Tuesday was another great weather day here at Topsail. I got busy in the morning and erected our gazebo down on the beach. With reasonable weather and the good screw in sand anchors we have it is good to go for the week. Having it down there certainly makes sitting on the beach a much more pleasurable pastime. One of the reasons we did not go to our usual beach this time (Ocean Isle Beach-south of Wilmington) is they have banned beach gazebos. They used the very thin excuse of wanting to protect the sea turtles that nest on the island. But the years we have been there we have never seen a sea turtle nest interfered with by a beach gazebo. It's more about they just wanted to start an umbrella and chair rental concession to make more money. All they accomplished was to send long time Ocean Isle goers to other friendlier beaches. Oh well we are here and it's nice. The surf was pret ty stout all day Monday, and I went in swimming for just a little while. (paid for it later with joint pain) Mostly we just enjoyed the sun, sand, and surf all day. (oh and sat around and watched the stock market go in the toilet. I'd personally like to strangle some of the greedy folks that perpetrated this ridiculous real estate financing mess)
Tuesday Vickie and her mom went out to shop the local establishments for a while and Mother and I made use of the beach. The wind had changed and with it the surf was much calmer. I was able to get mother in for her long desired swim in the ocean. Unfortunately with the change in the wind came hordes of biting black flies. We didn't notice them while swimming, but as soon as you got out of the water they tried to carry you away. We bid a hasty retreat to the villa and started planning diner. We had originally planned to go out and get some shrimp from the local purveyors that sell the catch off the boats that ply the waters in front of our living room window. But as we were planning to have "shrimp on the barbie" Vickie went out to scope out the situation. It appeared she would have to fight the flies for use of the grills, so we went to plan B. Plan B happened to be a little restaurant I'd seen called the Clam Shack or something like that. We got all loaded up, found the place, and it was closed on Tuesday night. Well then we decided to ride down to Surf City and see what was there. Being off-season, that turned out to be non productive as well. Soooo it was back to the villa and an impromptu dinner of BLT sandwiches and cantaloupe. Turned out to be very good with everyone well satisfied. The girls played Skip Bo well into the night while I alternately read my book and snored. Later another day drifted off to tired beach sleep. We are still planning on getting some shrimp for The Grill Queen to put on the barbie and we are also contemplating some fishing on the pier. Perhaps tomorrow.
More later,
Wes
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