A Swan Quarter ferry on its way to Ocracoke sports a Blackbeard flag in honor of 2018 as the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard’s demise on the island. Photo: C. Leinbach
MANNS HARBOR – After a month-long dredging effort by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the North Carolina Ferry System will return to its regular published schedule on the Cedar Island-Ocracoke and Swan Quarter-Ocracoke ferry routes as of 4:30 p.m. today(Thursday, April 5). All vehicle size and weight restrictions have also been lifted.
The dredging began in March after the ferry channel in Bigfoot Slough just outside of Ocracoke’s Silver Lake Harbor became too shallow for the M/V Swan Quarter and the M/V Sea Level to pass through it. That required the Ferry Division to reduce its schedules on Pamlico Sound until dredging was complete.
“We appreciate the hard work the Army Corps of Engineers did in Bigfoot Slough under rough weather conditions,” said Ferry Division Director Harold Thomas. “We’re happy to be returning to normal operations on Pamlico Sound, and look forward to a busy summer season.”
Middle school participate in last year’s GEST event. Photos courtesy of Duke University.
To read about this year’s Ocracoke School’s STEAM Fair, click here
All 17 Ocracoke middle school girls plan on heading to the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort April 13 to participate in the programGirls Exploring Science and Technology (GEST).
Now in its third year, GEST is a collaborative event to expose middle school girls to STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) resources, role models and activities in Eastern North Carolina. The program has grown every year and about 200 students are expected to attend.
According to Sarah Loftus, the event coordinator, last year Ocracoke was one of about 30 schools that sent students, mostly from Carteret County and Eastern North Carolina counties and also from the Raleigh area.
The students will rotate through about 12 activities with each activity representing a different STEM field. Some of the activities are Aquatic Animal Veterinary Care, Exploring Robotics, Living Shorelines Exploration and Marine Debris Chain Reaction.
Support and volunteers for this event come from various Duke departments, including the Duke Marine Lab, Nicholas School of the Environment, Graduate and Professional Student Council, Biology Department, and Pratt School of Engineering. Other volunteers will be from UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, NC State CMAST and NC Coastal Federation, NC Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Girl Scouts North Carolina Coastal Pines Council.
The day will conclude with a panel discussion led by female scientists and an instructional workshop about preparing for futures in STEM.
Ocracoke is also getting financial support for the overnight trip from the 21st Century program, coordinated by Nancy Leach.
Anyone wishing to help with a financial contribution should contact Mary McKnight, the Ocracoke School counselor and assistant administrator, 252-928-3251, ext 3204 following this week’s spring break.
GEST students participate in laboratory activities.
RALEIGH — The reception to recommendations for fare increases and cuts in off-season ferry trips ranged from tepid to ice cold at a legislative hearing here last week.
Members of the joint House and Senate Program Evaluation Oversight Committee said the proposal from the legislature’s Program Evaluation Division, which would double the fares for some state-operated ferry routes and cut dozens of crossings, needs more study and could potentially treat coastal residents differently than other North Carolinians when it comes to the state’s transportation system.
Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said there’s not enough data, including passenger counts for individual trips, to make decisions on specific route cuts. He also argued against the plan on philosophical grounds, stressing that the ferry service is part of the transportation system and not a business.
Rep. Nelson Dollar
“I hope we don’t do anything as a General Assembly that will treat our folks down east, in those rural counties who have enough to struggle with, that we don’t do anything that treats them like second-class citizens,” Dollar said. “Because they’ve got to get from Point A to Point B, too, and this ferry system is their bridge system.”
Chuck Hefren, a principal program evaluator with the Program Evaluation Division who worked on the study, said there is no way the state could make the ferry system pay for itself using fares, which at present only provide 4 percent of the funds for the system. But Hefren said the state can make improvements. The cost per vehicle on off-season crossings on expensive routes can run as high as $250, he said.
“We think the reliance on state funds can be lessened and still provide great ferry service in North Carolina,” Hefren said.
The proposal reviewed by the oversight committee finds that the state could save $1.5 million by reducing the number of crossings and another $1.7 million through fare increases. The bulk of the estimated $1.5 million in savings, $953,419, would come from dropping 12 daily crossings for the Hatteras-Ocracoke route, the service’s highest-cost route. Other reductions in service to Ocracoke would include eliminating two daily crossings each from Swan Quarter and Cedar Island. The largest number of daily crossings eliminated would be 18 of the 54 crossings for the Cherry Branch-Minnesott route. Fort Fisher to Southport service would be reduced by nine crossings.
