Lake Waccamaw, NC

Lake Waccamaw is situated about 37 miles north of Shallotte.  In college, while working toward my degree in marine biology, we took a field trip there for my ecology class, drawn by its unique properties.  I've always remembered that as a fun day, stopping in a long leaf pine forest along the way to see spittle bugs and Venus Flytraps, which are only found natively in the this area.  Later, as we neared Lake Waccamaw, small gators lazed by the side of the road, unperturbed by our bus as we trundled by.  I didn't wear a bathing suit that day, so couldn't go swimming, but I remember wading around near the dock, where we stopped to picnic and gather water samples - to study the unique neutrality of the water - and pestering the small snails littering the sandy bottom.  The water was warm, like bathwater, largely due to the shallowness of the entire lake, which is only 11 feet at its deepest.  It was a nice day.  My favorite kind of day, mucking about in water under a warm sun.


I've always wanted to return to Lake Waccamaw and, nearly twenty years later, I finally did recently with Brian and my aunt Kay.  Kay had recently visited the lake with my parental units and became enamored with the idea of a bike ride through its lovely neighborhoods.  Brian and I love to bike too and were equally eager to see Lake Waccamaw, so we loaded up our bikes and made the 45 minute trek with a stop along the way to enjoy an old-fashioned general store, complete with Red Rider wagons and washboards and tubs, alongside such modern amenities as Gorilla tape.  


I watched for gators as we neared the entrance to the Lake Waccamaw State Park, especially in areas where brown, swampish water ran alongside, but the mostly grassy roadside remained empty.  After checking out the visitor's center we wandered down one of the trails and had a picnic lunch near the water, surrounded by signs telling us all about the alligators found in the area.  But the alligators were AWOL.  Then we took a walk down another part of the trail.  Kay, who is taking a plant identification course at Brunswick Community College, stopped to examine plants along the way, peppering us with Latin names.  It was like being back in college, except I'm not the one that has to take the test this time.  After a while, Kay and I began to get bored, since the promised "sandy beaches" weren't appearing and we were mostly seeing the same stuff over and over again, including swarms of gnat type things that buzzed around our heads, then Brian stopped in front of us, peering intently at a pile of leaves at the base of a tree.  Turns out he wasn't staring at the leaves so much as this fella, hiding among the leaves:

He was very pretty and we speculated that it might be a type of rattlesnake but the head wasn't triangular.  Its tail was hidden in the leaves so there was no hint there.  It mostly sat stock still, clearly as nervous about us as we were about it - well, except for maybe Kay - until Brian got a little too close with a small branch and then, rather than getting aggressive, it slithered away around the tree, vibrating its rattleless tail against the leaves as it went.  While Brian and I admired him, photographed him, and speculated about his identification, Kay burned a path back up the trail.  After we caught up with her we returned to the visitor's center, where a friendly park ranger showed us some pictures and we identified our fetching little friend as a copperhead.


We decided we were done with the trails for the day and canvassed the nearby neighborhood for a place to park and ride our bikes.  The street follows the shoreline of the lake, which is a lovely ocean blue, so we spent a splendid while pedaling, about 10 miles, admiring the scenery. There was water on the other side of the street as well.  Green, murky looking water.  Water like an alligator might like.  We kept our eyes peeled once again for anything leathery and primeval, or big, black eyeballs peeping out of the emerald muck.  And, finally, our efforts were rewarded when we spied this fine specimen:

Seems like some Lake Waccamaw citizens don't want alligator-seeking visitors to be disappointed.


After we loaded the bikes back into the truck Brian drove us to the Lake Waccamaw Sailing Club where a pale moon hung over the water and small boats.  All in all, a lovely return to Lake Waccamaw.  It certainly didn't disappoint me after all this time.

The lovely Lake Waccamaw

My lovely Aunt Kay

The shell seekers

We've been spending a lot of time collecting shells lately.  Brian has an especially good eye and his OCD - I mean, his excellent attention to detail - means he scours every inch of every pile of shells finding the good ones.  We've been experimenting with making jewelry from them for the fun of it, a previously obsessive hobby I haven't had the energy to pursue in a long time, and add to our collection every time we go to the beach.  It's starting to get a little out of hand but we seem helpless to stop.

