“All the sweetest winds..”

There are many songs that celebrate the South. “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Seven Bridges Road”, and “Carolina in My Mind” present themselves almost universally.  These first two sentences are bound to get many people tapping away on their keyboards, but a list of songs is not the point here. Southerners love the South. We identify with it. It’s a way of life. I’m not sure that northerners or northeasterners ‘feel’ northern or northeastern. Some may identify with a city, like New York, for example, or a state, but Southerners ‘feel’ Southern. Of course, it’s changing, in some places - mostly the big cities. I guess the draw of sweet tea, big front porches, old hunting dogs and no snow is too strong to resist. 

The south has its own feeling, doesn’t it? “All the sweetest winds, they blow across the south.” And it’s true. Verifiable. I verify it each time I take my boat out and drift among the marsh islands along the border of Virginia and North Carolina. I creep carelessly along, the boat barely moving through the black water as the marsh grasses bend gently and the moss sways in the oaks. The past whispers through the tall reeds and the wildflowers are made more brilliant against the dark, tannin stained water. The air is thick with the earthy smell of the marsh and just a hint of salt. Somehow, the only way to be is barefoot. This is my South, without a care and away from the hellfire of the modern material world.

“Softly in the distance, nothin' stirs about,” and “there is moonlight and moss in the trees.”

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Dwarves and Horses

Here in southern Virginia Beach and northeastern North Carolina, many species of plants and animals reach their northern limit. One of them is a small palm tree - the Sabal minor - also called the dwarf or swamp palmetto. There are other names, Carolina palmetto and swamp cabbage come to mind. The dwarf palmetto prefers wet soil and tolerates moderate levels of salt, both of which are the exact conditions that are found in the border region of Virginia Beach and Currituck. 

The dwarf palmetto can be found hugging the coast from Florida to North Carolina. According to Google, the northernmost known location of this plant is Monkey Island in Currituck Sound. Well, Google did not ask me or any of the locals in the area. The two palms in this image are several miles north of Monkey Island on a marsh island just south of the Virginia border. I have it in my mind that I have seen at least one in Back Bay, but I can’t remember on which island I saw it. I suppose I will have to make another trip soon. 

Oh, and there are wild horses among the palmettos.

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Pungo Ferry

Ferry on the North Landing River

A ferry. At Pungo Ferry. Well, this is Pungo and that is a ferry, but it’s not the Pungo Ferry ferry. Today, there is no ferry that carries passengers across the North Landing River from Pungo to Blackwater and back. The Pungo Ferry Bridge has replaced the ferry, but kept the name. How often do you see the words ferry and bridge in the same name? 

The high rise bridge that spans the river today was completed in 1991 and replaced the old steel turnstile bridge that used to connect the two banks of the river starting in 1928. Prior to that, a ferry shuttled people, vehicles and horses across the river. Throughout history there have been two other wooden drawbridges at Pungo Ferry - one was destroyed by a barge and the other vanished into history. 

The North Landing River is part of the Intracoastal Waterway and the ferry was traveling north.

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A Place Easier to Feel..

The marshlands on the North Landing River, Back Bay and Currituck Sound are enchanting - “a place easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain.” I escape to this world of watery grasslands and slip away amongst the tall, brilliant green grasses as they rustle sweetly and sway gently in the summer breeze. The marsh grasses border every lagoon, creek and channel that snake their way through the marsh in every direction. On the islands, majestic live oaks stand as they always have, Spanish moss clinging to the massive limbs, concealing the cool, sandy interior. These wetlands are a care-killing kind of scenery - a place of great silences and juniper water. Sometimes, you may feel the eyes of the ancients peering through the reeds, or perhaps it’s just the wild horses feeding in the marsh.

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Things You Learn

There are things that a man learns when he spends as much time as I do on a river. Most importantly, on the rivers, creeks and channels in southern Virginia Beach and northeastern North Carolina, is knowing whether the water is high or if it is low. If the wind has been blowing from the north, the river is falling, and if it has been blowing from the south for any length of time, the waters are high. Most anyone in this part of the country will know this. Along with this, is knowing that if you can get to a place or pass through a channel when the water is down, you most always can make it when the river is up. 

