Islanders got their first glimpses of Ocracoke School’s basketball teams with the first home games of the season against rivals, the Cape Hatteras Hurricanes Tuesday (Nov. 28).
Dolphin Paul Jordan drives on Aidan Caricof. Photo by Casey Robertson
The junior varsity boys kicked off the series with a 41-33 win. With a first-quarter lead of 10-5, the Dolphins led throughout the game. Paul Jordan was high scorer with 18 points, followed by Dylan Esham with 10. Jasper Morris, for the Hurricanes, scored 17 points, including 5 three-pointers, in a losing effort.
The Lady Dolphins who lost five key players to graduation and expected to have a building year, faced a formidably experienced opponent, losing 50-21. The Hurricanes jumped out to a 17-2 first-quarter lead and then a halftime score of 27-10, and the result was never in doubt. Senior center Caroline Gray was high scorer for the Hurricanes with 14 points despite sitting out a lot of the second half. Ingrid Contreras was high scorer for the Dolphins with 13 points followed by Taylor Fuller with five.
Hatteras is now 4-0, having convincingly beaten two division 2-A teams, Currituck County and First Flight. The Lady Dolphins lost to both of these two teams in their first away games.
Starting strong with a 19-8 first quarter lead, the boy’s varsity went on to a convincing 70-39 win. Senior center Liam Caswell was high scorer with 19 points, followed by Perry Austin, 12 points, Mason Fuller, 10, and Davin Contreras with eight. All nine Dolphins scored. The boys are now 2-1 splitting their first two away games, losing to First Flight 95-59 and beating Currituck County 50-48 in nonconference games.
Friday (Dec. 1), the teams will travel to Pantego to play the Terra Ceia Christian Knights and return to the “tank” Saturday to take on the Albemarle School Colts of Elizabeth City in their second home games of the year. JVs tip-off at 2 p.m. followed immediately by the Lady Dolphins and ending with the boys varsity. There is no girls JV team this year.
Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV, will broadcast the home games this season, 90.1 FM on the island and online: wovv.org
Lupita Martinez laucnhes a long shot in losing effort against Cape hatteras. Photo by Casey Robertson
Lion fish. Photo by John McCord with the UNC Coastal Studies Institute
Story courtesy of the N.C. Aquarium on Roanoke Island
A conservation team from the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island is working to manage population explosions of lionfish on shipwrecks off the coast of the Outer Banks.
The lionfish is native to the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, but since the late 1980s the invasive species has been rapidly taking over reef and wreck sites along the East Coast. The fish is popular in home aquariums and was likely released intentionally into non-native parts of the Atlantic ocean, biologists say.
Since they have no natural predator in the region and eat almost any other smaller aquatic species, their populations have overcome reefs and wrecks, depleting natural fish populations and disrupting ecosystems.
“Shipwrecks on the Outer Banks provide habitats for all kinds of organisms important to the ocean’s food chain,” says NCARI Dive Safety Officer Shawn Harper, “which in turn are important to parts of commercial and sport fisheries, as well as other recreational users, such as scuba divers.”
Harper says lionfish prey on the juvenile fish populations who rely those areas for food and refuge, especially during the summer, as well as smaller invertebrates such as crabs and shrimp who call the wrecks home year-round.
“Ultimately, these lionfish alter the local community,” he says. “By removing the lionfish, we aim to mitigate the negative impacts of their presence, and help preserve the native species.”
Photo by John McCord with the UNC Coastal Studies Institute
This summer, the NCARI dive team launched a project to determine if the lionfish population can be successfully controlled on selected wreck sites in the waters off the Outer Banks. The project is funded with a grant administered by the N.C. Aquariums Conservation Advisory Committee and provided by the N.C. Aquarium Society.
During August and September, divers took several excursions to three shipwrecks as far out as 25 miles off Hatteras Inlet.
“We first conducted counts of how many lionfish were within a known area of the wrecks,” Harper said. “Once we had an estimate of their density, we then harvested as many as we could. Next, we plan to revisit the wrecks and see if the lionfish populations returns to similar numbers.”
The team will also continue to remove lionfish on any dive it conducts.
“Even collecting one can make a difference in the long run,” he said.
Lionfish are a relatively easy fish to collect by scuba divers using spears. Because they have no natural predators, lionfish typically display no fear when approached by divers.