Hefren told the committee that the impact of fare increases on local residents and regular commuters would be minimal because most would take advantage of the $150 year-round pass.
North Carolina Department of Transportation officials offered aresponse to the report, saying the cost-saving estimates are unrealistically high and that many of the suggestions, such as targeted route reductions, are already being considered.
Dollar said the proposal was unnecessary given improvements and route adjustments already being made by NCDOT and would likely be met with heavy opposition on the coast. He recalled reaction to an effort in 2012 to start charging fares for free routes.
“Folks came out by the hundreds of thousands with their pitchforks,” he said. Pointing to the process used to settle on the upcoming fare increase for the Southport to Fort Fisher route, Dollar said the system is working.
“We need to leave these things to DOT under the structure that we’ve got and make sure that the local governments are involved and do it that way, as opposed to the General Assembly weighing in,” he said.
Rep. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, agreed, saying that she’d like to see better reporting and updates on the system before taking on large-scale changes.
‘Struggling With the Math’
Some inland legislators were more receptive to the report’s recommendations.
Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, said he didn’t understand why the state is providing a free commute for coastal residents. Wells said a 5-mile commute, the length of the average ferry run, costs $1,400 per year based on the current Internal Revenue Service mileage deduction rate of 54.5 cents per mile.
Sen. Andy Wells
“I’m struggling with the math on this,” Wells said. “If your commute is over the highway your cost is $1,400 a year, but if it’s over the water, it’s zero.”
Rather than move forward with the proposed fare increases and crossing reductions, the committee is reviewing potential legislation for the 2018 short session that would require NCDOT to develop a 20- to 30-year forecast of transportation demands for the coastal region and look at possible alternatives for transporting vehicles and passengers via ferries. The plan would include a review of routes, pricing structures for fares and all ferry operations. The report would be due Dec. 1, 2019.
Rep. Pat McElraft
The committee is scheduled to review the proposed legislation at its April 9 meeting and decide whether to forward it to the General Assembly for consideration during the session, which opens May 16.
Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said she agrees there needs to be more information before considering major changes.
“I think the long-term study is the right decision,” she said Tuesday in a text response to Coastal Review Online. “There are many moving pieces to this issue. We need to consider tourism that generates billions of dollars to the economy. A modest fee increase for cars on ferries where there is an alternative road might be appropriate but there needs to be stakeholders involved in the final plan for any changes.”
Partnerships Pushed
While there was plenty of pushback on parts of the ferry service evaluation, a proposal to encourage more public-private partnerships was generally applauded.
A plan under consideration would revive the idea of a network of passenger ferries to boost tourism in the state’s Inner Banks, a marketing term that describes the inland areas of the coastal plain, particularly in the Albemarle Sound region.
Nick Didow, a marketing professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, told the committee that a newstudyby a new Inner Banks collaboration, showed that a public-private partnership model could be used to launch a new ferry passenger as part of an economic revitalizations for Albemarle communities. The concept draws on an idea proposed in 1993 by former Roper mayor Bunny Sanders, Phil McMullan and Peter Thompson.
The network of ferries, Didow told the committee, would benefit locals by connecting communities as well as the tourism economy. It also would expand eco-tourism in the region.
The study, conducted for a coalition dubbed the Harbor Town Project, looked at adding passenger ferry service between Elizabeth City, Edenton, Hertford, Plymouth, Columbia and Kitty Hawk. One proposed route would be an express service between Kitty Hawk and Edenton.
In the study, the infrastructure, including docks and vessels for the system, would be provided with public funds, with an initial investment estimated at $22 million. The service would be operated by a commercial ferry service.
The study estimates that 107,000 passengers would use the service during the first year and 170,000 per year after that and increase as routes increase.
According to the study, tourists and visitors would enjoy visiting historic towns and sites, seeing nature and exploring the inner banks region by ferry. Image: UNC
Earl Pugh Jr. learned something at the Ocracoke School STEAM Fair.
Pugh, chair of the Hyde County Board of Commissioners, learned the best battery to use for his outdoor weather station.
“Now I know that lithium is better,” Pugh said amid the hubbub of the students’ exhibits in the school gym. He was referring to the first-place science project in grades 6 to 8 by Christian Stevens in which the sixth-grader demonstrated the best buy in batteries based on his experimentation.
“It’s wonderful,” Pugh continued about the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math fair. “I also learned which fishing line is the strongest. Some of these projects could be put to practical use.”