It was a beautiful North Carolina coastal day yesterday and, foiled in a task we were trying to finish, we decided to go to Holden Beach, which is only minutes from the trailer.  We had lunch at Castaways, which was much more deserted than its typical summer crowds, then went shell hunting.  I finally remembered to bring a bag this time, instead of us stuffing them, wet and sandy, into our pockets.  I walked proudly with my grocery bag until I glanced up from my "Sanibel stoop" once and realized that we were sharing the beach with apparent professionals.  We were constantly surrounded by folks carrying mesh bags and scoops, small rakes and, in the case of one couple, what looked like ski poles.  The use of the mesh bags and rakes was fairly self-evident.  The ski poles still have me a little perplexed.  Maybe they thought the dunes would be larger.

One shell seeker walked up to us, her eyes on the sand as she inquired, "Was that an olive you found?"  Perplexed, we asked her to repeat herself, certain we had misheard. She glanced up but continued to scour the beach around us, her mesh bag dangling from one hand.  "Did you find an olive?"  she said, in an authoritative tone.  We were still confused, since we were pretty sure we had never found any kind of olive on a beach.  Then she explained that one of the shells we were finding was called an olive shell.  Ohhhhhhhh.  Brian is especially good at spotting what we learned from this helpful shell seeker is called a Lettered Olive Shell.  They practically jump into his hands and some specimens are so pretty they look like something you might pay good money for in one of the souvenir beach shops.  

The Lettered Olives are a favorite but I think my absolute favorite are the shells of the Moon Snail because the colors are so gorgeous.  Rich browns and soft pinks and yellows swirl into a central point that has earned it the nickname of the "shark's eye" shell, according to our shell seekers.

We've also been collecting copper wire from the scraps left by the electrician working on the construction of my aunt's house next door.  Brian recently bought me a tool set at Harbor Freight that we've been playing with too.  So we're both spending a lot of time learning to bend copper wire into pretty designs, grinding shell pieces into interesting shapes, and drilling holes into the tough calcium carbonate of the shells.

Today a cold front is moving in, and the temperatures are dipping from our beloved 80's to the 70's, and the plan is to get some more work done on the boat.

Don't let the bedbugs bite

"It's in the bed!  It's in the bed!"

On September 30th I ended 9 years of working at the University of Virginia as a librarian and the next day I ended a decade of living in Charlottesville, VA, when we finally made our move to Shallotte, NC, to begin work on the boat in earnest.  Jimmy Buffett says "I'm just glad I don't live in a trailer," but we're quite satisfied living in an old trailer when it's only minutes from the boat and the beach.

We've been here nearly two weeks now and have been greeted by numerous Palmetto Bugs, which is one of the few things I haven't missed about living on the coast.  If you haven't had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with these insects just picture a roach about the size of a VW Beetle.  At first we just saw them skittering across the floor occasionally when we turned the lights on, but then one night I walked into the bedroom to find one staring defiantly at me from my nightstand.  A few nights later I discovered another one on my nightstand - this one floating in my drink.  So much for keeping a glass of juice by the bed for a middle of the night thirst.  Then, horror of all horrors, a night or two later I pulled back the covers to find one crawling across the bed.  "It's in the bed!  It's in the bed!" I shrieked at Brian, who was a good man and despatched it with haste.  The battle of the bugs continues as we search for a nice, poisonous hotel for them to occupy instead of our bed.

In the meantime, work on the boat has progressed slowly as we have settled into this new life and routine.  The weather teased us by being unseasonably cool when we first arrived but we have been treated to sunny days and temperatures in the 80's recently.  We finally made it to the beach and yesterday we spent several hours on the boat.  Brian repaired the hatch in the main berth, which had two broken hinges and one or two leaks.  We removed the old, crumbly foam mattress that we think may have been original to the boat and I started cleaning many years worth of grime from our berth.

The cleaning continues and also the planning for the electrical system and for our new (used) watermaker and autopilot, which Brian got super good deals on through Craigslist and eBay.

Photos to come soon.