Atkinson Adventures

Yesterday a year ago I married my best friend in the entire world. This time the day was spent indoors, not on the beach with family and friends, while it rained a record amount of rain (so definitely no gorgeous sunny weather either). It rained 6.96 inches! Not being able to get on and off the island easily, our options were drastically limited. a 3 hr ferry ride and Lord only knows how long you have to wait to get back on the island. Many have waited hours. So, we decided to have a simple day together. First, we slept in - to 8am! And, had fancy breakfast consisting french toast and coffee. After a run to the grocery store - the best way to spend your anniversary day, right?, we went to the jewelry store. First I picked out a new chain for a pretty pendant my parents got me for graduation (clasp broke on the original one) and then Steve showed me a few things he saw there the other day. We ended up picking out a pretty sterling silver starfish. After a nap, we got dressed up, well, i got dressed up, and we went out to dinner at Diamond Shoals. We had sushi and talked to our waitress as we were pretty much the only people in the place. After we got done eating, she came out with a piece of chocolate cake and had written "Happy Anniversary" on our plate. We even had to blow out a candle! We ended the night at our neighbor, Bernice's. It was truly a great day. I spent it with my best friend and husband, Steve.

With the Hurricane Irene dumping too much rain on us and while we have power again I thought that I would post about the storm and pics that I've gathered from friends who stayed on Hatteras. The storm hit NC at Beaufort and flooded it. It pulled all the water from the sound to the mainland. Here are pictures of the marinas without water in them:

This one is Buxton Harbor behind the Fish House restaurant.
















This is the sound behind Teachs Marina. There is a lot of grass showing though it's hard to see.



















Last we heard the power was starting to go out all over the island. Most people are doing just fine and from what Steve heard from our neighbor's son, Sam, our house is just fine! The road is washed out in 3 places: S curves, right above Buxton at the Outer Banks Motel, and at the Frisco stretch. They are saying it's just sand and water on the road. The road is still there somewhere. Once the wind changes the water that is flooding Beaufort, Morehead City, etc. will call come crashing back into Hatteras Island. That's when the flooding will start to really occur. If and when I can get pictures of that I'll post them here too. My friend Aby who works at Hatteras Realty and lives down the road from us has posted these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMqc4csi00

We've been evacuated to Rocky Mount, NC to the Comfort Inn because we have our animals. We took Goose the cat with us this time. With Earl, we left here in the house. It hasn't stopped raining since yesterday evening. Even in Hatteras the rain has started and stopped and started and stopped. The pups have been very well behaved.

Steve is on the crew that is set to leave around 5am tomorrow and start to make their way back to the island. I will not be allowed to go with him this time. With Earl, I was allowed to travel back with him. This time I'm not allowed because of the road conditions being much worse than with Earl.he says they'll be making their way back with chainsaws. :) While I wrote all this Steve said that the water is up over the docks. It went from bone dry to over the docks in less than 20 minutes.

That's all for now

We picked our tomatoes today and good grief did we get a lot!!!! This isn't even all of them. This was one of those grocery bags for produce and it was FULL!!!! I ate about 2 dozen tommy toads (cherry tomatoes) while I was picking them. I plan frying the green ones and making salsa with a bunch of them. Sadly, or greatly, we still have more to pick!!!!

On Saturday we went fishing with our neighbor Bernice and our friend Jessie. We left the dock at 6am and had about an hour run before we started trolling. We trolled around for hours and finally found some floating boards. Below the boards were hundreds of hungry dolphin along with the biggest triple tail anyone had ever seen.. We proceeded to catch all the dolphin we wanted plus some. Bernice put a call out for anyone wanting fish to come to our position. We also tried to free gaff the triple tail but swung and missed twice. With only a few hours to fish we set the course for home and started trolling in. An hour passed or more and changed baits, and put out a new different skirt on the plainer, hoping to catch a wahoo. Steve set the plainer, put the rod in the holder and BAMMM!!!!! We thought we had our wahoo. I sat in the chair and started the fight. We knew the fish was big by the way it ripping drag but once we saw it jump we knew it was a dolphin. After a long hard fight we boated the fish and I was exhausted. It was the only fish we caught on the troll that day but it was a great ending to an otherwise slow day.

Below are pics of the sun coming up














The fish we caught on the troll

Today Steve and I went fishing with our friend Jessie on her boat, Farfrompuken, out of Hatteras Harbor. Right away our bait got hit by a Sailfish and things were looking great. We wanted them to bite right away. The next fish was my fish, the one in the pictures. It was a great dolphin. It was a lone ranger. After a while we did run up on another grass line and got the rest of the fish: 6 more dolphin and eventually 2 skip jack. Notice the dark sky in the close up picture. That turned into a wicked lightning storm that we had to run from. Running from the storm ruined our plans of heading away from all the charters because had to turn and run back and out. After the storm, we did catch 2 more dolphin and 2 skip jack. Unfortunately that was all by noon and we didn't get anything after that. That lull made for a long afternoon of begging for some debris to pop up on the horizon.That's why it's fishing and not catching

It look my sister-in-law to create a blog in order for me to get inspired. Forget my two dear friends with theirs: http://quarlesquarterly.wordpress.com/ and http://joeyandlissa.com/. So here it goes. This will be the official blog for Steve and Liz Atkinson and our many adventures. Granted most of our adventures consist of getting out the door on time and not forgetting my shoes. We will focus on those that are more memorable: times with friends and family and other funny moments.

A little background on us. Our story copied from our wedding website:In the fall of 2008, a friend Erin told me there is someone they wanted me to meet. He worked with Dan and was funny and as Dan put it, we'd make a great match. I agreed to come down for the weekend in December. All week Erin pumped me up, so being super excited (and a little nervous) I dropped my dogs off and purchased my new-to-me 2003 4runner. By the time I got to Buxton, it was after 11pm, Erin greeted me at my car, we hugged and then this man met me halfway down the stairs. I thought, "good job Erin"... I hugged him, he had an incredibly cute smile. His name was Steve and he was tall, tan, and handsome. He also had a very blunt sense of humor and I was smitten immediately. Later that week, he drove to Raleigh to visit me and that was all she wrote folks. We spent the next 5 months driving to see each other every other weekend; meeting each others' families. In May 2009, we went to California for Thad's wedding, moved in together and I started a job in Hatteras. While we talked about marriage and family and dogs, etc. No one but Ashley and Cat knew what he had up his sleeve. On Christmas Eve, Steve proposed at my grandma's house and after squealing and a string of "oh my god"s I said yes!

She pretty much said it all. Although I did think there was something special there, I didn't quite realize I would marry her until the trip to California. We drove around California, a complete circle of Nor Cal. We arrived back at my mom's house later that week and a trip to Fort Bragg was planned. I thought we might be able to do some abalone diving when we went there but didn't think Liz would go for it. So I did my best to sell it to her as if she may actually enjoy it but I was still a bit skeptical. We looked at the ocean and it was rough as usual but I decided to try it anyway. We made our way to the dive shop and she was actually looking forward to it. We got our gear and headed out to Little River beach where it was usually calm. After a about three or four hours we got a limit of nice abs (that's slang for abalone). There was one particular part of the dive where we were in thick kelp, so thick you could almost walk on it. Sure most people would be losing their mind; there she was trudging away through the kelp. She never complained once. Most grow men will not get into 50 degree water with big sharks and low visibility, not to mention being pounded by waves slammed against rocks for a shot at some abalone. That's when I knew: when I looked back saw her kicking through the sea weed and her only reaction was a big smile. How could you ask for more than that? She has been and will always be my best friend. We have had so much fun together through our little adventures. We look forward to what the future has in store for us.