Judges on March 29 assessed more than 60 projects from the pre-school to grade 12 in the Ocracoke School gym. Ocracoke added an arts component, as do some other schools. Participation in the fair was voluntary and students in grades 3 to 5 submitted the most projects.
Shayna Brooks wins Best of Show in the art category for her ‘Seed Bombs’ jewelry.
“Phunky Pheromones and Termite Trails,” a project by sixth-grader Maren Donlon, showed how termites detected pheromones in various inks by following paths that Donlon had drawn. The termites most often followed an ink path made by a ball point pen, she said about her second-place winner in grades 6 to 8.
Upper grade students tried their math skills in “Algebra Adventure,” created by Mila Ortiz, a tenth-grader. Contestants had to solve algebra problems in order to move their pieces on a game board she created. Ortiz won first place in the math division among ninth to 12th graders. Dylan Esham won second place.
Third-grader Petros Burleson created a coding system for robots in his project “Coding with Dash.”
Katie Kinion and Maggie Evans’s optical illusion project “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” measured which gender sees which optical illusion first, using some well known optical illusions, such as a vase/face, duck/rabbit and old woman/young woman.
“Women see the faces first in the vase picture,” Katie explained. There’s no right answer. The project showed brain development in male and females.
“We’re all different,” she said.
Fifth-grader Shayna Brooks captured first place in the grade 3 to 5 entries in art and best of show for her “Seed Bombs,” in which she created clay jewelry with seeds inside. After making necklaces out of the seeds, you can throw them on the ground to sprout plants, she said.
Lee Brimmage Jr, N.C. Cooperative Extension, 4-H Youth Development director, hands out the awards.
“I’m just blown away by these projects,” Lee Brimmage Jr, N.C. Cooperative Extension, 4-H Youth Development director, told the parents and community members watching the awards as he presented the honors. “The enthusiasm y’all have is second to none.”
Other best-in-show winners, who also won first-place in their grade divisions, were Essie O’Neal, grade three, science; Gabriel Brown, grade five, technology; Noah O’Neal, grade five, engineering; and Sawyer DeVan, fourth grade, math.
Other division winners were as follows:
Science: grades 3 to 5, second place Caroline Stocks. Grades 9 to 12: Colby Austin first, and Karen Jordan, second.
Technology grades 3 to 5: Gabriel Brown, first; Nicholas Cole and Danny Badillo, second.
Engineering: Grades 3 to 5: Gavin Elicker, second.
Art: Grades 3 to 5: Melanie Perez, second place.
To encourage students to pursue science-related careers and businesses to continue investing in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper on April 2 declared April as STEM Education month.
Hiring in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields continues to outpace the hiring average across all industries in North Carolina, Cooper said in a press release.
“The number one question employers considering North Carolina ask me is whether our workforce has the skills needed to do the jobs they want to create,” Cooper said. “A rigorous STEM education can also help students to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are important for success in today’s economy.”
Katie Kinion shows how her and Maggie Evans’s optical illusion project, “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t,” measured which gender sees which optical illusion first.
Third-grader Essie O’Neal’s project about cats won best of show in science in her grade category.A project about the sun.
Pat Garber harvested some invasive phragmites and turned them into reusable straws. Photo by Pat Garber
By Pat Garber
One frigid day in January, as I was griping to someone about two of my pet peeves, plastic drinking straws, which are polluting our oceans, and the invasive, destructive reeds known as phragmites, which are taking over Ocracoke’s natural marshes, I had a brainstorm. Why not use the much-hated phragmites to replace the also hated plastic straws?
Phragmites are stiff and hollow like bamboo, which is sometimes used to make drinking straws. I took my scissors out to the patch of phragmites thriving in the marsh near my house, snipped a few, and punched out the dividing flaps. “Voila!” I’ve been using a phragmite straw ever since.
I mentioned my discovery to my friend Rita Thiel, who took the idea to another level.
“Let’s start an Earth Day challenge to rid Ocracoke of plastic straws,” she suggested. “There is a national movement these days to eliminate plastic straws, and it would be great to have Ocracoke in front of the charge.” Rita began looking into alternatives.
Plastic straws are big contributors to the plastic soup clogging our oceans and killing our marine life. Straws that do not end up in waterways add to the landfills, also contaminating our earth.
According to published reports, more than 500 million plastic straws are produced each day in this country, and they are among the top 10 items picked up by volunteers in beach clean-ups. In the last 25 years, more than 6 million plastic straws have been picked up in beach cleanups. Even if someone puts them into recycling, most are too light to make it through the mechanical recycling sorter and end up in the garbage and ultimately landfills.
