Cape Hatteras

According to AccuWeather and two others prognosticators, this is apparently what 80% humidity and heavy overcast tending toward showers looks like. That's what was predicted for the entire area every hour, on the hour, while I was at the Outer Banks a couple of weekends ago. Being a "lemons to lemonade" kind of guy, I decided to go for it anyway... glad I did. Likely, the folks under those distant cumulus clouds can't make that statement. Anywho, this all makes me wonder what a good day looks like here.

I rarely go to the beach in the summer... it's just way too crowded. I had a reason to visit, though... I'm searching out some iconic North Carolina dark sky places to shoot comet ISON later this year. It won't work here with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, as its light, which swings into view every 7.5 seconds, will be blown out in a 22 second exposure. Of course, you can block the lens for all but one blink, but you'd have to add that time back into the exposure and the stars would become dots and dashes... not good. For now, however, it makes for a nice contrastive daylight image of one of this state's true icons. Folks were touring the lighthouse... you can see them on the balcony around the light.

What you see growing here, for the most part, are sea oats... it's what they make Cap'n Crunch kid's cereal from (who am I kidding... I haven't had it in years, but I like it too! What's not to like? It's mostly sugar... and sea oats, of course). Actually, it's against the law to mess with them... they help to keep the dunes intact during windy conditions, which is to say they keep the island intact. The Atlantic Ocean is about 100-feet behind me here... the sun was reflecting off both that and this brilliant sand, which seemingly focused directly on me the whole time I was out there... even with sunblock, I had a little trouble sleeping that night, not so much because I was burned, but because I glowed in the dark. Things are back to a less radioactive condition now.