Handling the fish is another matter because of their famous venomous spines. To protect themselves, divers carry tube-shaped cases with one-way openings where they can deposit a fish directly from the spear’s tip without touching it.
The dives were all in the 90 to 130-foot range, so time on the wrecks was limited to around 20 minutes. To prepare for the outings, the NCARI dive team spent several dives conducting safety training from quarries in Wanchese on Roanoke Island and near Raleigh, as well as near-shore wrecks off Nags Head and deeper wrecks out of Oregon Inlet.
During their spearfish training, they used foam footballs as stand-ins for lionfish.
“We were able to get comfortable with the equipment ahead of time, which was important considering the depth we were dealing with and the hazards posed by the lionfish,” Harper said.
Still, on the four dives where lionfish were encountered, the team was able to harvest 95 fish.
“There’s no good way to get each and every lionfish, so we’ll see when we return how much our efforts affected their numbers,” Harper said.
The lionfish mitigation project has another extra, possibly delicious, component. Lionfish are tasty. Once cleaned, including removing those pesky venomous spines, fillets can be prepared like any other fish with white meat.
So a big part of this project is to introduce the lionfish as a delicacy to local diners by enlisting the help of Outer Banks seafood chefs, which was the focus of a Seafood Series program at the aquarium Nov. 14.
“We want to promote uses for these fish as we remove them from wrecks,” Harper says. “That includes trying out some recipes and even experimenting with lionfish fin jewelry, which is popular along the beaches in the tropics.”
Tuesday, Nov. 28 Gaffer’s: Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, 7 pm Coyote Music Den: Open Mike Night, 6:30 pm. All ages and levels, bring your instruments. No charge; donations welcome.
Wednesday, Nov. 29 Coyote Music Den: Word Play 7 to 8:30 pm Gaffer’s: Trivia Night, 7 pm
Thursday, Nov. 30
One-page business plan class with Martin Brossman, 2 to 5 pm. Community Center. For more info, click here. To register for the class, click here.
Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kate McNally, 8 pm
Friday, Dec. 1
Using Video to Get More Business, class with Martin Brossman for small business owners, 9 am to noon. Community Center. For more info click here. To register, click here.
Coyote Music Den: Martin Garrish & Friends “Playing Your Ocracoke Memories.” Garrish is the OPS Cultural Heritage Award winner and this is an evening of songs and stories from a lifetime on Ocracoke, 7:30 pm (doors at 7). Tickets $12
Gaffer’s: Electric Mayhem, 8 pm
Saturday, Dec. 2 Gaffer’s: Breakfast with Santa, 9 to 11 am OPS House Tour. 3 to 5 pm. British Cemetery area Ocracoke Oyster Co.: Martin Garrish and Lou Castro, 6 pm
Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kate McNally, 7 pm
Gaffer’s: Electric Mayhem, 8 pm
Two million dollars in matching funds from the Gates Foundation through a collaboration with Facebook will only be available until they run out. So,donations should be made as close to8 a.m. as possible, though donations can be made throughout the day.
Donations should be made on each charity’s Facebook page. Scroll down in each charity’s page to find the donation link.
“Ocracoke Alive relies largely upon individual donations for growing our mission,” said David Tweedie, executive director. “Many of these funds come from our ‘extended family’ . . . non-residents, who have fallen in love with the island and wish to lend their support.”
Tweedie said Facebook will waive their fees that day and report the giving totals to the Gates Foundation.
According to www.givingtuesday.org, entering its sixth year, Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.
Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the United States) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.
Finding and maintaining quality employees is a challenge for any business, but doing so may be particularly challenging for tourism businesses on Ocracoke.
In an effort to support Ocracoke’s tourism industry and its employees N.C. State faculty member Dr. Whitney Knollenberg is working with N.C. Sea Grant and Ocracoke Alive! to identify the challenges and opportunities related to the tourism workforce on Ocracoke.
Knollenberg is seeking input from the tourism business owners, tourism employees, and residents of Ocracoke to gain a better understanding of what resources are currently supporting the island’s tourism workforce and what resources require greater development.
To gather this input, three focus groups will be held in December. Tourism employees and residents are welcome to share their thoughts in a focus group hosted at 7 p.m. Dec. 18 and 20 in the Deepwater Theater.
