SNOW!!!

Last Friday it snowed for about 2 hours from Avon to Corolla.  It left a beautiful little dusting on everything for a short minute.  It was the earliest snow on the Outer Banks that anyone can remember.   Here are some pictures from we were able to take before it melted away.

Last week....

We had a northeastern come in and if you have ever been down here when that hits then you know its cold and windy.  One of the houses in Rodanthe unfortunately fell into the ocean because the waves were so high from the wind.  Click here to read more and see a few pictures.

There for the beach.

Surfing on the OBX provides you with waves that are too small, perfect, or that are simply worthy of Noah's Ark. On July 4th, the water was about 70 degrees and you could catch 3-4 ft waves at a rate of 20 an hour... fun fun fun. Last week, 1st week of September, Hannah came by and offered some very steep and big surf with changing conditions every hours. It is important to surf hunt on the OBX because the break differs so much. Every 1/4 mile offers a new type of waves and Frisco even offers a totally different swell and wind direction. In case of doubt, stop at a local surf shop and ask, they'll be glad to help you. The best local knowledge for surfing comes from this website: www.obxsurfinfo.com. The live cam is always filtered by salt water residue, but the morning comments and pictures posted before 7am will tell you everything you need to know for a succesful day in the water. The most useful I've seen yet. For a more technical surf forecast, try www.magicseaweed.com. Althought not specific to the OBX, it offers some nice graphic up to 7 days ahead.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

Not too long ago we were searching for the perfect places to take pictures and video of our products in their natural habitat, so of course we were searching for the most relaxing spots along the Outer Banks. After a full day of driving around, hiking and searching we decided to go down to Bodie Island Lighthouse. It’s a great lighthouse to visit because it’s not that far from the main road that carries you into Nags Head and it beautiful scenery to admire. It’s the perfect place to just stroll around and visit. Did you know that the Bodie Island Lighthouse we can visit today is actually the third one that was built? For more information about the Bodie Island Lighthouse visit this link.

Here are two pictures we took that day.

Check out Meghan cheesing infront of the lighthouse (above).

Visiting The Stores

I got up and headed out to the Outer Banks on Wednesday morning to take a look at our Nags Head Hammock stores while I had an open day. I left about 6:30 am for the drive from Greenville to the coast. Some of the billboards were being fixed and some changed so I also wanted to check out the progress on the billboard project. The first billboard on hwy 64 East is in Plymouth. It needed fixing on my last trip and was glad to see that it had indeed been fixed. 

The next two billboard changes were to paint the two yellow billboards to red to tie them to the billboard theme and the store colors. This work had been done as well. It is great to see a project executed.

 

When driving through Duck you will see people jogging, walking, biking and just looking around. Duck is a beautiful place to do all of these things. I was envious of all of these people knowing that their day at the beach was just starting and I was working at the beach. Oh well—there are worse places to work.

 

I arrived at our most northern Corolla store at Timbuck II at around 9:30 and started out the products that we have in the common areas. All was well. The Corolla store looked great. Justin (who works at the store) and I made only a few minor tweaks to one of the displays in the store. We loaded four barstools in a happy customer’s pickup truck for the ride back to Virginia during my visit.

 

My next stop was the Duck store. It is a beautiful property and we purchased it several months ago. The store always is wonderful. The combination of music and the flowing water from the waterfall and fountains in the store give it a very relaxing feel. This property has a huge deck out back and it overlooks the sound. It is a wonderful spot to sit and wonder (or in my case to check emails). For a moment I forgot that I had a job to do and needed to move on to the other stores.

 

Our Point Harbor store is located on the mainland, so across the 158 bridge I went. The largest hammock and stand in the world is being displayed at this store. This along with the beautiful landscaping makes this a wonderful place to visit. We have a project in the works that will improve the landscaping even further. In the near future, there will be an improved walkway that will take you to the front of the store as well as the side entrance.

