Monday, June 28, 2010

The Wild Horses of Shackleford

Sat night sunset.   Always a pretty sight at the Cape.

This is a gentleman that we met this weekend.  He built this beautiful Polynesian style catamaran from scratch and did in a year!  Beautiful workmanship, the whole boat is lashed together, almost no metal at all.  Even the stays are a fiber material.  It sails very fast!


Yesterday (Sunday) we decided to head back early from the Cape and duck in behind Shackleford Banks (an uninhabited barrier island, the Southern most of the Outer Banks, and part of Cape Lookout National Seashore) to spend the afternoon rafted up with our friend Robert.

Sailing along the shore (love those flat water Shackleford Reaches) I took a few shots of the beautiful blue water.  It's a favorite weekend day spot.

 And of course the wild horses that roam the island.  That's Robert sailing his Catalina 25 with the horses walking the beach behind him.  They will walk right past people on the beach.  The story is that the horses arrived on the island from sinking Spanish ships long before settlers arrived.

A close up.



 I've included a link to some short video of the horses.  Sorry about the shaking but it was taken on high zoom from a moving sailboat.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Caddyshack or the elusive Loggerhead

Since I promised to get a picture of a Loggerhead Turtle it has been a regular cat (or turtle) and mouse game here.

Everytime that I would spot a shadow on the surface...  up would pop their head just long enough for me to run for the camera and get it focused.  Abut the time I'm ready to snap the picture it would be down periscope, full diving planes, and goodbye turtle.  I have plenty of pictures of bubbles to prove it.

Well here is one picture that I was able to get.  Its not the best and I will keep trying, but I really need to go and do something else for a while or things could get ugly.



In my quest for a picture I'm reminded of Bill Murray in Caddyshack in his quest for the elusive Gopher.

UPDATE:  Just as I was uploading the photo - one swam right next to the boat.  I could swear I heard it laughing...

On the hook again

Sat morning and we're anchored at cape lookout.  We've had a stretch of dry rainless weather of about 40-60 days...  Wouldn't you know it but the thunderstorms rolled thru last night and rained on us.




Last night we tested out the new motor on the inflatable dinghy.  It runs real sweet.  Now I need to get some water skis for the doodles.



Early morning is one of my favorite times in the cockpit.  I'm usually the first one up, its real quiet and I just love watching the sea clouds blow by and life return to the nearby boats.  A good cup of Java, a nice cool breeze.....  It don't get much better.

There has been a lot of sea turtles swimming by this weekend.  I've tried to get a picture but each time my camera (of course) was not handy.   Stand by...  I'll get one of those buggers yet.