Pat Garber’s goal as a young girl was to grow up and have lots of stories to tell, and that she has accomplished both from a fascinating life she has led and the opportunity to recount them in her many diverse books.
Raised on a farm in southern Virginia with horses, this childhood led to a lifelong love of animals, both domestic and wild.
For many years, Garber lived on Ocracoke primarily as a writer, director of the Ocracoke Preservation Society and a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and a licensed volunteer with North Carolina’s Sea Turtle Stranding Network.
Her two most notable books from living here are “Ocracoke Wild” (1995) and “Ocracoke Odyssey” (1995), both still in print.
She has always had a fascination with the Southwest, which is the subject of her latest book, “Living the Life; ranches, rodeas and rattlesnakes.”
Her great grandparents, Don Alonzo and Lou Sanford, moved to southern Arizona to homestead a ranch raising cattle and sheep, mining and even running a stagecoach stop.
They passed on to their descendants a remarkable collection of 67 diaries, lots of letters and large ledgers that offer a view of what life was like back then. Garber takes excerpts from these documents and offers her insights on their significance.
But the book is more than that. After visiting the state, she decided to move there and be a volunteer at a nature reserve.
By good fortune, became the caretaker to a 1,200-acre ranch outside of Patagonia, almost to the Mexico border, that was adjacent to that of her great-grandfather’s. She writes about ranch life today with its calf-season roundups.
The book shifts between the past and her present, connecting, in her engaging writing style, her experiences and observations and how they all relate.
This is the “Wild West,” with rattlesnakes, cattle rustlers, the wild border with Mexico and rodeas (interchangeably used with rodeos in the diaries), a term used for the demanding work of rounding up livestock on horseback.
There’s also the threat of rattlesnakes and mountain lions while riding through difficult rocky terrain and the desert in search of the cattle and horses.
Not only does she recount how they were managed in the late 19th century, but she had the opportunity to participate in a “rodea” herself.
She recounts her life while living in Patagonia (close to the Mexican border) and making friends with colorful characters that could match those on Ocracoke.
One character, who simply went by Penny, was “a lovely, slender woman who reminded me of a back-to-nature, flower child from the Sixties, and loved to dance and hike,” Garber writes. Penny was obsessed with a diet consisting of vegan, organic raw foods and odd-colored smoothies consisting of organic fruits and veggies.
Only later, as they became close friends, did Garber learn that Penny’s body was consumed with cancer which she was treating with diet rather than chemo and radiation.
Garber’s love of animals is apparent throughout the book. She befriends a cow simply known as “76” and a wild horse named Brown who earns her trust through familiarity and with carrots.
The cow 76 was slowly dying from failing eyesight but managed to get pregnant and Garber provided support to her as she gave birth to her foal, before dying.
The book is a tribute to her ancestors and has many photographs of them along with historical and contemporary images.
This and other of Garber’s books are available in the Ocracoke Preservation Society gift shop, 49 Water Plant Road.
Pat Garber is a prolific writer, author of “Ocracoke Wild; A Naturalist’s Year on an Outer Banks Island,” “Ocracoke Odyssey; A Naturalist’s Reflections on her Home by the Sea” and many other books and articles. She is a long-time contributor to the Ocracoke Observer.
A shrimp boat off Springer’s Point, Ocracoke. Photo: P. Vankevich/Ocracoke Observer
By Connie Leinbach
The N.C. Senate on Thursday, after a third reading, passed House Bill 442 that includes an amendment to ban shrimp trawling in the Pamlico Sound.
The measure then went to the N.C. House.
If the House concurs with the Senate’s changes and it is signed by Gov. Josh Stein, fresh shrimp from the Pamlico Sound would be a thing of the past.
Hyde County Manager Kris Noble told members of the OCBA board June 17 about this amendment that bans shrimp trawling in all inshore waters and a half mile off the beach.
“This new restriction would essentially wipe out the North Carolina shrimp industry,” Noble said.
The original bill would expand recreational fishing for flounder from four days to at least six weeks, with a limit of one fish per person per day. It would also allow a year-round red snapper season, with a limit of two fish per person per day and a 20-inch minimum size limit in state waters.
According to reporting by the Raleigh News & Observer, earlier this week, Sen. David Craven, a Republican from Randolph County, introduced an amendment that would prohibit shrimp trawling indefinitely in inshore waters, including sounds, and within a half mile of the ocean shore starting Dec. 1.
Craven said the ban would align North Carolina’s trawling regulations with those of Virginia and South Carolina and reduce bycatch.
Thomas Newman, a full-time commercial fisherman who works with the North Carolina Fisheries Association, predicted that the ban would put some shrimpers out of business.
Many boats used by North Carolina’s commercial shrimpers are not large enough to work in the Atlantic Ocean, he said.
Preventing commercial shrimpers from working in the sounds and inshore waters would result in a 75% decrease in the total shrimp catch each year, he added.
There were fewer than 300 commercial shrimpers in North Carolina in 2023, according to a 2024 report from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.
