2011

Apr 30, 2014

Artificial Reefs Make Real Habitat: North Carolina Focusing on Estuarine Ecosystems

Building artificial fishing reefs in North Carolina's coastal waters used to be a matter of sinking old ships offshore or dumping overboard an array of junk — abandoned airplanes, railroad cars, concrete chunks and thousands of automobile tires.

Apr 29, 2014

Coastal Wild Edibles: Stalking the Wild Sea Lettuce

Most everyone over a certain age remembers Euell Gibbons. An internationally known expert on wild foods, he wrote classic books such as Stalking the Wild Asparagus and Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop, and had numerous followers and disciples.

Apr 29, 2014

Tar Heel Blue Crabs: Still the State’s Most Valuable Seafood

What happens to blue crabs when they are landed by North Carolina crabbers? Where are they processed? Where do they go? Jerry Allegood traces the flow of this crustacean — hard, soft and picked.

Main Street in Creswell was still flooded days after Irene.

Dec 15, 2011

In Irene’s Wake

You spun yourself From thick strands of salt water And a fever in the tropics, wove Your fabric coarse Around the edges, your eye Opening like a net Cast over Cape Lookout.

Dec 15, 2011

Mariner’s Menu: Serve Up Seasonal Offerings

Share a taste of seasonal seafood with your friends and family this winter. Include these dishes in your next holiday dinner. Whether you have something traditional and filling like oyster stew in mind, or something more zesty and exciting like orange-nutmeg flounder, these recipes from Mariner's Menu: 30 Years of Fresh Seafood Ideas by Joyce Taylor are sure to impress.

Dec 15, 2011

Naturalist’s Notebook: Sand: Hold a Mountain in Your Hand

Sand...we play in it, we stroll on it, we make castles out of it, we spread our beach towels on it. But what do we really know about it?

Rusty and April Taylor from Harkers Island work on their business plan after taking the workshops online.

Dec 15, 2011

Winds of Change: Shrimpers Plan for the Future

This Sneads Ferry shrimper understands that knowing how to read shifting tides and winds of change is key to survival. It's the way of the watermen — using natural instincts to keep them safely afloat in an unpredictable and often risky environment.

The Scuppernong River overflowed its banks and flooded Creswell.

Dec 15, 2011

And the Rain Came Down

Days before Hurricane Irene hit the state, Spencer Rogers, North Carolina Sea Grant coastal erosion specialist, raced up and down the coast to install wave gauges. He had to keep pace with changing forecast paths. "We put three on Topsail because we were running out of time," he recalls.

Tracks like up at the ocean to load sand for the new road base.

Dec 15, 2011

N.C. 12: Back in Business

Irene breached Hatteras Island in several spots, leaving islanders with no land route to the mainland. The N.C. Department of Transportation worked day and night to open N.C. 12 again, refilling breaches to the south and building a temporary bridge on Pea Island.

Dec 15, 2011

Inner Banks Take a Beating: Storm Surge Surprised Many

The oceanfront areas were not the only ones affected by Irene. Jerry Allegood visits the Inner Banks, along the sounds and the rivers, and chronicles the destruction Irene left behind.