A man should know that if he is going to make it through a relatively shallow piece of water that he is familiar with, it is best to do it at full speed. Most would want to go slow, but that only increases your chances of spending your time cursing the thick, uncompromising mud and yourself for not bringing a shove pole. A man knows that in these waters, a shove pole is not to be forgotten at home and that it is a necessary, standard piece of equipment on any boat. By looking at the water, a man should know if it is choked with grass and where he can navigate through it. A man should also know where the deepest water is in a creek - even without electronics. Electronics fail. And motors fail, so a man should know how to work on and maintain a boat motor. 

When you come across fishermen working a bank or drifting, a man should know to slow down and not throw a wake at them. He should also know when it is duck season and give any blind - floating, shore or deep-water - a wide berth and remember that they have guns! A man should know the difference between a muskrat, beaver, otter and a nutria in the water, and the difference between a water snake and moccasin. A man should also be able to read the skies and know whether it is time to keep going or to leave.

With time, this man has learned where some of the best places are to watch the sunrise on the North Landing.

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Islands in the Marsh

There are marsh islands down along the border of Virginia Beach and Currituck. Lots of them. Some are named, some are not. Some are gone. Drifting through the channels and creeks that cut and twist among the islands, you are enclosed by a wall of grass and perfectly alone. The islands conceal shallow pools where ducks and swans feed on submerged grasses and hidden clusters of trees that have gained a foothold on slightly higher ground that provide a refuge for mammals.

This world of shallow black water, marsh, eagles and otters is untravelled and unfamiliar to most. People are wary of the unknown and the unseen, expecting to get hopelessly trapped in the mud and ambushed by hordes of cottonmouths. But that is not the reality. This pristine, uninhabited wetland system is a retreat for birds and animals and Elysium for the environmental visitor.

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Summer is Fading

The shadows are growing longer while the sunrise comes later and the sun sets earlier. The colorful mating colors of the wading birds have faded as have the brilliant greens of the marsh. It’s all fading, like the heat of summer, giving way to shorter days and cooler nights and the colors of Fall. But soon, after a season of rest, the birds will return and the flowers will bloom.

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Creek Names

Most creeks have names - it’s what we do. Some names may not appear on modern maps, but can often be found on older, historical maps and even on deeds from the past. And, of course, locals have their own names - some passed down for generations. The North Landing River has many smaller and larger creeks that drain the marshes, swamps and pocosins that fringe the river. Some are well known, like West Neck and Blackwater Creeks. Others are not, such as Drummonds Creek and Chelydra Stream. And then there are those that remain nameless and are referred to by location. One might say the “first creek north of Moore’s blind” and subsequently be called Moore’s Creek. Some have two names. Alton’s Creek is referred to as Albright’s Creek by many. I use Alton’s, it’s older. I often wonder who Alton was and how it became Albright. 

One of the greatest pleasures of living in the South - for me - is experiencing sunrise on a blackwater creek. Deep in the marsh, in a world older than ours, hidden by the tall grasses amongst the cypress knees, I encounter the first light with wild things and wilderness. 

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Monkey Island

Cattle Egret in mating plumage.

Native Americans once used it as a hunting camp. After the sound turned from salt to brackish, it was bought and a duck hunting club was established in the latter part of the 1800s. Wealthy businessmen once traveled great distances to stay at the hunt club and to hunt the waterfowl that inhabit the marshes and shallow sounds in winter and writers and artists visited as well. The Nature Conservancy owned it at one time, as did the county. Today, Monkey Island is part of Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge and is an active wading bird rookery. The Audubon Society has designated Monkey Island as an Important Bird Area. 

Monkey Island is a treat to see, especially in the late spring and early summer when there are hundreds of wading birds nesting and displaying their magnificent breeding plumage.

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Frogs are Bioindicators

When I was a young boy - about 9 or 10 - my brother and I would walk along the creek near our home and cut down saplings. We would strip any branches and leaves off of them, sharpen one end with a dull knife and stick it firmly into the mud on the bank. On the other end of the newly created fishing pole we would tie a length of whatever pound test fishing line we could find and a hook. We were fishing for catfish and since we did not have money to buy hot dogs, frogs were what we had access to for bait. Before deforesting the creek bank, we went frog hunting. We preferred frogs, but toads were not discarded since there was no way on earth my mother was ever going to donate any of the frozen packs of Oscar Meyers in the freezer to our worthy cause. Once we had a coffee can full of frogs, we would use a scrap piece of lumber as a cutting board and get to work makin’ bait. 