In 2023, more than 2.3 million pounds of brown shrimp alone was caught just in the Pamlico Sound, the Division of Marine Fisheries report shows. That’s in addition to the 287,000 pounds of brown shrimp caught in other sounds, rivers and inland waterways, and doesn’t include the amount of white or pink shrimp caught.
As for what happens next, the House might wait until next week to debate the bill again, Noble said about the process, as told to her by Hyde County lobbyist Bob Steinberg, a former N.C. senator.
If the House debates the bill, they cannot further amend it.
Or they might delay voting on the measure until they come back into session in September after summer recess in the hopes that the two studies commissioned by the General Assembly on the impacts of shrimping are complete and reviewed, Noble said.
The NC General Assembly is expected to recess before July 4.
Over the summer, House members will still be checking their email, Noble said, and she encouraged those interested to voice their concerns to House members.
According to Noble, the N.C. House will have two options:
To concur, which would mean approval of HB442 as amended, at which point it will go to Gov. Stein. The only chance for a veto from the governor is if Democrats have supported it or have concurred.
Not to concur, which would be a no vote for HB442. This would require 61 votes. At that point the bill will go to conference. Conferees would be selected by the Speaker of the House and the Senate Pro Tempore.
Once in conference, if the Senate and House can come to an agreement, it will go to vote in both chambers. With approval by both chambers it will then subsequently go to the Governor. If the Senate and the House do not come to an agreement, the bill dies.
Noble and the Hyde County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday whipped up a resolution against the bill and sent it to Senator Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the Senate. She said commissioners from Pamlico, Carteret and Dare counties sent resolutions.
She said hundreds of commercial fishermen and even Blue Crab representatives went to Raleigh on Wednesday, but to no avail.
The Senate vote on Wednesday was 41 to 4 in favor and on Thursday, it passed 39 to 2.
“Red Snapper and Flounder bill is a good bill, and the recreational and commercial fishing industries worked together on it,” Noble told the waterways members. “The Senate tacked on a shrimp trawl ban.”
In her email to Berger, Noble said Hyde’s economy would be greatly harmed.
“The shrimp trawling industry coupled with farming are the two main industries in Hyde County and this bill would devastate us economically and socially,” she wrote.
Noble further said that the amendment was endorsed by inaccurate statements on the harms of shrimp trawling to the recreational catching of Red Snapper and Flounder.
“North Carolina has highly regulated fisheries and our stocks are healthy,” she said. “The Pamlico Sound is a vibrant estuary filled with abundant stocks. These claims against trawling are unsupported by science and, in my opinion as a lifetime resident of Hyde County, are a mechanism to commandeer resources that belong to the people of this great state, not one user group.” The resolution urges the General Assembly to reject this amendment and “engage with fishermen, scientists, and coastal leaders before advancing any measure that would cripple a historic and sustainable fishery.”
Accusations of underwater landscape damage by shrimping are being made by the Coastal Conservation Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to marine conservation, particularly focused on recreational anglers’ interests, and the N.C. Wildlife Federation.
Editor’s note: Ocracoke Islanders Tom and Carol Pahl are on a trek around the United States (following 70-degree weather) and will report back from time to time their reflections. This is their seventh dispatch.
Text and photos by Tom Pahl
One of the questions we heard often from friends before we started this year-long adventure was whether we had really considered what life would be like with the three of us (Carol, me and our dog Napolean) living together in a 156-square foot space. That is a pretty small area, but as we had hoped, we’re doing fine.
Over the years, we’ve developed a healthy regard for each other’s independence, and seven months into this adventure, we have tested a theory that independence is a state of mind, not of proximity. So far, the theory is holding up to very close scrutiny. It helps that we have millions of acres of wilderness right outside our door with biking trails and hiking trails, incredible views, and time for reading. And regularly, we pour a little something to celebrate the end of another day, which also helps.
As we travel the country, we often find ourselves making gross generalizations about the apparent character of the folks living in America’s different regions. Down South you can walk into a convenience store and walk out believing that the clerk is your new best friend. In New England that same transaction is likely to take place with the clerk barely looking up and quite possibly without exchanging a word.
After all, the amount you owe shows on the register, so why complicate things with useless palaver? On the other hand, the New Englander’s reticence also comes without judgment, where you must wonder, when you leave that WaWa in Macon, if your new best friend wasn’t thinking, “Bless his little heart!”
Carol Pahl in Winslow, Arizona.
Now that we’ve spent several months in the Western states, we have concluded that the classic “well, howdy” friendliness out here is much like that of their counterparts in the South, minus the sideways blessing. Westerners are just plain friendly people. And I would add: They respect the letter “R,” which I appreciate very much, having lived in places such as eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island where the letter “R” is treated like a case of appendicitis.
Even though I’m a Montana boy by birth, I have spent enough time in New England that I tend toward the laissez-faire side of the human interaction spectrum. I have, therefore, not made any extraordinary efforts to try to cultivate a lot of new friendships as we’ve traveled around, though the opportunity is always there.