Scientists estimate that about 269,000 tons of plastic are in the world’s oceans, constituting 90 percent of marine trash. Plastic fibers, invisible to the naked eye, sink to the sea floor. Other plastics are consumed by fish and other marine life. When tested, 71 percent of sea birds and 30 percent of sea turtles prove to have plastic in their stomachs, which often is fatal.
Straws on a beach.
Lisa Rider, coordinator of the N.C. Marine Debris Symposium, Onslow County, said that no naturally occurring organisms can break down the polymers in plastic, so they never biodegrade. Plastics in marine waters act like sponges, absorbing PCBs, DDT and other harmful chemicals, many of which are now illegal but remain in the environment.
Sunlight may break plastic down into tiny pieces called micro-plastics. Small fish that consume these plastics are eaten by larger fish, which may in turn be eaten by humans. We may inadvertently be consuming toxins which have been prohibited for decades.
Eliminating plastic straws is one simple way to stop adding to the problem, and straws are easy to live without.
Most folks would not suffer if restaurants stopped providing them. Parents may need straws for little children, and it’s hard to imagine enjoying your smoothie or milkshake without a straw, but paper ones work quite well.
Rita discovered online there are reusable straws made of bamboo, metal, glass (and maybe in the future, phragmites) that you can carry with you. Rita also is looking into grants to buy back the plastic straws in island restaurants.
Vince and Sue O’Neal, owners of the Pony Island Restaurant, think eliminating plastic straws is a good idea.
“We need to reduce the amount of plastics going into our ocean and sounds,” said Vince, who also is a commercial fisherman. “It’s killing the fish and poisoning our food source. I’m on board.”
Katy Mitchell, owner of the Magic Bean Coffee Bazaar, has agreed to try to eliminate plastic straws.
“As a community we have a unique opportunity to start the conversation with our visitors and residents about sustainable products,” she said.
Other food service businesses have also expressed their support, and we hope to get everyone involved.
Next time you are in a restaurant say, “No thanks,” when your server hands you a plastic straw for your drink.
Or better yet, imagine a server that does not automatically provide such straws, and if you ask for one, brings you one made of biodegradable paper.
Some paper and alternative straw resources include
Aardvark Straws.com. Paper straws rigid enough not to break down in your drink. Made in the USA from renewable resources, biodegradable and 100 percent compostable.
BeOrganic.me. BeOrganic Glass straws are an eco-friendly, tasteful alternative to traditional plastic straws.
Eco at Heart stainless steel straws: ecoatheart.com.
Ice Straws: Make your own straws in the freezer. The mold is food-grade silicone rubber and will quickly make six 8-inch straws of whatever liquid you like. Visit http://www.thinkgeek.com.
Monday, April 2 Community Center: Hyde County commissioners, 6 p.m. For agenda and background information, click here. Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kate McNally, 7 pm
Tuesday, April 3 Coyote Music Den: Music Jam, all ages & levels, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. No charge, donations appreciated Gaffer’s: Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, 7 pm
Wednesday, April 4 Community Center: Ocracoke Advisory Planning Board, 4:30 p.m. Coyote Music Den: Word Play, if you love words bring some to share, 7 to 8:30 pm. No charge; donations appreciated Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kim France, 7 pm
Thursday, April 5
Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kate McNally, 7 pm
Ocracoke Island Decoy Carver’s Guild monthly meeting, Community Center, 7 pm
Friday, April 6 Coyote Music Den: Martin Garrish & Friends “Playing Your Ocracoke Memories,” 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30). An evening of foot-tapping family-friendly music played by Cultural Heritage Award winner Martin Garrish, Coyote and special guests each week. Gaffer’s: Blurky’s Quirky Friends and The Mumz, 8:30 pm
Saturday, April 7 Ocracoke Oyster Co.: The Ocracoke Rockers, 8 pm Gaffer’s: Karaoke with Barry Wells 8 pm
Sunday, April 8 Ocracoke Preservation Society: Clean up party. Come help clean up the museum grounds for the 2018 season, 1 p.m. Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kim France, 7 pm
“A bird so grand, so majestic, and so picturesque is surely a fitting subject for the artist’s brush,” so wrote Arthur Cleveland Bent in 1927 about the Great Blue Heron.
Bent is the author and assembler of the multi-volume “Life Histories of American Birds,” published over a period of many years by the Smithsonian Institution.
