Aground In Shallotte Inlet - The Truth Will Out

Well, now.  I was taught as a child that Truth is sacred, and in the end a much easier route than  supporting an Untruth.  Without further meandering, I want to report to all you mariners that Shallotte Inlet is, indeed, Marked.

And the explanation for the above picture is simply that my Husband was doodling around and not REALLY following the markers while traversing this historically shifty, tricky, inlet.


Although the US Coast Guard reported on August 16, 2011 that markers for Shallotte Inlet were either Missing, Off Station, or Adrift, Husband says they were in place on Sunday. 

The Truth has Outted, and I stand corrected.  Not grinning - corrected.

Sunday Afternoon - Aground in Shallotte Inlet, NC

All members of our family are acutely aware that navigating Shallotte Inlet, between Ocean Isle Beach and Holden Beach, is nothing short of tricky.  

Here's why:

In this aerial photo by Marinas.com, you can see the muddy area to the left...that is sand, even though there are waves that make it look like, well, WATER.   The deeper channel is clearly visible on the right (Holden Beach) side.

Because of the tides that rip through here, the sand shifts around like a living creature, piling up into bars and shoals that move around.  A lot.  Mainly because of this constant shifting, the Inlet isn't marked.


In April every year, all of us develop a heightened sense of alertness, with an ear tilted toward the inlet, because we know that visitors won't necessarily know to hug the Holden Beach side to avoid the hidden sandbars that lurk on the Ocean Isle side.  To run aground in the Shallotte Inlet on the wrong wind or sea, or with night approaching, can be deadly.

Soooo, when I got the call from Husband around 4:00 Sunday afternoon that he was aground in Shallotte Inlet, I jumped in the car and drove down there.  All photos from my Iphone...sorry for the quality, but you'll "get the picture"!


This is my first view when I emerged from the beach access path:

No boat.  But, the inlet beach is very long.  So, walk, walk, walk.

 

Aha!  There he is - the boat with the black bottom.  Looks like water under him, until you get closer...

The Ocean Isle Fishing Center World Cat is standing by, and a smaller boat that came to help is in the middle.  That's Husband STANDING in the inlet.  Know what I mean?  Standing in the inlet??

In the time it took me to walk around to the tip of the sandbar, the tide almost completely went out.  That fast!  You can see the waves out on the horizon, thankfully calm and a couple hundred yards away.  Those are what get you in trouble when you run aground in an inlet. 

Husband has just figured out that I am in the neighborhood, and taking his picture.  He yells out, "Little White Dove!  I'm  Running Bear!".  Stand-up comic, he is.

Nothing to do now but put the anchor out, abandon ship and wait for the tide to come in.

Walking where water was, only 15 minutes ago.

You can see from the shadows that night is fast approaching - the absolute worst time to be trying to maneuver a boat off a sandbar with the tide coming in behind you.   

The dogs are unconcerned, and wait with us for the incoming tide and son Barrett to come join the fray. 

Barrett arrives later in the evening, and deftly ushers Dad down the waterway in inky darkness.  Working together, they swiftly engineer the boat off the sandbar with the help of the incoming tide, retrieve the anchor, and head home.

Thankfully, all's well that ends well.  Lesson learned.  Hug the Holden Beach side of Shallotte Inlet.  

No harm to the boat or engines, just to my Husband's bruised ego.  As you might imagine.  But it could've been a lot worse.  Thanks again, good old Guardian Angel!

Snapping Turtles are All Gums!

We are now in Snapping Turtle Advanced Class.  And we have a News Flash.  They don't have teeth!

All these horror stories I've heard about how they will absolutely amputate your fingers if you get too close are now simply puzzling.  I've seen the lightening fast attack with that hooked beak, seen those jaws close like a vise...but there are no teeth!  So, how do they bite off your fingers???  Are their lips like a guillotine?

This is a close-up of yet another Snapping Turtle out of our pond, and look at that mouth.  Scary looking, but no teeth.  But we know they have eaten all the red meat we could throw at them.  Do they just clamp those jaws shut and Voila! cut the meat off?  Snap!  Zzzzttt!  Done.

Here's a shot of the enlarged team -  young son arrived to help out on this particular day.  He and Husband are teasing the above teenage turtle out of the pond...

I'm rather weary of seeing these prehistoric creatures in our yard...I read somewhere that the females lay about 20 eggs a year.  If these are the kids of the Original Pair, we are in for a long war.

I'm praying for cold weather and hibernation time.

Book Binding, Canvas Making, and Oyster Shucking

I've finally got this thing down.  Do it over and over, work out the kinks, get a recipe.  Go Dancing!

My handy little helper, (remember him?) The Cinch Binding Tool, is chugging along with me - not Dancing With The Stars, but he is keeping up!

I'm diving back into shows...I have a booth on October 1 at Sunset Beach, NC in the Sunset At Sunset Arts & Crafts Festival.  

And then, hang on to your britches, I'm about to send in my very late booth reservation for one of the final available booths at The 31st NC Oyster Festival!