Back in February, we were camping along the Texas gulf coast in a county campground with campsites right on the water. I had been fishing off and on for almost a week and had caught some fish, but mostly I had been putting shrimp back where they came from, albeit less lively than when they came out. As every piece of water has its own learning curve, fishermen have developed an unwritten code that says you should share the basics of the learning curve with other fishermen, but you’re not required to share the details.
Roosevelt Lake, Arizona.
With that in mind, I strolled over to where a neighboring camper had set up to start fishing. He had just arrived, and I thought I might be helpful.
“Catchin’ anything,” I asked. The standard fisherman greeting.
“Nope,” he answered.
I asked what he was using for bait. Again, pretty much standard fisherman-ese.
His reply: “You know, there’s a difference between you and I.”
He threw out the bait and, being curious, I took it, “And what would that be,” I asked, not adding that one of us knows the difference between the objective and the subjective first-person singular.
Antelope Canyon, Arizona.
He looked me square in the eye and said, “I would never enter another person’s campsite without being invited.”
I gave a kind of halfhearted two-finger salute and wished him luck as I backed away. Whereupon I learned that the human interaction spectrum extends way past me in both directions. It happened we were leaving the next day, so we didn’t have to feel the discomfort of his neighborly chill for long, but on the way out, I silently put a fisherman’s curse upon his bait and his gear. “May your bait rot in your Yeti cooler so that the stink lingers forever and may your rigs twist up into tight knots and catch everything but fish!”
All together we ended up spending four months (February through May) in the southwest desert. We spent a good amount of time in the border areas of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. We came to love the remoteness and the desolate beauty of the dry lands.
From the border, we went up to Tucson, where we stayed just outside of the Saguaro National Park for almost two weeks. Our stay there coincided with a Bernie Sanders/AOC rally which we attended, and which has buoyed our spirits somewhat, as we doom-scroll through the news most mornings.
From Tucson, we made a quick stop in Phoenix to visit old friend Sari, then on to Winslow. Yes, that Winslow: “Standin’ on a corner in Winslow Arizona….” In Winslow, we caught up with the cold weather we’d been trying to avoid.
The dry Southwest.
When we woke up to snow one morning, we cut our visit there short and headed back southward, just enough to find beautiful weather and a wonderful campground on Roosevelt Lake, south of the Tonto National Forest. Ten days later we ventured north again, passing through the Coconino Plateau and the Painted Desert to the Grand Canyon. On the way, we went through some of the most inhospitable land imaginable.
What wasn’t dry arroyo or rocky gorge was red sand so infertile that nothing grows there except a rare tumbleweed, and a creosote bush too mean to die.
The only living critters we saw and apparently, the only fauna that can survive in that environment are lizards that have evolved to live with just the moisture they can suck from their diet of red ants and grasshoppers. The entire southwest is four years into a severe drought and even the slightest gust of wind will raise a cloud of red dust that regularly spins up into a dust devil that will rise 40 or 50 feet into the dry air.
As we traveled through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and into Utah, we learned to watch for Reservation Land — tribal land that is the historic legacy of Westward Expansion, white supremacy, and genocide.
Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.
Invariably, it is this dry land, the most inhospitable, the least arable, the least valuable, that was designated as Reservation Land. And, even then, as times and technology changed, some of the Navajo Tribal Lands, at first thought to be worthless, were discovered to contain great stores of highly valuable uranium ore.
As a matter of course, newly found value quickly became a new way to screw over the Indians. Between the 1940s and the 1980s more than 4 million tons of uranium ore was mined from Navajo land. During that time, the attraction of paying work put Navajo men and their families, by proximity, at risk for uranium poisoning, resulting in increased incidences of various forms of cancer ranging from 250 to 1,500%, depending on the type of cancer.
Though the hazard was known, little if anything was done to make the danger known to the Navajo workforce and it wasn’t until the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was signed by President George H.W. Bush that any significant effort was made to rectify the harm.
Bighorn sheep in Zion National Park.
In New Mexico, in 1979, a neglected uranium mine tailings pond in the Church Rock region of the Navajo Nation broke its dam, releasing more than 1,000 tons of radioactive mill waste and 93 million gallons of radioactive water. Downstream notification was slow and was delivered in English-only format. Residents were sickened, sheep and cattle died en masse. Multiple requests for a state of emergency were denied. Government and industry response took years to clean up the disaster, considered to be the largest radioactive accident in US history.
After just one day at Grand Canyon, we went to Zion National Park where we luckily snagged a two-week spot at the campground just inside the park. Zion is breathtaking at every turn. There is not a view or angle, not a sunset or sunrise that doesn’t just take your heart and wring it out like a wet rag. We hiked up challenging trails rising a thousand feet and some easy trails alike, all with the same impossibly stunning views.
And I biked the Pa’rus Trail along the Virgin River into Zion Canyon. For anyone who loves to ride a bicycle, all I can say is, “Don’t miss this ride!” For some reason, perhaps it’s just the magic of the place, it seems like a mostly downhill ride for six miles out, but then it’s all downhill coming back. I can’t explain it.