Indeed, the highly photogenic Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a striking figure whether perched on the ground or in flight with its slow wing beats and the neck folded into an S-shape and has appeared on countless magazine covers, T-shirts and Facebook pages.
The largest wading bird of North America and third largest heron in the world can be seen on Ocracoke year-round, though less in the summer since it does not breed on the island.
Long legs and neck and distinctive grey/blue plumage make it easily identifiable. Aside from some subtle differences, males and females look alike.
This heron’s distribution covers most of United States and southern Canada where there are suitable bodies of water and wetlands habitat. Herons also forage in fields and uplands.
Highly adaptable, with their long legs these larger herons can forage in deeper waters up to about 20 inches.
Solitary hunters, they wade slowly or stand still, peering into the water in search of prey. Using their strong mandibles, they grab their prey or use their dagger-like bills to impale larger fish, often shaking them to break or relax the sharp spines before swallowing them whole.
Their primary food source is fish, though they will eat amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, insects, and even other birds that have the misfortune to get too close to them. Famed ornithologist Alexander Wilson in 1832 noted when the grasshoppers have been thick, he has seen Great Blue Herons feeding in open meadows on these insects entirely, often for two hours at a time; not chasing them but standing very still, allowing the insects to come within reach of their quick beaks.
Within an extensive distribution area, there are both non-migratory and migratory populations with those in the northern range most likely to migrate farther south.
Unlike the vocal, year-round islander, Black-crowned Night Herons, whose squawks can be heard at dusk as they fly over the village, Great Blue Herons are mostly silent.
On a dock, Silver Lake harbor, Ocracoke
The Birds of North Carolina website, managed by the Carolina Bird Club, notes that Great Blue Herons were poorly known as a breeding species as late as the 1970s, with nesting colonies few and far between, mainly in remote swamps.
But with the increase in beaver ponds, reservoirs and other man-made lakes and ponds, Great Blue Herons now nest in most counties east of the western mountains. Increased beaver populations have helped the species elsewhere in the eastern United States and southern Canada.
With its extensive marshes and wetlands, Ocracoke is habitat to 12 bittern and heron species, the most common being the Great Egret. Both Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets have been reported every year on the island’s Christmas Bird Count since it began in 1981, usually in the seven to 12 individuals range.
Great Blue Herons may nest as single pairs, but mostly in colonies that can vary in size from a few pairs to several hundred. Males arrive at the colony and settle on nest sites where they court passing females. A nest, usually in a tree, has two to five eggs that take a little under 30 days to hatch and six to eight weeks for the chicks to fledge.
In the past, herons and egrets were shot for their feathers used to adorn hats and garments.
The slaughter of these birds went relatively unchecked until 1900 when the federal government passed the Lacey Act, which prohibits the foreign and interstate commercial trade of feathers. Greater protection was afforded in 1918 with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. With this protection, herons and many other birds have made dramatic comebacks.
In recent years, Great Blue Herons have had to face new challenges. The loss of nesting sites, and deterioration of water quality and wetland habitat affects this species as with many others, including their principle food source, fish.
Toxic chemicals in the environment pose another threat.
Although Great Blue Herons currently appear to tolerate low levels of pollutants, these chemicals can move through the food chain, accumulate in the tissues of prey and may eventually cause reproductive failure.
Listen:
Courtesy of OhioLINK Digital Resource Commons
Best time to see: Year-round, less so in mid-summer months
Where: Marsh areas, sound side, in flight over island, in village
The graves at the British Cemetery on Ocracoke. Photo: C. Leinbach
The British Cemetery ceremony and reception, scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, May 11, is seeking donations to help with landscaping the grave sites and providing food for the reception.
This ceremony, organized by the War Graves Committee on Hatteras, remembers the sinking by a German U-boat of the HMT Bedfordshire, a British trawler, off the coast here May 11, 1942. For six months, the U-boat brigade torpedoed allied convoys off the Outer Banks.
This will be the 76th commemoration of the four British World War II soldiers buried in the small plot of British land along British Cemetery Road.
Representatives from the British Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy will be in attendance, as well as members of the United States Coast Guard, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and seniors from Ocracoke School.
The Ocracoke ceremony can trace its ties to island families back to May 1942. The British Cemetery site has meant a lot to the people of Ocracoke and has also become an important stop for visitors. As one stands at these gravesites, one begins to understand the kindness and respect people have shown for the men who died so far from home. The Ocracoke community has continued to help care for the gravesites, memorial and to honor these British sailors.
