Snoring

“Bitch” Chronicles

Day 6

Sometimes I snore.

I take that back. A lot of the time when I’m sleeping, I snore. Last night was no exception. Usually, however, I’ll roll over and move on to a regular sinus rhythm. Last night, I became aware that I was snoring up a storm and that my wife wasn’t exactly pleased. Rather than imperil my marriage, I chose to exit the bedroom and head for a couch in the east tower of our four story castle away from home.

I haven’t measured the room exactly, but it looks square, maybe roughly 15x20. I guess that makes it a rectangle. One side butts the house while the north and south sides look up and down the cottage village of Salvo. The east side peers out over the dunes and onto the busy Atlantic. There are exactly 14 windows that, if closed, are hopelessly fogged by sea spray. The windows are naturally trimmed, no paint at all, and the ceiling is made of what looks like cedar strips. The room has a comfy plush couch and a nice plush rocker.

So last night, I hauled myself up to the room and took my rest on the comfy couch covered only by a stray beach towel I scarfed-up from the main living area. Sometime around 5:30, the rising sun awakened me, and I was able to take in a delightful sunrise. Once the thrill was passed, I fell back asleep.

When I awakened at about 7 am, I opened all 14 windows and let the morning wind blast the room. I felt like so isolated in my tower. The wind banged against my face. It was almost as if I was sitting on the beach in the surf. Peace doesn’t happen this way very often.

I chose to spend my morning writing other legs of the chronicles all the while buffeted by the constant breeze.

After a bait run to the Fishin’Hole where I procured a cup of cup mullet 9lazy fisherman), a cup of night crawlers, and a box of squid, I headed out to join the rest of the gang on the beach at about noon. Everyone was there. The sun was shining and the wind was fresh out of the south. The surf, however, was still a bit on the intense side.

I eventually threw out two lines and began to catch my quota of negative one species (dogfish/shark). Later, I watched as Jake and Reena attempted to take the ocean kayak out once again. Their efforts failed the first time. The surf was simply much too rough. In fact, they came back defeated and collapsed on the sand. Eventually though, with the help of Andrea and Jacque, the kayak was pushed out beyond the angry breakers, and Jake and Reena paddled off. Andrea and Jacque had some difficulty fighting their way back to shore. Thank goodness they are both the strongest of swimmers.

The last of the beach drama was the mad rush of fishing just before the afternoon thunderstorm struck at 3:30. As I was about to pack, I had Sam and Trish reel in my two lines. I was confident that the slack line indicated more dog. I was right on Trish’s line, but Sam ended up reeling in a real fish…a sea bass of some sort, I think. Other that dogfish and “That-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, I’m not especially good at identifying fish.

The afternoon has passed with good measure, a relaxed pace. I’ve been sitting in my tower with the wind blowing through me while I listen to the crashing surf in the near distance. My wife took Callan, Ana, and Reena to Nag’s Head for some outlet shopping. They’ve just arrived back. Dinner’s about to go on the table-spaghetti and cheesy meatballs with nice fruit and vegetable salads along with garlic bread.

Later, perhaps, we’ll build a small fire on the bitch and hunt ghost crabs.

Day 5 at the Beach

So whatever happened to days 2-4? The beach happened. I got caught up in doing beach stuff. I did take pictures and videos and will eventually upload all of them.

“Bitch” Chronicles

Day 5

For me, I couldn’t have asked for a better day. We awoke to a rocking wind that had stirred up the ocean world. The sea was boiling. Swells were chummy, absolutely crashing and banging into each other in their effort to discharge their energy upon the shore.

I started the day at about 7am with a walk south from our Salvo base to the point where the Federal government demands my attention: NONE SHALL PASS, the sign says. Can’t you read the sign? Birds are nesting, terns and plovers. They demand solitude. I guess they are shy. In a lonely act of defiance, I slid my right foot under the red warning rope and left a clear human print in the virgin sand just on the other side. Then, carefully, I placed the print of my left foot beside it.

On my way back, I encountered a lone fisherman on the beach. You could tell from the way he nervously tended his line and by his fresh looking gear, that he was a novice- not a sea dog. I asked him the obligatory question, “Caught anything?”

He just laughed a shook his head saying, “No, I’m just down here to get away from the kids for an hour.”

After a simple breakfast back at the house, I hauled my beach cart loaded with essential fishing gear back to the beach. While the wind was blowing straight into my face from the east at about 15-25 mph, I felt exceedingly refreshed. I plopped my poles in their sand stakes, cut some squid for bait and threw out two lines. I then proceeded to ignore them as I worked on reading the book, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.

For the next six hours, that’s all I did. Read and recast my lines. My time was punctuated by several breaks throughout the morning. Sometimes, I’d notice my line had gone slack and wash up the beach. Ordinarily in surf this rough, I’d expect my line to wash in with the rising tide, but since I was using a revolutionary “sputnik” lead weight (aka satellite), I was confident that the only reason for my line to wash was a visit from a negative species. A negative species is a creature that is so vile and annoyingly ordinary that it gets you negative points on the species point collection list. For example, if I were to catch a croaker, that would be one species point. The same is true for a bluefish, a Spanish mackerel, a drum, a flounder or a blow toad. If, however, I were to haul in a dogfish (aka dog shark), that would be worth negative one in species points. “That-Which-Shall-Not –Be-Named” (aka…I can’t say) is worth negative two species points. Sure enough, every time I had a slack line, I had one or two dogfish on the line.