We were told that if we were lucky, we might see Big Horn Sheep on the east side of the park. So, with hope as our guide, we took an excursion out there one day searching ridgelines and along canyons, up and down rocky ledges until the day waned and we turned back. And then the magic happened and there they were, a small herd, bucks, ewes, and lambs all within a few hundred yards of us. They posed and stood still for our photos like they were on duty.
Valley of the Gods, Utah.
There is majesty out in this wild world, and the concentration of it at Zion National Park will affect you for a lifetime.
From Zion, we followed the San Juan River into the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument. This area is so barren and dry and desolate and magnificent, it has a kind of beauty you feel more than see. There is one section known as Valley of the Gods. The buttes, and canyons, and mesas, red as a rising sun, are most certainly grand enough and spread out far enough for the gods to inhabit.
The sandstone formations are 250 million years old, formed when calcium carbonate (from ancient seashells) mixed with layer upon layer of red sand in great dunes along the shores of an ancient sea. When the sea was emptied by the collision of continents, the remaining dunes hardened into rock and were then sculpted by millions of years of wind and rain, creating this landscape that defies description. Monoliths thousands of feet high were revered by the ancients as god-sculpted tributes to their ancestors. Who’s to argue.
In Bears Ears, there are over 100,000 known archeological sites, many unexplored. Some are ancient, going back 10,000 years or more and some, not so ancient, are sites of Aboriginal inhabitants, mostly ancestors of today’s Dine’ (Navajo) community. We stayed almost two weeks in a modest little town called Bluff, in southern Utah.
There, we learned about the settlement of Morman pioneers into the area in the 1880s. Latecomers by archeological standards, but their efforts were rewarded by a permanent, though sparce settlement that established a relatively peaceable relationship with the Native inhabitants, and which happens to have, today, a little treasure of a restaurant called Comb Ridge Eat and Drink.
As if all of that weren’t enough to overload our senses and to remind us every day how lucky we are, we departed Bluff in the beginning of May for the magnificence of the New Mexico highlands.
I will leave off here, to pick up the narrative next time of our last weeks in the desert.
But first, I’ll invite you to join a game we invented one day while we were driving in the super arid climate of the southwest. Mind you, we’re talking humidity levels around 15%, week after week after week.
The game is called, “It’s as dry as ___.” Here are some of our favorites: It’s as dry as a fairground parking lot. It’s as dry as a sinner’s throat on judgment day. It’s as dry as a snakeskin in a dust devil. It’s as dry as scorpion spit. It’s as dry as dinosaur dandruff. OK, go!
A shrimp boat in the Pamlico Sound. Photo: C. Leinbach/Ocracoke Observer
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to say that shrimp trawling could be banned if N.C. House Bill 442 is passed. It would have to pass both houses and be signed by the governor. We will post a follow-up story soon.
By Connie Leinbach
If N.C. House Bill 442 passes with a shrimp trawling ban amendment, fresh, local shrimp could be a thing of the past.
Hyde County Manager Kris Noble told members of the OCBA board Tuesday night about this effort to ban inshore shrimping in the Pamlico Sound.
The amendment bans shrimp trawling in all inshore waters and a half mile off the beach.
“This new restriction would essentially wipe out the North Carolina shrimp industry,” said Sara Teaster of the Ocracoke Seafood Company.
The bill and its amendment could pass as early as 4 p.m. this afternoon.
Noble and the Hyde County Board of Commissioners this morning sent a resolution (see below) to Senator Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the Senate, urging the General Assembly to eliminate the Trawl Ban provisions in House Bill 442.
“Our county and its citizens will be greatly harmed if this bill passes,” Noble said in her email to Berger. “The shrimp trawling industry coupled with farming are the two main industries in Hyde County and this bill would devastate us economically and socially.”
Noble further said that the amendment was endorsed by inaccurate statements on the harms of shrimp trawling.
“North Carolina has highly regulated fisheries and our stocks are healthy,” she said. “The Pamlico Sound is a vibrant estuary filled with abundant stocks. These claims against trawling are unsupported by science and, in my opinion as a lifetime resident of Hyde County, are a mechanism to commandeer resources that belong to the people of this great state, not one user group.
The resolution urges the General Assembly to reject this amendment and “engage with fishermen, scientists, and coastal leaders before advancing any measure that would cripple a historic and sustainable fishery.”
More information on this bill can be found on the Coastal Review Online website here.
In addition to Berger, Noble urged residents to send emails to legislators before 4 p.m. today to House Speaker Destin Hall (destin.hall@ncleg.gov) and all Hyde County legislative delegates.
Evening sail on the Pamlico Sound. Photo: C. Leinbach
Events will be updated as necessary.NPS programs are listed at the end.