While the Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board grants money to cover the cost of the cemetery plantings and the reception afterwards, this does not cover the total cost.
To donate, send checks by April 30 to OCBA, P.O. Box 456, Ocracoke, NC 27960. Please note “British Cemetery Ceremony” in the memo line.
Volunteers also are needed to help at the reception at the Ocracoke Community Center following the ceremony.
For information, call Crystal Canterbury at 252-588-2245, or send an email to crystalcurrentlee@yahoo.com.
British Cemetery Ceremony: A final salute. This year’s event will be Friday, May 11. Photo by P. Vankevich
Slick cam on Ocracoke’s Silver Lake harbor. Photo: C. Leinbach
Update: The Hyde County Board of Commissioners Monday night (April 2) at their monthly meeting approved this interim harbor regulation ordinance.
By Connie Leinbach
Hyde County is poised to enact steps to control the boats in Ocracoke’s Silver Lake harbor, and the public will have a chance to weigh in at 6 p.m. Monday (April 2) in the Community Centerduring a hearing on a proposed interim regulation.
The Hyde County Board of Commissioners will hear comments on aninterim measure that the Ocracoke Advisory Planning Board approved March 19 during a public meeting. At that meeting, the planning board approved the measure until a comprehensive ordinance can be drawn up and approved by the N.C. General Assembly.
The measure is modeled after N.C. General Statute 153A-132 that deals with abandoned motor vehicles and vessels. In that statute “Motor vehicle” includes any machine designed or intended to travel over land or water by self-propulsion or while attached to self-propelled vehicle. A “vessel” means “every description of watercraft or structure, other than a seaplane on the water, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation or habitation on the water.”
The statute also states, “A county may by ordinance prohibit the abandonment of vessels in navigable waters within the county’s ordinance-making jurisdiction.”
Ocracoke’s version authorizes the county to declare boats “abandoned” and to remove them if they are “moored, anchored or otherwise located for more than 30 consecutive days in any 180-day period without the permission of the dock owner.”
If the county commissioners approve it, the ordinance will immediately be effective, and the county will have enforcement authority.
This new ordinance, for now, principally deals with abandoned vessels in the harbor, something that became a larger problem last season.
The county is developing a more comprehensive ordinance modeled after the one in Brunswick County.
“For the time being, this is as good as we can do until we get a larger ordinance,” said Stevie Wilson, chair of the planning board, during the March 16 meeting. “This will help us avoid the problem of people just leaving their boats. You can’t just leave your stuff here.”
Tom Pahl, Ocracoke’s county commissioner, noted that this ordinance will prevent people from purchasing an inexpensive boat, living on it in the harbor for the season, then walking away.
In February, the county removed three boats that had become unmoored last October.
Two were deemed abandoned and were crushed, all to the county’s expense, and the third was removed by the National Park Service since it had been tied up at one of their slips.
This interim ordinance requires the owners to pay all fees of removal and disposition.
“We can put liens on them and garnish their wages,” Bill Rich, Hyde County manager, said about the boat owners.
Since then, a few other boats have become unmoored.
Wilson said the regulation is not to target anybody or take away water access rights.
“But the harbor is the biggest resource we have,” he said. “This is something the community pretty much wants.”
Several islanders in attendance agreed.
“You’re certainly going in the right direction,” noted George Chamberlin, owner of Captain’s Landing.
Unattended boats in Silver Lake can sometimes come unmoored. Photo by P. Vankevich
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Mary Jane. She was born the year before World War II ended. Two years later her parents were killed in a car accident. Now an orphan, Mary Jane was sent to live with her mother’s brother and his wife in Raleigh, the capitol of North Carolina.
Her Uncle Rob had an important job in the state government, and he and Aunt Rita had a big elegant house in the finest part of town. They had expensive antique furniture, two servants, and the best of everything. They had not wanted a little girl, however, and they did not spend much time with her. They bought her the most expensive toys and clothes to make up for it, and they hired a third servant to look after her and do her bidding.
The servant would help her dress in her very fine clothes and take her for walks through town so that the other children could admire her. She never really played with the children, but they “oohed” and “aahed” with envy when they saw her, so she thought she was popular. The little girl didn’t have any real friends and she was rather imperious with the servants, whom she had been taught were beneath her. She spent most of her time alone gazing at her expensive things. Since she had never had anyone to play with or to love her, she did not know that she was lonely.
When Mary Jane was six, her aunt enrolled her in a private school where she met other girls whose parents were wealthy. She did not know how to talk to them or play with the other children, however, so she watched from a distance. She did not think that they liked her, so she did not like them and hated being there.