 

Upon leaving the Point Harbor store, my belly was letting me know it was lunch time. Fish tacos at Mamma Kuan’s seemed like the perfect fare for my beach trip. The restaurant was hopping and the food was great. The blackened fish tacos there are just the ticket. The day was shaping up well.

 

My last visit of the day was the store in Kill Devil Hills. This is a beautifully landscaped store as well and a joy to visit. I visited with Bill Rosso (the president of Nags Head Hammocks). We discussed the business climate in the area and several small things we need to do to improve our stores.

 The Outer Banks area is always a pleasure to visit even for a work day. I hope to get there soon again and hope that you can get there to enjoy it as well.

 

Signing off for now,

Walter Perkins III

Owner

Gators on the Brain, Part 3

Winterville, N.C., where I live, is a couple hours’ drive from the Outer Banks.

On the main road that runs by my neighborhood are several stretches of roadside ditch that don’t drain quickly after a heavy rain. Within minutes of a serious cloudburst, several temporary mini-canals form along either side of the road. Whenever we get a good dousing, I point this out to my 7-year-old, who is usually too consumed in the back seat by his Nintendo DS to notice. Last time I mentioned it, he surprised me by asking if those flooded ditches didn’t drain, would we end up with alligators in them?

In the 1930s, several alligators were sighted in the New York City sewers, and reportedly killed with rat poison. However, the legend of gators in the bowels of the Big Apple still persists today. So why not alligators in Winterville drainage ditches?

There have been occasional reports of alligators to the southeast of here, in the Pamlico River around Washington, N.C., but to my knowledge, no one’s ever seen one of the big reptiles in the stretch of Tar River that cuts through my part of the state. I’ve even asked the nice lady at the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, and she said she’d never heard a mention of one around here. Not to say it’s not possible, she added, but so far, no.

So when my son asked his alligator question, I should have just said: No, we won’t be seeing any alligators in the ditches beside the road. But I’m a guy, and guys will often say dumb stuff, because we think it’s fun.

So instead, I responded: “That would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” my son agreed. “That would be cool.”

A minute later: “If an alligator came to our neighborhood, do you think he would eat Jack?” Jack is our Jack Russell terrier. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. My son was giving this serious thought. His face told me he was working himself up to being worried the dog was now going to be eaten by an alligator.

For a lesson in how not to parent, see above.

– Frank

Gators on the Brain, Part 2

About four years before my alligator sighting in a canal along U.S. 264 coming back from the Outer Banks, I was living in New Orleans, working for a state-funded cultural magazine. My then-boss, David Johnson, had moved to the Crescent City several years earlier from his native Missouri, and thought that Luziana was near about the greatest place on earth. So naturally, being from North Carolina, which is God’s own country, I felt compelled to set him straight.

The roaches in this city, I would say, are the size of cars. The raindrops come down so hard, you feel like you’re being pummeled with rocks. Cops here drive around at night with rifles to shoot the giant rats (nutria, they’re called) in the canals while the drug dealers hang out on street corners.

Oh, and there are alligators, too.

“This state is one big swamp, and it’s crawling with man-eating beasts!” I’d often prod him.

David would just laugh.

One day I came into work to find a scrap of newspaper in my chair. It was a photo of several law-enforcement personnel standing around something huge and unfriendly looking in the middle of a two-lane road. Traffic in both directions was stopped. One of the officers had a large stick, and was prodding the big thing with it. I did a double-take: That behemoth was an alligator!

The thing was sprawled at an angle across both lanes, sunning itself. It would have been even longer had something not lobbed off a good chunk of the end of its tail. The wound was long since healed over, and the old gator just looked more formidable because of it.

I scooped the clip up and marched it into David’s office. “You see what I mean?” I said. “You’ve got vicious monsters here! They’re even shutting down your roads! Not even your drivers are safe!”

Again, David just laughed.

“You obviously haven’t read the caption,” he said.