The group on the Dec. 20 will be conducted in Spanish. Tourism business owners may participate in a focus group at 7 p.m. Dec. 19 at the Deepwater Theater. One-on-one interviews can also be arranged for those who are interested in sharing their insights and opinions, but who may be unable to participate in the focus groups. The focus groups and interviews will last about one hour and all responses will remain confidential.
The findings from the focus groups and interviews will be shared in another workshop in the spring. The outcomes of this work will be written up as a publicly available report with conclusions and recommendations that may inform efforts to support Ocracoke’s tourism workforce.
To RSVP for the focus groups or an interview, please contact Whitney Knollenberg at whitney_knollenberg@ncsu.edu by Dec. 15.
Allen Moran, right, the newly installed N.C. Board of Transportation representative for District One, which includes Ocracoke, visited the island in August during the community dinner at the end of the week-long power outage. Hyde County Manager Bill Rich is at left. Photo: C. Leinbach
He arrived at the license office at 10:30 a.m. for an appointment with DMV Examiner Cheryl Squire to get his N.C. REAL ID.
“The key is having the correct documents when you visit the DMV,” said Moran. “I presented my certified birth certificate, W-2, driver license and vehicle registration card and was out of the office in less than 20 minutes.”
N.C. REAL ID is a single form of identification that will allow travelers to enter security checkpoints at the airport. It also meets the federal requirements for visiting military bases, nuclear power plants and other federal facilities.
The N.C. REAL ID is a traditional North Carolina license or ID with an additional gold star endorsement at the top. The cost is the same. The federal REAL ID Act established the requirements and the program is administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
If you already have a regular driver license, it can be changed to an N.C. REAL ID by ordering a duplicate license for $13. Moran recommends Outer Banks residents, especially frequent flyers, apply for their REAL ID in advance of their next flight.
Appointments for priority service can be scheduled for any driver license office by calling the DMV Customer Contact Center at919-715-7000.
Without a REAL ID, travelers will have to provide additional identification to fly and visit other federal facilities beginning in 2020. The required identification may vary. The complete list of verification documents is available atNCREALID.gov.
The possible regulation of anchored boats in Silver Lake Harbor is an issue for the Ocracoke Waterways Commission. Photo: C. Leinbach
Editor’s note: The Ocracoke Waterways Commission meets today (Nov. 20) at 5:30 p.m. preceded by a meeting with N.C. Ferry Division officials at 3 p.m., both in the Community Center.
By Connie Leinbach
When two unattended sailboats in Silver Lake became unmoored early Oct. 24 and careened into the docks at the Anchorage Marina, it illustrated the concerns the Ocracoke Waterways Commission has about the harbor.
An advancing front brought 30- to 50-mph winds overnight and kept Mark Brown awake on his boat that’s docked near Down Creek Gallery.
“I didn’t sleep at all, and every 20 minutes had to readjust my fenders,” he said. “Then I looked out the rear and saw this phantom white line go by.”
One of two anchored boats that became unmoored in the Oct. 24 storm.
That white line was an anchored sailboat that had become unmoored and was heading for the Anchorage Marina docks.
“It hit a motor boat and I called the Coast Guard,” Brown said. Soon, another sailboat was loose and also headed for the same docks. “It was wild.”
Later, both boats, which have absent owners, were tied up at the NPS docks, and one of those boats has since sunk.
The same boat sank a few days later and is still there.
These unattended boats are one of several issues the Ocracoke Waterways Commission will tackle, said Tom Pahl, Ocracoke’s county commissioner who proposed the commission which Hyde County approved.
The various agencies that regulate the nation’s waterways overlap in their oversight of the harbor and the two inlets that serve the island.
While the Coast Guard enforces federal boating regulations, N.C. Fish and Wildlife officers enforce state regulations, such as having enough life preservers or proper lights; they can approach only boats that are underway.
“The weak link is when they drop anchor,” Pahl said.
A number of full- and part-time island residents live on boats in the harbor, which may take up space for boating cruisers who want to visit the island and continue on.
“If all we have out there is anchorage like floating motel rooms for part-time residents and no room for cruisers… we have to find a balance,” Pahl said.
