Back to the Beach

It's almost the end of July and we just now got our toes in the sand for the first time this year - that's practically criminal. The weather across North Carolina (and the entire southeast) has been unusually and unrelentingly wet since we moved here - rain, rain, and more rain. While that's fine and good on some fronts, it has put a literal damper on our plans to book it to the beach at the first opportunity. This weekend was the first time little sunshines graced the weather forecast instead of thunderclouds, and we started making beach plans just as soon as those blessed yellow orbs appeared. After Drew got off work on Friday, we had a quick dinner and then hit the road for the less than three-hour drive to the coast. The trip isn't a bad drive at all, but thanks to a ridiculously long stop at WalMart on the way (we really only needed salt water fishing licenses, but between the snail's pace of the cashiers and all of the other things to look at, we ended up staying in the store over an hour...), we didn't get to the beach house until well after dark. After getting everything opened up and turned on, we settled in for the night with our newly purchased DVD player and Redbox rental.

Quite early the next morning - Drew is not one to miss out on any potential fun by sleeping - we rummaged through the shed to find fishing poles and tackle, and, while Drew worked on getting them rigged up, I packed our beach bag. All set with the essentials and more, we headed across the street to Indian Beach - perhaps one of our favorite places on Earth, and definitely the location of some great memories (see here, here, here, here and here for those). We didn't bring any bait, but Mother Nature always provides, this time in the form of mole crabs. They're everywhere if you're looking, and really easy to collect - I suppose Mother Nature should provide them with a few more defenses... 

Drew fixed me up a pole and stuck me in the surf to catch dinner...

And before too long, I caught a fish! Drew's first question was "Did I cast that?". Nope, I did. The reel I was using went spastic, resulting in a big giant mess of fishing line, but Drew managed to get the fish and all of our equipment safely to our (then vacant) fish bucket. Sources say my little fish was a whiting, but I don't think that's actually a specific fish, just a generic name for a bunch of different white-fish species. Either way and whatever he was, he didn't have an abundance of teeth or spikes and looked quite edible, so I was excited to catch him.

After sacrificing a few more mole crab lives and catching not.a.thing, we hung up our poles for the morning, had lunch, and took a stroll down the beach. Fearing that our dinner might die and fry in the sun (and that our fair skin would do the same), we headed home just after noon.

Once we got back to the beach house, the messy work of cleaning the fish ensued. Drew was a pro. I had to harness my biological interest in the arrangement of its innards and get my nose out of the way so Drew could get it clean before every fly in the vicinity responded to the odorous dinner bell. That also meant turning off the camera - you're welcome.

Not ready to give up on the challenge to put food on the table just yet, Drew pulled out the cast net and we spent some time by the water at the marina, throwing the net, dragging it in, exploring the its contents, and then throwing most of what was in it back into the water (or to the gulls). It's really a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.

I think we caught about eight shrimp over the course of the day, which we added to the low country boil we had planned for the night; we also filleted and baked our whiting. In the end, we ate mostly sausage, potatoes, and corn, but it was all delicious. I had forgotten how different (only in a bad way) frozen seafood is from the fresh stuff (even when it's small). 

On Sunday, our one hour of church conveniently fell during the one hour of overcast weather. By the time we got home, the sky was blue and the sun was shining, so back to the beach we went, this time without the fishing poles. We took only only our beach blanket and chair, plus Garfield and some snacks, and spent most of our time alternately playing in the water and drying in the sand.

On our way out of town, we stopped at Flipperz Family Bar (whatever that means) and Grill in Emerald Isle for another taste of fresh seafood before heading farther inland. Drew had a tuna steak sandwich and I had a blackened tilapia wrap. YUM. Sufficiently stuffed, sunned, sanded, and salt-watered, we reluctantly made the drive back home with plans to get back to the beach far more frequently in the future.