I looked again at the clipping in my hand, and this time my jaw fell open. Turns out the picture was taken not in Louisiana, or even anywhere in the vicinity. No, the photo was shot somewhere within the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, along U.S. 64, one of the two main roads to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

“What’s the matter?” David asked. “Gator got your tongue?”

– Frank

Gators on the Brain, Part 1

Summers growing up in eastern North Carolina, I was back and forth to different beaches with family and friends, and later on my own. So by the time I became an adult, I figured I knew a thing or two about this end of the Tarheel State. 

It turns out I knew much less than I thought. I had no idea, for instance, that you could find alligators in coastal North Carolina. Those things are supposed to all be down in Florida and Louisiana, eating Pomeranians and shi tzus right out of the yards of people who just migrated from up north and bought a ridiculously overpriced condo on the edge of a swamp.

Even when I got older, and found myself often crossing the Alligator River on my way to the Outer Banks, I never imagined there might be any real gators lurking nearby. After all, here down South we’ll build a neighborhood atop an old tobacco field that for generations has been stripped of trees, and then call the place something like Glen Arbor or Pine Crest. The Alligator River is a lot cooler name than those, I’ll grant you, but it’s still just a name. Right?

One sunny late-summer day almost 10 years ago, a friend and I were heading back from Nags Head to our then-homes in Greenville. We had just crossed the Alligator River bridge a few minutes earlier. As my friend drove, I stared out at the lines of basking turtles atop dead trees toppled into the roadside canals, and tried to spy a hint of a black bear hiding in the underbrush.

By then, I’d seen a picture of an alligator taken in North Carolina, but that was only a little better than seeing a “photo” of Bigfoot in the National Enquirer. When I saw a real gator with my own startled eyes, only then would I believe it.

My friend drew my attention to just ahead of us, where a young man and woman were pulled over onto the grass at canal’s edge. Both were pointing into the dark water, and gesturing wildly. At first I thought maybe someone else had run off the road into the canal, as unfortunately happens now and then, but the young couple seemed thrilled with whatever they were seeing. So by the time we pulled even with them, my eyes were fixed on the water. And there it was, the toothy head of a reptilian beast, the bottom of its open mouth seeming to rest atop the water. Its snout was long and wide, which meant the part of the animal still submerged was probably a whole heck of a lot bigger than a breadbox. This joker had been around a while.

Out of all the Carolina beaches, I’ve always loved the Outer Banks in particular – there’s something that’s still wild about it. Sure, there’s been business build-up through the years, and the housing boom has brought countless new cottages and hotels; nonetheless, that certain untamable something remains. Seeing that lone gator just as were leaving the islands only made me love the place more.

A few weeks ago, a friend of my college-age niece was visiting from the Outer Banks, where his family lives year-round. The young man works on his dad’s fishing boat, which docks near Avon, on Hatteras Island. I told him about my gator sighting in the canal. That story always went over well.

This guy didn’t even blink. Where he lived, he said, you’d see the things in ponds and marshy areas from time to time. Since then, I’ve had a state park ranger tell me that not only are there no alligators in Avon, there are none in North Carolina, period!

All I can say is that if you go walking off the beaten path in the wonderful wilds of Dare, Hyde or Tyrell counties, you might want to keep a tight leash on your own darling little Precious or Fifi. Y’know, just in case.

– Frank

Beautiful Weather

The rain of the last couple of days has really alleviated the smoke from the peat swamp fires.  As a result it promises to be an absolutely beautiful weekend.  The water has warmed up nicely and thankfully Hurricane Bertha is not coming anywhere near the Outer Banks.  I was just on Pea Island on Monday and spotted dozens of great egrets, blue herons and ibises.  All and all a great time to come to the Outer Banks.

