Category Archives: Sea

Longnet Rigs

One of my most memorable impressions upon moving to Hatteras Island was to see locals earning their living as commercial fishermen. I had never seen anything like it before, and harvesting a bounty from the sea seemed a miracle. In the northern villages where I lived, the focal point of fishing activity was at the harbor in Rodanthe, known as “the creek”.

I used to hang out at the fish houses where the boats came in to pack out their daily catch. It amazed me to see them returning with hundreds of pounds of bluefish, trout, croakers and a myriad of other species.

When the longhaul rigs came in, they had catches in thousands of pounds. Longhauling, also referred to as longnetting, is a haul seine technique utilizing a huge length of net, sometimes a mile long. A longnet rig consists of three boats, two engine powered boats and a net skiff. At times, there would be four or five rigs working out of Rodanthe at the same time.

Two boats from a crew that came down from Colington, 1982.

Note the beautiful upward sheer line of the shad boat on the left, 1982.

Another rig from Colington, photographed in 1990.

Mac Midgett’s longnet rig at the creek, 1977.

View from atop Dale Midgett’s fish house, June 1982.

Sailing shad boats, converted to motor power, were preferred for their load carrying capabilities.

The Gray Boys rig from Avon, tied up at the fish house across the harbor, 1982.

The Mojon

Harry Midgett was Irvin’s father. He was one of those locals that had the ocean in his blood. He was a commercial fisherman as long as I knew him. I remember him mostly through his boat called the Mojon.

Mojon sat at the creek in Rodanthe for two or three years. If he wasn’t out fishing in the sound, he was working on that old wooden trawler. I was fascinated with the array of fishing gear, lines, outriggers and nets. To my eye, the equipment looked chaotic. But to the fisherman that used it, each piece had a function, and putting it in order could turn chaos into a livelihood.

Irvin and Robin on Mojon at the Rodanthe Creek, 1977.

The deck of Mojon shot with my large format camera.

This shot was taken looking south, through the rigging of Mojon at the Rodanthe Creek. Collins and Belton Gray’s longhaul boats sit rafted across the harbor.

Harry Midgett in 1977.

Harry moved Mojon from Rodanthe to Ocracoke. He was down there shrimping. The boat was tied up at the Park Service docks. My recollection is that the dockage was free for two weeks at a time. At the end of that time, he’d untie her and depart for sea. Then he returned, and tied up for a couple more weeks. He and Mojon were quite a hit with tourists looking for some local color.

Harry eventually took Mojon into the Gulf of Mexico were he continued to fish until his passing 15 or so years ago.

Grand Finale for 2010

Even during a winter storm, Hatteras Island is a peaceful place to be during the holidays. Over the years, I’ve gone to visit my family in Virginia most of the time. But when I first moved to Rodanthe in 1973, I spent my first Christmas here, away from the family.

Back then there weren’t nearly as many residents as there are now, and the place seemed empty and desolate during the holidays. That Christmas morning 37 years ago, I remember sitting alone on the porch of Valton Midgett’s 2 bedroom rental cottage during a big winter storm. Over the dune tops, I could see huge ocean swells rolling in, and a fierce northwest wind blowing spray off the wave tops, into dark and ominous skies. That image is burned in my mind, and I took no photographs. It was a defining, blissful moment for me.

Although things have changed since then, this Christmas was similar. A lot of locals left to be with loved-ones, and highway 12 was virtually empty and silent. At no other time of year can this be experienced, although hurricane evacuations can come close.

With this recent winter storm in the forecast, I was hoping to see a big snow event here. But all we had was less than a inch of rain, and a light dusting of snow, not enough to blanket the ground.

There were bitter winds coming off the Pamlico Sound. Tides were well above normal, enough to allow sea water to dribble across highway 12 at the S-Curve. With no beach there now, the “renourished” dune line built there by NCDOT is all but gone again.

I took this photograph from my truck as I drove past the dune at the S-Curve on highway 12.

The old decommissioned Coast Guard Station at Oregon Inlet awaits its uncertain fate. It has been restored and stabilized by the State of North Carolina.

This is the site of a borrow pit at Oregon Inlet, where NCDOT has excavated sand to rebuild dune systems along highway 12.

Those that live here mark storms as a calendar. We associate our memories with certain storms in the past. Even though this one had minor impact for us, it was significant as all storms are.

Each one changes this dynamic barrier island in some way. The beaches and dunes shift about as a result of moving wind and water. The dunes and highway, like many man made artifacts here, are hanging by a thread. None of it is permanent.

More Soul Surfers

Soul surfers ride waves for the sheer pleasure and experience, not to prove themselves through contests or competition. It doesn’t matter if someone has an ability better or worse. It really all comes down to one person, one wave and the interaction between the two.

One of my best friends in life has been Robin Gerald. We arrived on Hatteras in the early 70’s, exclusively to surf. Others came and went, but we have remained to this day. In the process we found ourselves a way to earn our livings that would permit us to drop everything when the waves got good. In our heyday, if the surf came up, one of us would know and alert the other. For years, it was sort of an unwritten pact of loyalty.

Robin is shown here dropping into an overhead wall at the old S-Curve site, October of 1976.

This 1998 photo shows Robin on a nice fun wave on the north side of the fishing pier at Rodanthe.

Robin was very adept at waterfowl hunting. He would often provide friends with hearty meals of fish or fowl or both. He was affectionately known as Marshman. Here in 1987, he retrieves a nice black duck from a fresh water pond in Buxton.

Another friend of mine was Ed Corley. He already lived on Hatteras when I arrived, and was an outsider, turned local. A short time later, he was involved in a horrible truck accident that landed him in a coma for 2 weeks. His recovery was slow, but he eventually gained most of his former self back. Ed and I bought 2 of the original Boogie Board kits and did a lot of body boarding together. It was good therapy for him in his recovery.

This photo of Ed was taken in the Fall of 1974 during a swell breaking near the ruins of the original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton.

Ed Corley surfing the S-Curve in 1976.

Ed on a nice left at Salvo Shipwreck, 1974.

Ed chose commercial fishing as a way of life. Like many of the locals that fished for a living, he did it more because he loved it, than the financial rewards. This is a shot I made in 1977 when Ed, holding a sturgeon, was gillnetting in Pamlico Sound. He later went to work on offshore fishing trawlers, and relocated to Coos Bay on the Pacific coast. It was there that the boat he was working on sank on a stormy new years eve, taking him down with it.