, our life on the farm in Canada, and here on the North Carolina coast.
While I am a Realtor®, I am not interested in persuading anyone to live here that does not want to be here.
In fact unless you really want to live here, you might have a hard time getting me to help you find a place.
I have a high opinion of the area. If you want to live where you can enjoy the water and have a taste of the four seasons without shoveling snow, this is a hard place to beat.
If you want lots of shows, shopping, high rise condos, and more golf courses than you can count, head on down to Myrtle Beach.
NIghtlife here is mostly walking the beach in the evening.
I try to provide interesting items which might not be available in other spots. I often mount a camera on the center console of our skiff and record our boating adventures. We just did a checkout run down the White Oak to make sure everything was in order for the new boating season. This is a link to a Google Earth version of the trip. If you click on the 3D image on the right, you will get to see a neat map of the marked boat channel in the White Oak.
I love to fish, boat, kayak, and walk the beaches. Much of the content will be focused on those activities. However, I try to take in as many events as possible.
We have enjoyed visits to the PKS Aquarium, the Maritime Museum, the History Place, and the Core Sound Museum.
I also enjoy gardening. I am looking forward to having tomatoes before my 2009 crop which came in on on June 5.
There is a lot to look forward to this summer, including wonderful Bogue Sound watermelons. The fresh local strawberries are just starting, and it will not be long before wonderful local corn ripens in late June.
We will make many trips to the Winberry Produce Stand, and a lot of shrimp will be peeled, cooked, and eaten before the beach season ends in December.
We have not made it to see the flowers at Tryon Palace this year, but last year’s photos will keep our memories fresh.
I am looking forward to a great summer with plenty of time to make some more memories before the year ends. The Crystal Coast is definitely the place to create wonderful family memories.
I look forward to being your personal guide to the Crystal Coast in 2010. Welcome aboard.
Why we love it here?
It is hard to say that any place is perfect. There always a balance between what you like and what you don't like. That also changes as you age. At one time I was close to homesteading in Newfoundland.
Today I would steer you to my articles, Ten ways Carteret County met our needs, Why I love living in Carteret County, and to the Crystal Coast Electronic Village Homepage as answers to why we have chosen this area.
From that reading it is easy to understand why we enjoy living in a small subdivision called Bluewater Cove near Cape Carteret. It is what we were looking for in a place to live. It's close to services and close to the beach but not on the beach. We have a dock behind the house and are close to some great trails. I can ride my bike in the neighborhood and not face a lot of traffic.
I also use my kayak on the White Oak River and have learned to love exploring the river and surrounding waters with our skiff.
This area also has some great festivals like the Newport Pig Cookoff, the Emerald Isle Saint Patrick's Day, and the Swansboro Oyster Roast. We were also impressed with the Emerald Isle Christmas Parade.
It is a friendly area with a great future. So right now it is the spot for us. I often write about the area in my other websites. If you are a very avid reader, you might find some content on multiple sites, but usually the content is fairly specific to the sites.
These are additional sites not mentioned in the above post.
Ocracoke Waves
Crystal Coast Blog 09
Crystal Coast Blog 08
Some archived articles