-Bill

The Whalehead Club in Corolla

One place we like to visit for photography and to just enjoy the scenery is The Whale Head Club in Corolla. It’s on the right down a little ways past the Timbuck II shopping center where one of our stores are. You can’t miss it because you will start to see the Currituck Beach Lighthouse as you are coming up to it. It’s a great location for weddings, picnics and to just spend a relaxed afternoon. There is even a public boat ramp if you feel like getting out on the water. If you go there make sure to take a tour of the historic Lighthouse Club that was built in the 1920’s, it has a great interactive tour you can take that tells you about the area and the history of the house. For more information please visit The Whalehead Clubs website at this link. Don't forget once your done visiting this great location you can just walk across to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse and visit it.

~Nikki

The Whalehead Club

Heritage Park          

Currituck Lighthouse

Pea Island, NC

Recently Robert (a Nags Head Hammocks Photographer) and myself were on our way down to Avon to do some photography.  As we were going over Bonner Bridge over the Oregon Inlet to get to Pea Island it struck me that we never stopped here to do any photography.  Maybe it’s because of the heat of the summer or the hike you have to take over the dunes but whatever the reason that has kept us from doing photos here before was waved out the window and we pulled over and decided to carry a Captain’s Chair over the dunes to try and get an awesome shot.  Click here to visit our Captain’s Chair product page so you can see one of the shots we got from that day. 

While we were there I took a couple of quick shots of the old buildings there.  The buildings are intriguing and maybe that’s the real reason I made us stop and take pictures there.  Where else can you see buildings covered almost to the top with sand?  I also wanted to know why they were there and what happened for them to be empty.  When I got home that night I found out that the two buildings were once a Coast Guard Station that was vital to the rescue of the E.S. Newman in 1896.  For more information check out this link. Here are two of the pictures I took of the Old Coast Guard station;

~Nikki

New Website

By now you have probably noticed that we have a new website. We have been working around the clock on this new website for some time now. Not only have we updated the overall look but we have also added some new features.

For example if you click on an item and hit continue you will see that we rebuilt how you can view the product. If it’s a hammock you are looking at, now you can add accessories to the picture, change the rope color and even pillow color! If it is furniture you are looking at now you can update the pillow color along with the rope color and see if they go together like you envision.

A great addition to the website has been Our Stores page. This page directs you to the store of your choice for information about that store along with some pictures of the stores. We take pride in our stores and we hope you enjoy them when you visit!

~Nikki

On my way to the stores

On Wednesday I drove to the Outer Banks to tour the five Nags Head Hammock stores. On the way out I expected to drive though heavy smoke from the forest fires that have been burning in the area for the last few weeks but was pleasantly surprised to only encounter a light smoke for a very few miles in the area just west of Columbia, NC. I had driven to Norfolk to attend a funeral the previous Thursday and experienced heavy smoke for about and hour of the 3 hour drive.

 

I truly like reading the billboard advertising as I am driving. I suspect that more people like doing this than will actually admit to it. Highway 64 East heading to the Outer Banks is a continuous stream of interesting billboards with Nags Head Hammocks leading the way. The advertising is entertaining, while still a bit sophisticated, unlike the ”Pedro” boards that line Hwy 95 for the famous South Carolina landmark. It was interesting, as I drove, a radio advertisement came on for Nags Head Hammocks featuring a couple of kids in the car singing “99 Nags Head billboards on the wall” and whining “are we there yet” as there parents drove them on vacation to the Outer Banks.

 

All of the stores were beautiful. The fresh, brightly colored paint and the open and airy atmosphere made me feel as if I were on vacation, just like the other tourist that were mulling about in the stores. I had to remind myself that I was actually working. It still excites me to see customers testing the comfort of each different item and comparing it to the last one from which they just hopped out. There was a lot of “testing” going on. (What a job!)

 

Jay Branch

Wish you were here ...

One morning last week, I popped into a Starbucks drive-through for a quick jolt. This was in Greenville, N.C., home to our Nags Head Hammocks warehouse. The 20-something barrista nearly gave me an unexpected java bath as she leaned out the window to hand me my cup, and spied my Tortuga’s Lie T-shirt. 