Monday, June 17 Ocracoke’s Mosquito Control Board meets, 6:30 pm. Community Center. Postponed; date TBD
Tuesday, June 17 Ocracoke Preservation Society Porch talk, 1 pm. Ocracats with Rita Thiel. Ocracoke Community Library, Open Art Studio 4 to 6 pm with arts and crafts supplies and ideas for exploring your creativity. “Color Our World.” Snacks will be available. Ocracoke Civic & Business Association annual meeting, 6 pm. Community Center
Wednesday, June 18 Ocracoke Community Library, 10 am. Baby, Toddler, and Preschool story time, which includes sharing books and making a craft to take home. Roanoke Island Animal Clinic on Ocracoke in the Community Center. Call for appointments: 252-473-3117. Check Facebook for last minute changes. MiniBar at Ocracoke Coffee: Island Trivia, 6-8 pm Ocracoke Waterways Commission, 6:30 pm. Community Center. Deepwater Theater: Ocrafolk Opry 8 pm; doors 7:30. Tickets & info online at www.ocracokealive.org. Ocracoke Oyster Company: That Guy Shane, 7:30 pm
Thursday, June 19 Juneteenth Donald Davis Storytelling Workshop students perform 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum. Some seating available or BYO seating. MiniBar at Ocracoke Coffee: Brooke & Nick, 6 pm Ocracoke Oyster Company: Caldwell Grey, 7:30 pm DAJIO: Ray Murray, 8 pm
Friday, June 20 Ocracoke Tourism Development Authority, 9 am. Community Center WOVV 90.1 FM Ocracoke’s Community Radio: What’s Happening on Ocracoke, 11:30 am MiniBar at Ocracoke Coffee: Kate McNally, 6 pm Ocracoke Oyster Company: Patrick French, 7:30 pm Ocracoke Community Library: 50th anniversary screening of the movie “Jaws.” 8 pm.
Saturday, June 21 Donald Davis Storytelling Workshop participants, 10 to 11:15 am. Books to Be Red yard. BYO seating. In case of rain, event will be in Deepwater Theater next door. MiniBar at Ocracoke Coffee: music TBD, 6 pm Ocracoke Oyster Company: Raygun Ruby, 8 pm DAJIO: After School Surf Club, 8 pm
Sunday, June 22 Church services: Ocracoke United Methodist Church, 11 am Ocracoke Life Saving Church, 11 am Stella Maris Chapel: Sunday afternoon Mass time varies. Go to Masstimes.org and type in the zip code: 27960
Ocracoke Oyster Company: Jeff McCargish, 7:30 pm
DAJIO: Beatles & Bossa Novas with Lou Castro & guest, 8-10 pm
National Park Service Programs:
The following free programs run from June 16 to Aug. 28. Banker Ponies at the Ocracoke Pony Pen: Every Monday and Wednesday, 8:30 am — 9 am Ocracoke Lighthouse: Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11 am — 11:30 am Life on a Barrier Island: Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 2 to 2:30 pm. Outside the Discovery Center. MorningBird Walk: Every Tuesday from 8:30 to 9:30 am. Meet at NPS campground parking lot.
Anyone who has visited Ocracoke Island knows how special it is: from stunning sunsets to magnificent views of the Milky Way on a moonless night after a cold front has cleansed the atmosphere with rain.
This uniqueness is partially due to the lack of light pollution commonly known as sky glo.
It is these special conditions that attract photographers, particularly astrophotographers.
Since the invention of the telescope, astronomers have tried to convey what they saw through their instruments to others.
It started in 1610 with Galileo and the moons of Jupiter.
As telescopes improved, more detail was observed, and the first crude drawings evolved to more detailed depictions. Some, like Schiaparelli, let their imagination overpower their observation resulting in canals on Mars.
There needed to be a better way.
Daguerre in 1837 found that light would interact with a copper plate covered with a coating that contained silver iodide particles. The photons of light caused the silver iodide to change to silver. These plates could be treated with other chemicals which stopped additional light-exposure change and fixed the image to make it permanent. Everyone could then see the same image.
Daguerre immediately thought that this process might be useful for astronomers and set about photographing the brightest object in the night sky, the moon.
His effort was a resounding failure.
That’s because the process needed many minutes to allow the many fewer photons to do their magic chemistry trick.
During that period the moon moved, it was hard to keep in focus and the image was blurred.
Something needed to improve. Either get more light to speed up the chemical magic, find some other magic coating that was more sensitive or track the object better to keep it in focus.
It turns out that they did all three. Telescope lenses and mirrors became larger, collecting more photons that could be focused on the photographic plate.
Silver solutions were refined to make the coatings of silver iodide and bromide particles smaller and more sensitive. Both improvements sped up the photography process.
Telescopes improved to accurately track an object, keeping it in focus.
All these improvements were expensive and only rich amateurs, national observatories and universities could afford the equipment to make photos.
During the later part of the 19th century, industrialization flourished and along with it came air pollution and light pollution from the gas streetlights.
Astronomers, who had morphed into professionals backed by universities, noticed that even though the new dry photo plates allowed them hours of exposure to capture fainter and fainter stars, the increasingly muddled skies and ambient light coupled with weather issues such as clouds and humidity made it progressively more difficult to capture good, long-exposure images.
