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