We used the same knife we cut the trees down with to filet the frogs, so it was more sawing than it was cutting. The frog parts were impaled on the hooks and tossed out into the water. We saved the frog eyes - they were good for catching bream with the cane poles that lay dumbfoundingly tangled in a corner of the garage. This is what boys do - they figure things out. We also figured out that if you do not space the poles far enough apart from each other along the creek bank, that when you went to check your lines the next day the frog-filet eatin’ catfish would tangle your lines so spectacularly that you would have to go find more line and restring your poles. We also discovered that some of those catfish must have been monsters because they would pull the poles right out of the mud and drag them down the creek. Thankfully, there was no shortage of saplings.

Today, I see frogs in the marsh along the North Landing River as bioindicators, not bait. The river is healthy and evidenced by the thousands upon thousands of frogs that inhabit the wetlands that surround the North Landing . Every once in a while though, I think about cutting down a sapling…

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The Greens of the Green Sea

I drifted with the morning mist along the creek, surrounded by the dense vegetation - trees and shrubs and grasses in every shade of green. The river is restless, twisting and turning, seeping from the swamps - always flowing. The water in these creeks - far from the main stem of the North Landing River - is dark, the color of the coffee I’m sipping. The wetlands that envelop the river are wild, rare, and undisturbed. Out here, in the early morning, you are immersed in the sounds of the river. Fish splash in the distance. Birds sing their morning song as the marsh grasses rustle with the slightest breeze, and strange wails rise from hidden places in the  swamps. This environmental wonderland is home to more rare plants and animals than anywhere in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge, but it may not be so forever. The years will not be kind to the river. People build and developers develop, destroying what brings them here. 

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Not Everything is Measurable..

Sunrise on the North Landing River

We live in a world where we are told that everything is measurable. Quantifiable. Counted and graphed. Certainly, I might rate how I feel while watching the sun rise on a creek off of the North Landing River on a cool, spring morning while the birds sing to a chorus of frogs in the shadows of the cypress, but that number will never capture the peacefulness and rapture of the moment. You can’t measure the joy and wonder of rivers and new days. It’s intangible. Some sights and moments are beyond measure: exhilarating and beautiful, emotional and graceful. Sunrises need to be experienced. Mornings like this give you the sense that you have entered into another world - far from the sidewalk.

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Bird Watching in Virginia Beach

Great Egret feeding chicks on Monkey Island

Bird watching - or birding - is the fastest growing hobby in the United States with over one third of Americans participating at some level. Here in Virginia Beach and northeastern North Carolina, birdwatchers have the opportunity to see hundreds of species of birds depending on the time of year. Birds from the arctic and the tropics pass through our area because we are situated along the Atlantic Flyway. The variety of birds to be seen is astounding. There are shorebirds on our strands and wading birds in the wetlands. Raptors soar through the air during the day as well as the night sky and our swamps and forests echo with birdsong. A most impressive sight is the island rookery in Currituck Sound where hundreds of pairs of wading birds raise their young each year.

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Coffee Table Book now Available!

The very first coffee table book dedicated to the North Landing River is now available! Discover the beautiful North Landing and learn about this unique waterbody. To see it up close, schedule an Ecotour with me!

The book can be purchased at Blurb. Click the image below to preview the book!

Spring 2020

Moore To See Photo Expeditions is geared up and ready for business!! Our emphasis is on providing private eco- and photo- boat tours to explore the unique natural communities and abundant wildlife of the waters of southern Virginia Beach while placing the waters in historical and ecological context.

I can schedule tours of "The Green Sea" seven days a week! This time of year I am offering afternoon tours Monday - Friday. On weekends and holidays I can tour both mornings and afternoons. 

Guests can choose from tours of the following Green Sea waters:

Back Bay/Knott's Island Bay

North Landing River & tributaries

Monkey Island Rookery (Currituck Sound)

Tour start times vary depending on interest, demand, time of year, and weather. I will work with you to determine start times. If you want to get out and be on the water to catch the sun rise or sunset, I can make that happen! I am very flexible - it’s your tour!

If you would like to discuss options you may email me or call 757.401-2583

US Coast Guard certified captain

Virginia Certified EcoTour Guide

Virginia Green Certified

Fully insured.

Coming Soon

Blog entries will be posted every other week.