The search for darker, clearer skies and better-quality photons began.
Larger new telescopes were proposed and the West was the place to go.
A large 100-inch mirror telescope was built on Mt. Wilson outside Los Angeles to take advantage of the clearer, darker, drier skies and the thinner air, which reduces the twinkling effect.
Optical filters were developed that would block out certain wavelengths of light such as those produced by streetlights but let other wavelengths of light through, which helped reduce the effects of light pollution.
But still the holy grail was clear, cloudless, dark skies, which eventually led to large telescopes currently being located on top of a mountain in Hawaii and others in the mountainous desert of Chile or the ultimate dark sky location – space — where the photons are pristine.
During this period amateur astrophotographers were pretty much out of the loop. By the 1960s, the 35mm Single Lens Reflex cameras became popular, and innovative amateurs found a way to either add a large telephoto lens or mate the camera body to the telescope itself to take decent photographs.
This photo of the deep-sky Orion nebula (M42) was taken in rural Indiana.
By the 1970s, solid-state sensors were being developed and rapidly became more efficient in capturing photons. Prices came down and inverter technology improved so that amateurs’ equipment became portable to be taken far enough from civilization to capture good astro photos.
Amateurs began the search for easily accessible dark skies in earnest.
In the 2000s, local photographers began posting amazing pictures of the Milky Way, and the Outer Banks came up on the radar as whispers of the quality of the viewing began to circulate.
Ocracoke Island is one of the best areas on the banks due to limited population and light pollution.
What does “dark skies” mean?
It means you can see stars almost all the way down to the horizon. You can see planets. On moonless nights you can see the Milky Way, and then there are these mysterious blobs of fuzzy light that your eyes cannot quite discern.
To amateur astrophotographers those are opportunities that they can rarely find elsewhere, especially on the East Coast.
The blobs are galaxies and nebulae that remain in the same positions in the sky relative to the star constellations and take some magnification to bring into focus.
Included here are comparison photos of the deep-sky Orion nebula (M42) at two different locations and the effect that light pollution has on the results.
One was taken at my home in rural Indiana on Feb. 7, and the other on April 4 in the NPS campground on Ocracoke.
This photo of the deep-sky Orion nebula (M42) taken at the Ocracoke campground shows that darker skies produce better results faster.
Light pollution is measured using the Bortle scale, with 1 being the lowest (very dark skies) and 9 the worst (downtown Raleigh). The town limits of Ocracoke are rated as 3 rural skies, the campground 1.5-2. All this depends upon humidity, haze, etc. My home location is probably a 4-4.5 suburban.
The picture taken on April 4 consisted of about five minutes of individual 10 second shots stacked on top of each other to bring out the definition.
The one at home took about an hour, as many of the individual photos were discarded due to light pollution. So, I ended up with only two minutes of information in the photo.
The first photo is from my home in Indiana; the second from Ocracoke. They are rotated due to the difference in dates as the earth rotates around the sun.
So, “It’s all about the quality of the photons” and the photons on Ocracoke Island are first class with relatively easy access. Certifying the Cape Hatteras National Seashore as an International Dark Sky Park will preserve this rare resource for future generations to experience. Cape Lookout National Seashore along with Many other National Parks have been certified.
If you agree that this great viewing opportunity should be preserved, please show your support by writing to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954. Phone: 252-473-2111. Email: https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/contactus.htm
Michael Meyer is a retired engineer, an avid amateur astronomer and frequent visitor to Ocracoke.
The National Weather Service will begin its seventh year of conducting Hurricane Community Forums in Pine Knoll Shores this Tuesday (June 17) and again for Oriental on June 25.
The following is information about these forums.
Why: Did you know that Eastern North Carolina is the MOST frequently impacted stretch of coastline in the country to hurricanes?
Names like the San Ciriaco storm of 1899, The Storm of 1933, Hazel (1954), Ione (1955), Donna (1960), Gloria (1985), Bertha (1996),Fran (1996), Bonnie (1998), Floyd (1999), Isabel (2003), Irene (2011), Matthew (2016), Florence (2018) and Dorian (2019 are all well known to our area.
What: Join us for these free, open to all, public discussions about hurricane preparedness. You will have the chance to hear a presentation from a meteorologist from the National Weather Service on hurricanes and their impacts on Eastern North Carolina.
We will go over why you should never just focus on just the category of the storm, what the hurricane path track means, the various impacts tropical cyclones can bring and why you should NEVER let you guard down, even after the storm passes!
We will also cover the hurricane outlook for the year while emphasizing that it only takes one storm to make an impact on your life. At the end you will be able to ask questions you may have.
Where: Various locations across all of Eastern North Carolina, view our schedule below. Some will also be live streamed, and the recording will be posted afterwards.
Greg and Eden Honeycutt love the Outer Banks. Ask anyone who knows them and you’ll find that Ocracoke Island and Hatteras Island will always have a special place in their hearts.