“Tortuga’s!” she giddily exclaimed. “I love that place – don’t you? Isn’t it just the best place to eat on the Outer Banks?” Turns out she hailed from Nags Head, and once she graduated from college, was headed straight back. No idea what she was going to do once she got there. But she had to get back.

That’s just how it is. The Outer Banks puts a hook in you that stays. It may feed you a bit of line, and you may run off in different directions for a while, but usually sooner rather than later, the place just reels you back, and back, and back.

Before I rattle on any further, I want to be clear that there’s a treasure-trove of outstanding eateries up and down the Banks; if a restaurant sticks around here, it has to be good. Tortuga’s is just special to me, not only for its zesty Caribbean-styled menu, but even more because of the special OBX memories I have of the cheerful place.

That’s really why I decided to write today: the draw these islands have on folks, myself included. And I hope this Website, newly designed to better reflect our beloved Outer Banks and the hand-woven quality of our products, can become a spot for you to connect with this special set of islands even when you can’t be here. Maybe it can even help you plan your next – or first-ever! – visit, which definitely needs to include a stop at one of our Nags Head Hammocks stores!

If you’ve got OBX questions, we hope this site can help you sort them out, with links to proven sources for answers. Most OBX info is only a click or two from your fingertips; the feel of the salt breeze on your face, however, requires a trip here!

• How’s the OBX weather? Not to gloat, or anything, but today is just dandy. A light breeze coming up from the southwest, just below 90 degrees, solid visibility, mostly open skies. Sun and surf, baby! By sunset, absolutely perfect hammock weather.

• How are the waves? How’s the surfing?  Sorry, but no serious swells today. But check again soon – it can go from flat to glassy here in the blink of an eye.

•  What about the fishing? What’s in season right now? Where can I put my boat in?

• Any big, scary storms out there? I’d like to say we don’t sometimes get ’em. We do. Always best to know ahead of time.

• Which restaurants are tops?  Who’s got the OBX-style clam chowder and softshell crabs? Who brews their own beer?

• What if I want to get hitched on vacation? You may not be alone! Turns out a whole lot of people want an OBX wedding.

• Kill Devil Hills? How on earth did that place get its name?

Surfing the Web is hardly body surfing off Nags Head, but when you can’t actually be here, we hope our site can help you keep your ties here strong.

The first time I visited the Outer Banks as an adult was more than a decade ago, in January, the dead of winter, around 9 o’clock at night. Right after checking into a hotel, I asked the desk clerk that most annoying of questions, “Where do the locals go to eat?” She was nice enough to act like not every other person asked her that very same thing. At that time of night, she said, try Tortuga’s Lie. Look for the turtle sign. Not even a mile south, the right side of the beach road.

I remember first stepping inside Tortuga’s, trying to shake the cold off me – that Atlantic wind was biting hard, as it surely can on the Banks in winter. Tortuga’s is a happy, unassuming place. The owner, who I’m convinced was born smiling, was helping the kitchen crew, as he often does. The dozen or so customers that blustery, frigid night (my first proper visit to the Outer Banks and I see snow flurries? How wrong is that?) were huddled around the cozy bar like it was a fire to get warm by.

I remember how those OBXers whom I’d never met before quickly welcomed me into to their little group. They asked me questions – Where ya from? Why on earth would you come here in the middle of winter? (I confess it: I love this place in winter!) One of them bought me a tasty adult libation to go with my late dinner.

I left that night thinking: I want to live on the Outer Banks!

That happens a lot with this place. Of course, we can’t all live here. And I’m not blowing smoke when I say that’s what I love so much about working with Nags Head Hammocks – buying a hammock, chair, swing or stand from us means a little piece of our uncanny barrier islands will be joining you at your home, to tide you over until you can next sink your feet into our own tides again, or can make that first very visit here to ruin yourself to all other beaches in the future!

Thanks for hanging out with me for a bit. Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

-Frank