One day when Mary Jane was eight years old, her aunt and uncle decided to take an extended vacation in Europe. Mary Jane could not go because she had to go to school, or at least that is what they told her. They were secretly relieved to have an excuse to get away by themselves. They called up another relative, whom they said was her Uncle Ned, who lived far away in a place Mary Jane had never heard of. They told him it was his turn to look after her. They put her on a bus headed east to a little town called Atlantic with a suitcase and instructions on how to catch a boat called the Aleta.
There were a few other people on the bus, including three children, none of them dressed as well as she. They looked at her curiously and one seemed about to speak, but Mary Jane turned away with an imperious lift of her chin. She found a seat by herself near the back.
She was nervous about being on her own like this, and wished she could have brought her servant, but that, she was told, was out of the question. She was excited to be going to a new place and riding on a boat which, she imagined, would resemble the cruise ships she saw in magazine pictures. She watched out the bus window with interest. She saw the city disappear and fields and trees and rivers come into view instead. She fell asleep as the bus lumbered down bumpy narrow roads.
Eventually they arrived at a rustic little town and the bus pulled up at a dock. The driver announced that they were in Atlantic and that the Aleta was waiting for them. Everyone got off the bus, so Mary Jane followed. She looked up and down the waterline, looking for the fine boat she would be taking. There was no such boat in sight.
She watched her fellow passengers line up in front of an old boat which was rather drab and already crowded. That couldn’t be the Aleta! She turned to question the bus driver, but he was already driving away. She was disturbed people, whom she thought shabby, on the bus were to be her fellow passengers, but her surprise turned to horror when she saw that there was also a pig on board!
Seized with panic, she looked around for someone to help her. She wanted to go back to Raleigh! But there was no one to help her except the captain, who was watching her expectantly and holding out a hand to take her suitcase.
“Hello young lady,” he said with a strange accent. “Welcome to the Aleta.” She had no choice but to step up on the deck and into the boat.
Four hours later the boat sailed into a small harbor and pulled up at a dock. There were all kinds of people standing there, getting their mail and greeting the passengers as they stepped off the boat. Most of them spoke the same strange way as the captain. Mary Jane looked around, expecting to see a dignified, well-dressed gentleman, but she did not see anyone like that. A grizzled old woman came for the pig, leading it away on a leash. A strange woman smiled at her and spoke.
“You must be Ned’s niece come to live with him,” but Mary Jane turned away.
She stared around her at this different world which would be her home. Neat little houses meandered along a shoreline where boats were tied up at docks and piers. She saw a few cats stretched out on porches and a pony tied to a picket fence.
Then she heard a voice.
“Mary Jane?” She turned. The man approaching her wore old pants and a ragged shirt with suspenders and–she stared in disbelief–he was barefooted!
“I am your Uncle Ned. Sorry if I smell like fish, but I didn’t have time to change clothes,” he apologized. “I was fishing my nets, and my skiff ran aground on a shoal. I didn’t want to be late, so I rushed over.” He reached out to give her a welcoming hug, but she backed away, staring in horror. She was not used to being hugged by anyone and she certainly did not want this man to touch her.
Uncle Ned was older than Mary Jane’s uncle and aunt in Raleigh. When he was young, he told her, he had been in the Life Saving Service and had been stationed at Ocracoke. He had met an island girl and they fell in love. They got married and he stayed on the island, becoming a fisherman. His wife had died a few years before. They had wanted a child but that was not to be.
Uncle Ned was quiet and shy, but he had been looking forward to having a little girl in the house.
He picked up her suitcase and carried it to an old, faded blue pickup truck, where he laid it in the back amidst fishing nets and crab pots. Her eyes widened, but she did not say anything. As she climbed up on the seat, however, she had to try hard to fight back tears.
They drove down a sandy narrow lane lined with twisted trees, nothing like the stately elms in her Raleigh neighborhood, to the edge of the village. Mary Jane’s uncle pulled up in front of a small wooden house with a picket fence around the yard. The yard backed up to a salt marsh, and on one side was a pen where grey and white chickens clucked about. Nearby a couple ponies were munching contentedly on marsh grass.
The house had a porch out front with a rocking chair and a gray and white cat sitting on the railing. Mary Jane was appalled when the cat walked inside behind her uncle. Uncle Ned showed her to a small clean room with a window that looked over the marsh went to the kitchen to fix dinner.
