Topsail Island: A Photo Essay

categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside

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Orrin Pilkey and Me on Topsail by Coke Whitworth

After Irene passed through on Saturday I went out to Topsail Island.  I blogged about it in a piece called “Believe The (Long-Term) Hype”  for the Natural Resources Defense Council (and you can read that blog here.  )

In the meantime I thought I’d post a couple of pictures from Saturday’s adventure. As I wrote in the piece, some of Topsail’s homes are so close to the water that they seem like they are being offered up to Poseidon, but Irene did relatively little harm. There was the usual street flooding, and the fairly feeble north-end berm had been eaten away some more, but we were not treated to the floating houses that have made this island such a dramatic player in earlier hurricane narratives. In fact, the main damage we witnessed was to gas stations, specifically to the metal awnings of gas stations. Before we even got to Continue reading →

Gold

categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside

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There it is, the first fiery leaf at the edge of the forest, and only mid-August. And now that I’m looking, I spy several distinctly yellowing popple trees off in the distance, and a shade of purple taking over some of the grand ashes spotted through the canopy. The broken old box elders in the shedyard are all but bare. I tell myself these are stressed trees, not harbingers. But the field weeds are dying back, too, really only the golden rod in its glory, not even any monarch  butterflies unfolding and drying their wings out of chrysalis: frost in Mexico three winters ago, and recovery uncertain. Continue reading →

The Perils of Irene: Will the Shack Survive?

categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside

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The question on everyone’s mind this morning–the one that Jim Cantore has already asked in stentorian tones on the weather channel and that has Mr. Obama making a frowny face up on the Vineyard–is will the shack survive? 

“We don’t really care about Gessner’s house,” said a local official who refused to be named.  “We don’t even really care that much about his life.  But that shack is an important local landmark.  We will do everything we can to protect it.”

Some locals expressed anger toward the storm for seeming to make a beeline toward the famous writing shack.  “It’s like it has a vendetta,” said a guy in a hat.  Other locals, bitter folk, expressed resentment that so much media attention was being focused on an 8′ by 8′ plywood shed.  “Human lives are at stake here,” one woman whined. 

President Obama was said to be heard wondering if parts of My Green Manifesto were written in the shack.  Secret Servicmen assured him it was not, but, coincidence or not, soon after The President issued a state of emergency for North Carolina.  Meanwhile, despite Governor Bev Perdue’s order to evacuate the shack, Gessner has stayed put.

“Fuck Ya,”he said.  I’m riding this one out.  I’m going down with the ship.”

Sadly, despite other conscientious preparations, including sending his wife and daughter inland to his sister’s house in Chapel Hill, he somehow managed to neglect that most vital of hurricane supplies–beer.  At his news conference this morning he admitted, to gasps from the crowd, that he only had three Ranger IPAs.  

Still, at the moment, Gessner, remains highly caffeinated and relatively happy.  In fact, he has decided to spend the morning writing and watching the wind build as birds shoot across the marsh.

“It’s peaceful,” Gessner said.  “Except for Cantore yakking away outside my screen door.”

A Moonlight Paddle

categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside

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After dinner last night I thought to take a break from the usual work session, picked up my canoe paddle and drove the three miles over to Drury Pond, which I usually visit in the afternoon for a swim.  Drury is big as beaver impoundments go, held in a natural bowl by very extensive and actually ancient log dams, likely maintained for millennia.  It’s not a quarter mile wide, and not a half mile long, with just a few active camps, as cabins are called around here, one of them owned by my fine friends Wes and Diane McNair. Continue reading →