All boats anchored in the harbor must lights at night and they need to properly dispose of waste. How long can boats be at anchor unattended? It’s unclear who enforces these regulations and how to deal with boats that become unmoored. Anchorage Marina personnel secured the unmoored boats in October.
“There are way more questions than answers,” he said. (See a related story published in December 2014 hereand an editorial here.)
Fortunately, one of the issues the commission is concerned with—Big Foot Slough—the ferry channel about a mile west of the south end of the island, will get needed dredging this winter, sometime in late January or February.
Commission members learned this at the Oct. 16 meeting in the Community Center during a conference call with Jim Medlock, the draft navigation program project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), Wilmington.
Two weeks before that meeting, the Sea Level ferry bumped ground coming through Big Foot on the 4:30 p.m. run from Swan Quarter, causing her to be taken out of service the next day for repairs, Pahl said.
A big issue the island has wrestled with for the last several years–shortening the ferry crossing between Hatteras and Ocracoke islands—will be the focus of the next commission meeting at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Community Center.
“We’re going to develop a strategy to come up with a way to get people through that channel more quickly,” Pahl said, noting that N.C. Ferry Division Director Harold Thomas said if we could shave 10 minutes off the current route, more ferries could make trips back and forth.
To that end, among the officials the commission has invited is Roger Bullock, chief of navigation for the ACE, who had attended the Ferry Division meeting on the island in April to discuss the shoaling problems in the Hatteras Inlet.
Also at the Oct. 16 meeting, Steve Coulter, a boat captain out of Hatteras who is a member of the Dare County Waterways Commission, advised the Ocracoke group that they need to educate themselves on all of the various state and federal regulations and players, Pahl said.
Coulter said state and federal bureaucracies do not move quickly and that commission members will need tenacity and patience.
Lots happening on this little island Thanksgiving week.
Monday, Nov. 20 N.C. Ferry Division meeting, Community Center, 3 pm Ocracoke Waterways Commission meeting, Community Center, 5:30 pm Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Aaron Caswell, 8 pm
Tuesday, Nov. 21 Gaffer’s: Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, 7 pm Coyote Music Den: Open Jam: all ages, all levels welcome, 7:30 to 9 pm; youth at 6:30. No charge; donations welcome.
Wednesday, Nov. 22 Annual Thanksgiving Bake Sale, 1 p.m. in the Variety Store parking lot. All proceeds to benefit The United Methodist Women Coyote Music Den: Canceled: Playing your Ocracoke Memories, Martin Garrish, 7:30 to 9:30 pm; doors at 7. Gaffer’s: DJ Bingo, called WINGO, with Rob King, 7 pm
Thursday, Nov. 23. Thanksgiving Day. Turkey Trot 5K fundraising run for the Ocracoke School fifth grade field trip. Starts at 1718 Brewing Ocracoke, 8 am. Unofficial and untimed. Winner receives a turkey. Beer, root beer and snacks provided at the finish. Visit http://www.angiesgym.com/5K-turkey-trot.html for details. Ocracoke Bar & Grille: Kate McNally, 8 pm
Saturday, Nov. 25 Books to be Red open house, 1 to 4 pm Berkley Manor: Zillie’s Thanksgiving Wine Dinner at the Berkley Manor. 6 pm. Reservations at http://www.zillies.com Ocracoke Oyster Co.: Martin Garrish and Lou Castro, 6 pm Silver Lake Harbor: Parade of Boats. 7 pm Gaffer’s: TBA, 9 pm
Sunday, Nov 26 Zillie’s Island Pantry: Annual Open House. Noon to 6 pm. Complimentary spiced apple cider, hot mulled wine, holiday treats and secret surprise savings.
Editor’s update: Prior information received on these classes noted that they were free but subsequent information indicates the charge for each class is $20.
Beaufort County Community College, in conjunction with Ocracoke Open Source, will again offer a pair of business classes in the Ocracoke Community Center from 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Friday, Dec. 1.
Both classes will be conducted by Martin Brossman, who presented similar classes in 2015. Brossman offers customized coaching and training solutions for individuals and groups integrating social media, social networking and reputation management strategies.
The Thursday class will focus on marketing plans and the Friday morning class will focus on creating videos for your business.
Clickhereto register for the One-Page Marketing Plan course 2 to 5 p.m. on Nov., 30. Clickhereto register for Using Video to Get More Business course 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 1.