The next few weeks passed like a nightmare; at least, that’s what Mary Jane thought. At first Uncle Ned tried to talk to her but he finally gave up. He walked with her to the small school and introduced her to a lady who would be her teacher, but Mary Jane just pouted. The other children thought that she spoke strangely, and she could hardly understand them when they tried to talk to her. She had nothing in common with them, she told herself. She thought them poor and uneducated and most had never even been to a big city.
It was March and the grass was just beginning to turn green. New buds were opening on the fig and pecan trees and saucy red-breasted robins were beginning to arrive. Little marsh cottontail rabbits came out of the meadow to taste the tender new sprouts of grass. But Mary Jane never went outside to see these things. She sat in her room and sulked, wishing for her expensive toys and fine house.
Easter time came, and Mary Jane was unhappier than ever. This was one of the occasions when she would, in the past, walk through town dressed in her finery to be admired. Now, however, she had no expensive dress, no fine bonnet, no unique toy to carry in her arms.
She told Uncle Ned that she would not go to church next day, and she decided to stay at home all day long.
Early Easter morning, at about the time the sunrise service was beginning, Mary Jane woke up from a deep sleep. She felt as if someone was in the room with her, but she could see no one. Then she saw a movement near the window, and she stared as she saw a form appear. With wide eyes she saw the form take the shape of a fairy–an Easter bunny fairy! The fairy spoke to her.
“Why are you so unhappy, Mary Jane, when you are surrounded by such riches?”
“Riches!” cried Mary Jane. “There is nothing here but poverty and ugliness!”
“Come with me, then, and I will show you more riches than you ever had in your fancy house in the city.”
They walked outside and down to the marsh, where the fairy picked handfuls of spartina grass and wove the strands into a long, burnished-gold skirt. From the nearby meadow she gathered bright green pennywort leaves and pink morning glory blossoms and stitched them into a colorful blouse, and she made a collar using mint-green leaves from Uncle Ned’s fig tree. Terns and robins flew down from the sky and allowed her to pluck soft downy feathers, and she made a lovely multi-colored cape. A snowy egret even dropped one of its elegant plumes for her to decorate the front.
Then they stopped by the little pond in the pony pasture, where the fairy gathered primroses and rose mallow blossoms for a bonnet. Out of nowhere, a group of lovely yellow butterflies appeared and lit upon the bonnet, perching there calmly. Mary Jane donned her new clothes and the fairy beckoned Mary Jane to look down into the pond. The water acted as a mirror, and the little girl saw that she looked far more beautiful than she ever had in her expensive clothes in the city.
Now the fairy called the ponies and the otters and the rabbits to her. Even a diamondback terrapin popped its head up out of the creek to say good morning. They made friends with Mary Jane and she saw that they were more fun than all her expensive toys.
The fairy waved her wand and Mary Jane’s eyes opened suddenly and she saw the island with new eyes. She realized that it was much more beautiful than the fancy house she had lived at in the city.
“Last of all,” said the fairy, “we will weave a basket from the grasses in the marsh. But the basket will not be for you. It will be a gift for your Uncle Ned, to thank him for all he has done for you.” She showed Mary Jane how to pluck stiff spines of black needle rush and weave through them the soft strands of cattail leaves, and they tied a few pretty shells on top. Then they filled it with eggs they gathered in the henhouse.
Mary Jane placed a handful of wildflowers on top and then took it to Uncle Ned, who was sitting in the old rocker on the porch. He was delighted and smiled happily at his niece. She started to introduce the Easter bunny fairy to him, but when she turned around, the Easter bunny fairy was gone. All Mary Jane saw was a little cottontail rabbit hopping away across the yard.
Mary Jane decided that she loved the little island of Ocracoke, and she and her uncle lived happily ever after.
The end.
Pat Garber. Photo by Peter Vankevich
Pat Garber is the author of Ocracoke Wild (Down Home Press, 1995) and Ocracoke Odyssey (Down Home Press, 1999) both collections of nature essays, and the children’s book Little Sea Horse and The Story of the Ocracoke Ponies (Ocracoke Preservation Museum, 2006). Her book, Heart like a River: the story Sergeant Major Newsom Edward Jenkins 14th North Carolina Infantry, 1861-1865 (Schroeder Publications 2011) is based on a diary written by her great grandfather’s time fighting for the South in the Civil War. Her latest book, Paws and Tales (Schroeder Publications), is a work of fiction; a novel narrated by Kali, a sailor cat and Harvey, an island dog.