Dogfish, although exceedingly annoying, do create quite a stir on a tourist beach when they are reeled in. People passing by stop and gawk and ask questions like, “Is that thing gonna grow up to be a Great White?” or “You gonna k-e-e-l it?” I always just toss them back; however, the little annoying devils are a pain in the neck to unhook sometimes. Although only about a foot and a half long, these sharks have sharp razor teeth like their bigger cousins. They have the prominent shark jaw just like the big boys as well. Frequently, the snelled hook get them under their tongue (sharks apparently have tongues) and behind their razor jaw. Thus, unhooking them is sometimes quite challenging.

One of the things I’m amazed at is the number of vacationers that come up to me for fishing advice. Every time that happens, I just laugh to myself. If only they could have seen me fifteen years ago when I went on my first expedition with my father and brothers. I didn’t even know how to tie a fisherman’s knot. I couldn’t explain to you how to cast a surf rod. I knew nothing! Now, thanks to the wonderful professional beach cart that I use, along with my experienced family surf casting rigs, backwards hat, stubble beard, and my overreaching tanned belly, people think that I’m the hardest bastard on the bitch. They’re always stopping to ask questions like, “When do you have your best luck?” “What kind of bait are you using?” “What do people catch out here?” “Where do you go crabbing?” For each question, I patiently make up an answer that sounds like I know what I’m talking about.

After the beach, I went home took a dip in the house pool, and read my book all afternoon, except for the moment of high drama.

My nephew has been talking about getting a sea kayak for a couple of days. I’ve been suggesting that the weather was too extreme for it. However, during the afternoon the winds began to back off a bit, although the surf was still roiling. Jake and Reena spend the morning out in the sound on a catamaran and enjoyed themselves immensely. Jake has done quite a bit of sailing from his days in prep school and then at Swarthmore. He definitely knows his way around a boat. So when he brought the kayak back, I helped him drag it over the dunes to the beach ,and he and Reena plotted strategy on how to breech the 7-10 breaking waves along the shore.

Reena started off in the boat while Jake pushed it out. That strategy quickly failed as the swells knocked Reena out of the vessel. So she grabbed the paddles and made her way through the surf just past the breakers. Jake, meanwhile, continued drinking the ocean as he pushed the boat out. Eventually, he made headway and then they managed to slip onboard. We could see them madly paddling and turning in to the massive swells. Each swell would pick up the dwarfed kayak and lift it vertically. Jake and Reena could be seen clinging on for dear life as the rode the beasts. Very soon, seemingly as quick as the Wright Brothers first flight, they turned around and did their best Hawaii Five-O landing.

Then came dinner and the sunset. Then came lounging on the bed pretending to read, but really falling asleep. Then came going to bed.

“Bitch” Chronicles

“Bitch” Chronicles

Day 1

After days of preparation and months of anticipation, we headed out the door this morning at 7:51am to head to the beach.

Back in the darkness of winter, we decided that we should head to the beach this summer. It really has been about ten years since we’ve taken a family trip to Salvo, NC. Since our kids are 18 and 21, this is most likely the last time we would have the opportunity to pull this off. My son is heading to OCS in a few weeks, so our schedule was rather limited. Back in February, my daughter set about to find the perfect place.

As is our custom, we invited my wife’s sister and her family. Surprisingly both her kids, age 26 and 24, along with their significant others wanted to come. We were also joined by my daughter’s friend and my son’s girlfriend.

My wife, daughter, her friend, and I made our way along Rt. 460 East to the ocean. Others converged from Charlottesville and DC.

Some things never change; I led the way in stops thanks to my over-active bladder. Luckily, the path to the Outer Banks of North Carolina is well-known to me, and I’ve come to know all the best bathroom stops along the way. We stopped at the Sheetz in New London, the Arby’s in Crewe, the Wendy’s near Petersburg, the State line rest area on the swamp road (Route 17 south of Deep Creek), and the rest area in Kitty Hawk. From there, we didn’t stop to go to the bathroom until we pulled into our Ocean’s Gate house in Salvo, NC.

Storms chased us much of the way. One storm in particular near Camden, NC was particularly scary looking. I imagined a scene out of the movie Twister. The rotating vortex passes over the blue party van. Helen Hunt falls into my lap. She gazes up at me with a terrified but defiant gaze, I reach down and kiss her… anyway…our trip was relatively uneventful.

We pulled up to the house at around 4:30. It’s a massive home with three floors and a thousand bathrooms and bedrooms. It took some time to sort out the rooms, but in the end we managed without fighting. After the storms passed, my wife and I took our first walk along the “Bitch.” This term is what the family calls the beach. It was coined by my daughter. I’m not sure why, but it’s stuck. Now, all of us call it “The Bitch.”

So, all the younger set are gathered around the large kitchen table, and they are telling and retelling story after story while my wife, her sister, and I have gradually melted away into the background. Listening to them laugh and share this time is special. I suppose this must be how it feels when grandparents hang out with their grandchildren. You have a sense of historical time and satisfaction. Life should be a bitch.