realizing my 60th year...a milestone birthday some say...caused me to
seek a longer diversion from the surreal world of work activities. so,
rachel, gia, and i packed up and headed off to harkers island on the
coast of nc for 3 weeks. my big day was the 12th, rachel's birthday was
the 21st, and gia's...well every day is a new celebration for her.

the vacation idea was to chase false albacore offshore along the coast
every day the weather permitted, and, otherwise pursue puppy drum from
boat and kayak. i'm developing an interest in sal****er flycasting and
fishing since my nc trout streams are more than 6 hours away. we had
rented a nice place, so our off-the-water life would be comfortable.
close friends who also enjoyed fishing were visiting for portions of the
time, making it an even more pleasant.

for those wandering, 60 is pretty much like 50. no epiphanies...but good
to get there with enough health to continue normal activities and, when
able, full days of fishing. one thing i can advise with certainty...old
man days are fractions of time compared to those i remember of my 20s
and 30s.

as in my mountain trout pursuits, there are things to be seen in the
coastal sal****ers that amaze and capture me. one is "shark island". it
really caught me this time. my friend joe was an unwilling witness/victim.

shark island is a part of the cape lookout shoal, a shoal that juts out
finger-like into the ocean for about 12 miles. it attracts baitfish,
that attract the bigger fish, including a variety of sharks
....especially on its east side. fishermen go there and its surrounding
waters for the drum, bluefish, flounder, spanish mackeral, false
albacore and whatever else will give sport. rising and falling tides are
a favorite time.

as most nc sand barriers in the ocean, the island migrates and changes
its configuration each year. when i first began visiting, it was about
4-5 miles off the shoreline of core banks and relatively small. this
year, it's about a quarter to a half-mile from the surf fishermen who
appear in their surf vehicles at the point of the banks. the island has
a small cove...with deeper water (appearingly so) banks... sheltering an
anchored boat from the ocean waves. the red drum frequently school and
circumnavigate the island's shallow waters in and around the breakers
and in the sloughs.

on our first day out, joe and i ventured to shark island on a lark, with
no real purpose other than to visit and see if there were any fish
about. we had our puppy drum rods and lures, but nothing for serious
surf fishing or trolling or flyfishing. in the ocean, the tides aren't
as apparent to me as in the bays and on the beaches of the area, and,
frankly, i wasn't thinking about them as i anchored the boat in about 3
feet of water. turns out, i had anchored us in a tidal flat about 30
yards from the deeper water. i moved the boat and anchor once, but not
enough...way, way, not enough. 20 more yards and there'd be no
embarrasing adventure to tell.

so, anyway, we strike up a conversation with some fisherman, and there's
a report of drum schools and drum caught, just over the ridge of the
island, about an 1/8 of a mile from the boat on the opposite shore and
out of sight on a downslope of the beach. off we go with our inadequate
rigs...but, we sight the drum, 3 fishermen hooked up... 45 minutes
later, i return to the boat to look for a heavier lure. as i cross the
peak of the ridge... uh oh...uhf'ingoh! the boat is in 5 inches of
water, hard aground, and no moving it. tide is still going out. we're
now on an 5-6 hour unplanned island vacation. tides move in about 6
hour increments from low to high.

so, though most fellow boating fishermen take pity on fools, and attend
to re-anchoring in the fool's absence...our island "neighbors" that day
were a group of young college kids from charlotte, and their
parent/captain who was over fishing with us. he anchored his boat that
extra 30 yards away. there was a time they could have saved us by moving
the anchor and boat, but too late upon my return. some other folks
still had enough water under them and were pulled off their
mishap/grounding to deeper anchorage. couldn't be done for us. oh
well, there are worse places to be stranded for 5 or 6 hours.

around 7 pm, i watched as the water began returning and the sun
disappeared into the ocean to the west. as it had dropped, the water
returned surprisingly fast. we got off around 7:30 pm, but wind and
waves required a slow pace and it was dark. a beautiful clear star-full
night sky...milky way and all. gps worked fine, but the light of it
temporarily blinded me when returning my gaze to searching for the
buoys. i never go out in the rivers or ocean at night...never. it's a
different waterway at night. there are a lot of confusing lights, and
the buoy system for the return to harkers island is confounding even in
the daytime. lots of shallow water, some oyster heads, and marsh
islands. the rock jetty buoy is an easy one...but the red flashing buoy
for the entrance to barden inlet is now behind the hook of core banks as
you enter from the rock jetty buoy side. plus, i never knew how many
red lights...some flashing...were visible in the dark on that approach.
also, the channel and the buoys change frequently. it's not a
maintained channel. things a gps doesn't help with. still, no problem
navigating around the cape lookout hook...but, from there, neither the
gps, nore the flashing buoys are of much assistance. plus, the lookout
lighthouse...constructed in and operational since the 1800s...shines a
blinding and disconcerting, not to mention disorienting, light in the
navigational eyes of one trying to get a fix on location for the turn to
harkers.

long story...too long, i know...short, we putted our way in a haphazard
manner to calico jack's at the tip of harkers island, in a more direct
manner than appropriate in daylight or according to the buoys (most of
which are unlighted), somehow avoiding another grounding on the numerous
shoals, though hitting shallow water, and scraping an oyster or two.
rachel retrieved us at 10 pm or thereabouts. gia, the ever happy golden
retriever, bounded to the dock, but was wary of any more to do with her
humankind. she refused to get into the truck with us, and cozied up to
some passing strangers. her travails had just begun., but she was the
best of partners for the entire trip...even after the slicing of her
paws on oyster shells while careening about other islands we
visited...but that's another tale.

saw spinner sharks, drum, bluefish, an octopus, conch, uncatchable black
drum, heron and gulls, magnificent sunset, incredible starry nightscape,
lots of lights on the mainland otherwise invisible during daytime ocean
meanderings, and intermittent night hallucinations. but, nothing as
welcoming as my own rachel waiting to retrieve us at calico jack's with
a hearty grin and good humor. all in all, another fine episode in
pursuit of the great mystery, and new lessons learned. alas, i'm now a
60 year old fool instead of a 59 year-old fool. but, as foolishness
goes, it was a decent chuckle and another of life's voyages.

oh yeah...it was also the night the refrigerator at the rental home
died, not to be resurrected until the day before we returned home. not
so amusing when the kitchen is 2 flights of stairs up...i now own a few
more coolers.

still, caught false albacore and bluefish on flyrods, saw more spinner
sharks in their skyward pirouettes, saw hundreds of porpoise in a
herd-like swim session, saw sharks on the surface in baitballs competing
with false albacore (and eating a few we hooked), even visited shark
island without incident on several other occasions, caught some puppy
drum, enjoyed the company of friends we love, and had as fine a time as
this a silly geezer ever deserved.

i've posted some photos on abpf... hope they provide some grins and
guffaws for y'all.

my sal****er flyfishing efforts are still, well, efforts...and
ever-humbling. but, i'm progressing.


jeff (october's crusoe)