In 2006, Greg and Eden established the Greg & Eden Honeycutt Scholarship Fund to support college-bound seniors from Cape Hatteras Secondary School and Ocracoke School. Their goal was to give back to the community that had given them so much, and to invest in the future of Outer Banks youth.
Mariah Temple, a rising sophomore at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and alumna of Ocracoke School, received the Honeycutt’s scholarship in 2024 and will continue to benefit from it throughout all four years of college. She said she couldn’t be more grateful for the couple’s generosity.
“Getting the scholarship in their name, especially from two people who have really dedicated their time and support to the island, is really meaningful and inspiring,” Temple said. “It’s a sign to give back one day like that myself, hopefully.”
Eden Honeycutt grew up in Perquimans County and was no stranger to beach life. She had been coming to the Outer Banks ever since she was a child and knew she could never live far from the ocean.
Greg, on the other hand, was a mountain man through and through. Having graduated from Appalachian State University in 1975, he first came to the Outer Banks during the summer of 1978 to visit one of his fraternity brothers. He loved it so much he ended up staying through the winter, eventually getting to know many of the locals he would soon call friends.
Mariah Temple.
Greg and Eden met during the summer of 1979 while he was waiting tables at the Seafare Restaurant, where she was a hostess. The pair hit it off and have been together ever since.
Greg and Eden started Ocean Atlantic Rentals in 1979, after recognizing a need for a company that could provide everything visitors and rental companies needed to have a great vacation, from beach gear to linens. The business has grown to become a major provider of rentals for events, especially weddings.
Once Ocean Atlantic Rentals began to grow, the couple wanted to use their good fortune to better the community they called home. The first project that they set their sights on? The YMCA in Nags Head. Greg chaired the board that raised the funds to build the Outer Banks YMCA, and the couple gave a gift themselves to help fund it.
As they began spending more time on the Outer Banks, Greg started serving on the Outer Banks Community Foundation (OBCF) board of directors, and both Greg and Eden became increasingly involved in the community. Greg first got involved with OBCF because he saw firsthand the foundation’s impact in the community.
“When you put your money with the Outer Banks Community Foundation, it’s going to be well taken care of and it’s going to do a lot of good,” Greg said. “We started the endowment because there weren’t many scholarships available to students in Ocracoke and Hatteras. We wanted to make a greater impact.
In 1997, the Honeycutts built a new home on Ocracoke Island and moved to Ocracoke permanently in the early 2000s. Their link to the schools began when Eden started volunteering with kindergarten and first-grade classes on Ocracoke Island, which she did for about 15 years. It was the beginning of her reputation as the loving “Miss Eden” to everyone in town.
The couple continued to be generous to the Ocracoke community through various projects, including the establishment of Ocracoke Community Park, a multi-use space that has become integral to the lives of the people of Ocracoke.
The Greg & Eden Honeycutt Scholarship is a four-year renewable scholarship open to seniors graduating from Cape Hatteras Secondary School or Ocracoke School. Students must attend an in-state public college or university and demonstrate both financial need and strong academic standing.
“Thank you so much for your generosity with this scholarship,” Mariah told the Honeycutts. “I am truly grateful to be the renewed recipient of your support, and it means so much to me and my educational journey at Carolina. I appreciate and am forever inspired by your help!”
Greg and Eden Honeycutt’s story shows how a deep love for a place can turn into meaningful action. For decades, they’ve strengthened the Outer Banks through their community efforts and support. Their ongoing involvement and care are a quiet but steady example of how to invest in a place you call home.
For information on contributing, creating a charitable fund or applying for a grant from the Outer Banks Community Foundation, please visit OBCF.org or call (252) 423-3003.
The Outer Banks Community Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization committed to fostering philanthropy and supporting local causes. Through its charitable funds and grant programs, the Foundation strives to enrich the quality of life for residents of the Outer Banks.
The Ocracoke beach. Drivers should not drive in front of where beach goers have set up. Photo: C. Leinbach
The Outer Banks and Ocracoke are fortunate that driving on the beach is allowed. However, there are some things to observe while doing so. The following “Irene’s guide to beach manners,” modified a bit for Ocracoke, is by the late Irene Nolan, co-founder, editor and publisher of the Island Free Press online newspaper based on Hatteras Island.
This isn’t just for our visitors. Sometimes even locals need reminding about beach manners. Also, it’s not just about manners. Beach drivers need to know the law and obey it and use some common sense. So, this a reminder to all about beach manners and the law.
Beach driving: All the state’s traffic laws for driving on paved roads apply to beach driving: Buckle up, observe speed limits, no open containers of alcoholic beverages while driving, current driver’s license, vehicle registration, insurance and license plate are required.
The National Park Service (NPS) requires a permit for driving on the beach.
Do not drive recklessly by cutting doughnuts or defacing the beach. Never drive on the dunes.
The speed limit on the beach is 15 mph and 5 mph when within 100 feet of pedestrians. Pedestrians always have the right of way.