See this Blue Arrow?  It's pointing at Husband's Hands...He WON the Oyster Shucking Contest Last Year!   That's his Special Shucking Glove - an old Penn International Reel Cover.

 Since I have to dance 24-7 to make the hundreds of Books, Journals, and Canvases for the shows, I've re-arranged the work table into stations.  Makes it much faster.  The biggest trick is to stay away from the computer, because the designs are just flowing out of my head now, and I want to get them all recorded.  Can't do that and make stuff too, though.  Balance.  Life is all about Balance.

Figuring out to the 1/16th of an inch where I need to cut and punch has really helped me settle in...once I really am In The Groove, I'll write all this down and do a tutorial.

The re-vamped Coral Bouquet Book, with page separators and tabs.

Close-up of Mr. Blowfish on Canvas and Books.

Now back to work I go!

i'm late, i'm late, for a very important date!

Fusion Food Paradise - Buford Hwy Farmer's Market

Sashimi - All that two people could possibly eat...$15.99.

Head's Up.  Man your chopsticks, and crank your stove.  I've discovered Food Nirvana, and it's at The Buford Hwy. Farmer's Market - a short drive from my Atlanta house!  Who knew?

Ikura like rubies - where's my spoon??

Carrots so fresh, you want to call up Bugs Bunny and tell him to Get Over Here!

All my photos were taken with my IPhone - Thanks, Steve Jobs!

Huge baskets of Turmeric.

Garlic Stems - or Garlic Scape...so bright green, so crisp.  Recipe below.

Garlic Scape Pesto - from Brooklyn Farmhouse

 Here's the Recipe from Brooklyn Farmhouse...you should go check out their website; it's chock full of good things:

Never have eaten one of these Cactus Pears, but now I'm looking for recipes.

Pompano?  Jack? Okay, it's fish.

Greek Eggplant...mountains of them.

A fish called Pomfret, farm raised in China.  Looks like Pompano.

Tiny little Pepper Jewels.  Can't you just see these poured inside tall glass vases on your table as a centerpiece?  

Sesame Leaves.  Stuff these with any meat mixture, roll up and grill or pan sear.  Serve the little bundles over rice.

Lotus Root - Peel, slice, soak in vinegar water.  Stir fry with sesame, scallion, ginger, garlic and soy sauce.  Yumm.

By now,  you should be drooling and adventurous enough to scamper off to your local market for some fresh stuff that you've never cooked before!  Get to cooking!

My Memories Free Software Winner!

All rightee, then.  We have a winner in the My Memories Software Giveaway!

Rae Hopkins from Mississippi has won a complimentary copy of  My Memories Suite V2:

and is happily building Digital Scrap Books, even as we speak - that is, read!

Thanks to all of you who stopped by to review this powerful little package from My Memories Digital Scrapbooking. 

And, don't forget that you can use this code:  STMMMS97941 when shopping on the My Memories website to get up to $20.00 off at checkout.  Just copy the code and paste it into the coupon block on the checkout page.

Above and Below The Waters -

 Here's what I'm up to in the Studio right now - I'm designing, printing, and assembling a group of Hand-Bound (actually, The Cinch Bound) Journals, with the theme of Above and Below The Waters. 

There are Blowfish:

And Octopusses...

You've already seen the Coral Bouquet, under construction:

And I couldn't resist pushing the Coral Branch design on out -

A flotilla of Sailboats:

More sailboats to come, but now I have to go to work!

I'll show you The Cinch Bookbinding Tool in action later on today - I'm off to the studio!

My Memories Software Giveaway No. 2

As promised, here is one more post on My Memories Digital Scrapbooking, Version 2 - and a reminder that I'm giving one FREE copy of this software to one of my readers!  To enter, just leave me a comment.  More details at the bottom of the page...

I wanted to show you how easy it is to lay out a custom album with this software, so I quickly pulled together a catalog from some of my stationery designs:

And here is how it did it, in less than 30 minutes, using the software in the Custom Mode:

Choosing the Custom Mode from the opening page, through choosing the background for the front cover, took less than two minutes...

Now, on to the layout.

 I went to my Art Files, and chose one of my Stationery Frames and an image for the Cover:

Then just clicked on the "Add T" button for text, picked the font and size, and then the Paint Bucket button to pick my own font color...here's a screen shot of me doing that on the second page:

You can pick one of their offered colors, and then get REALLY custom by going to their RGB tab.  See the little sliders?  When you slide them left or right, your color changes, and you can see the resulting hue right underneath in the Sample Text area.  If you love what you've created, click Add To Favorites so you can go back to it, over and over.

Then I just kept adding images and moving them around until I liked the layout.  Added text boxes, edited those a few times, and Boom!  I had a catalog!

This is now ready to go to the printer, or I can print it here in my studio, or upload it to My Memories  for them to print and bind.  How Super Easy is That for pulling together a catalog of your work??

To enter the giveaway for the free software, just leave me a comment.  And be sure to go over to the

My Memories website to browse through their products.

You can use this code at Checkout to get up to $20.00 off your order:  STMMMS97941