Do not drive in front of other beach goers’ camps. Do not drive or walk into areas closed for resource protection, which are clearly marked.
Your tires should be aired down to drive on the access ramps and the beach – no matter what your manual says. The NPS recommends 20 psi.
If you get stuck, lower your tire pressure even more. Slowly back up in your tracks and move slowly forward. Don’t sit there and spin your wheels or you will get really stuck. Then you’ll have to call Beach Towing (252-928-8111) to get you out.
Do not wait until you are in the access ramp to stop and air down your tires, holding up the drivers behind you.
Don’t drive in the surf or standing water on the beach. Salt water is corrosive and can ruin your vehicle.
Prepare for emergencies by carrying in your vehicle a shovel, tire pressure gauge, spare tire, jack and jack support board, fire extinguisher, tow rope, flashlight and first-aid kit.
Keep pets on a six-foot leash. Feeding wildlife, including those begging seagulls, is prohibited on federal property. Dogs, if not actually swimming in the surf, must otherwise be on leashes. See more rules about the NPS-owned beach here.
Beach holes: Beware of digging deep holes or tunnels on the beach. It can be a lot of fun, but it can also be dangerous. Visitors to the seashore have been killed when sand collapsed on them while they were digging tunnels. If you do dig holes on the beach, be sure to cover them up before you leave. Holes on the beach at night can be dangerous for pedestrians, emergency vehicles and wildlife.
No overnights: Park regulations prohibit camping and/or leaving your equipment on the beach overnight.
Drones are prohibited inside Cape Hatteras National Seashore and other NPS property.
Do not litter. Be sure that trash bags are a part of your beach packing and carry out your trash.
Share the beach and the water. If you are going to fish, don’t set up in the middle of vacationing families. And, likewise, if you want to swim and enjoy the water, don’t stop next to a group of anglers.
Keep the music down: Don’t assume everyone shares your taste in music. Some folks like to hear the sound of the surf and shorebirds. Keep the volume to within your area.
A word about outdoor lights. Please turn your outside lights off at night when you are not using them. We like to enjoy our dark skies here on Ocracoke, and it’s hard to do when your neighbors leave their outdoor lights, especially big spotlights, on all night long.
One of Ocracoke’s more than 350 community cats. Photo by Drena Galarza
By Rita Thiel
The population growth of feral (community) cats on Ocracoke is declining.
One thousand… 800… 500 and now, approximately 375 Ocracats are living and romping around trying to make the best of their situations.
In the last 15 years, the approximate count of the “feral” community cats on Ocracoke has steadily declined.
This is due, in most part, to the successful TNR (trap-neuter-release) program that has been in full effect since 2010.
Ocracats’ spay/neuter clinics were reduced from one three-day clinic each year, to none in the past two years.
That’s because Ocracats volunteers have shouldered the TNR task themselves year-round, resulting in a current fertile population of fewer than 15.
All those years of clinics and trapping led to the decline of kitten births from 91 kittens brought in in 2020 to 12 kittens in 2024.
This is an amazing success rate!
There should never be purposeful breeding of feral cats, and even though the feral community cats on Ocracoke are fed, medically cared for and respected (for the most part), feral life is painful, scary, and dangerous and much suffering occurs.
The focus now for our community cats is to continue with TNR, and islanders can help by alerting us to non-neutered males and unspayed females and even in helping to capture them at appropriate times.
At the same time, we will continue to take good care of the cats who were forced to make Ocracoke their home — forced because many of the cats you see in colonies around the village were private cats or older kittens who were left behind by owners, seasonal workers or those who decided their cat would be fine on its own: It’s Ocracoke. Well, they aren’t “fine.”
Imagine taking your pet cat and leaving it outside all on its own to live by its best means. What a shock to the animal!
So Ocracats continues to feed the community cats every day, which is a big expense.
Your pet eats each day, right? These are not wild animals. In a perfect world, they should all be comfortable in someone’s cozy house with a loving family, but they aren’t.
Imagine taking your pet cat and leaving it outside all on its own to live by its best means. What a shock to the animal!
They rely on their “feeders” (Ocracats volunteers and residents) to give them some of the basic needs of all animals: food, water, shelter, and yes, kindness.
The wildlife on Ocracoke is eaten or killed sometimes by the cats, but can you imagine how many birds, lizards and frogs would be eaten if the cats had no other food source?
Cats will kill the rats they find on the island and eat them if they are small. But the cats have to be allowed on your property and near your home and outbuildings in order to hear and see the rats to kill. If you don’t let the cats around your house, they can’t telepathically know there is a rat giving you issues. There is a compromise situation here if you want the cats to help you with your rats.
Ocracats is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization that relies entirely on donations, merchandise sales and grants to provide the food and medical care to the 375(+/-) community cats.
Daily feedings continue to help maintain a healthy population, with medical issues observed and treated when possible.
An unhealthy, mangy, diseased looking feral community results when consistent feedings of healthy food are not available.
To donate, visit www.ocracats.org, or send checks to P.O. Box 993, Ocracoke, NC 27960.
