The Safety Discussion: A Pre-Departure Marine Safety Brief for Your Boat intended for all Skippers

BEFORE your family and friends show up, file a float plan, then:

First, show your guests how to board your vessel as well as what they can and cannot hold onto while boarding. Second, tell them where they should proceed once boarded. Third, guests may have personal belongings, show them how to open whichever hatches or staterooms you wish them to place their luggage. Forth, a bullet point approximate timing and destination(s) of your trip, at least for your first day.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.  Whether you wish to see the wild horses or discover great shelling on Shackleford Banks, or just go out for a short cruise on your waterways, if you are the skipper of your boat and you are having guests aboard, whether for a sunny afternoon, overnight, or a long trip away from port, you must familiarize those guests with your boat, its features, location of safety devices, how to use the marine toilet (if applicable), how to use your VHF radio, basic boat operation, man overboard challenges and what to do including “spotters,” how to engage your life raft, again if applicable, etc.

Safety hazard: slip and trip. Water and feet oftentimes do not play well together as any deck, even with ribbed fiberglass and the best boat shoes, can be slippery. Even in an emergency, don’t run, otherwise, you may be creating another emergency.

A clean boat is a happy boat! It’s always trash pickup day on a boat. Let your guests know where to place their trash, whether plastic, metal, or paper.

As the suggestions above, as well as the below H2O Captain Safety Instruction and Orientation, are already overwhelming, especially to first-time boat guests, when it comes to docking and/or anchoring, the skipper should give instructions just prior to those maneuvers so retention will be high while also assigning tasks to some guests. Even a rookie on the water will most likely be able to put out a fender or two to assist you in docking!

Furthermore, as there is a lot to take in and not everyone may understand, please encourage your guests to ask questions as there are no foolish questions! Upon your return to the dock that afternoon or after a few weeks/months away, it is always a good idea to have a group debrief on what went right, and what will go right the next time!

In the interim, enjoy Mother Nature at her best…on the water!

The H2O Captain SAFETY INSTRUCTION and ORIENTATION
Safety Orientation
Prior to getting underway, Captain Mark will ensure public announcements are provided to passengers that address the following topics:
♦ Stowage location of the vessel’s PFDs/life preservers;
♦ Proper method of donning and adjusting life preservers carried aboard the vessel;
♦ The type and location of the various lifesaving devices carried on the vessel;
♦ Location and how to use the VHF radio.

Passenger Counts
Captain Mark will keep a count of all passengers received & delivered from day to day.

Emergency Instructions
Captain Mark will ensure that passengers will be told where the personal flotation devices/life preservers, throw rope, Type IV throwable, fire extinguishers, bailing bucket, 1st Aid Kit, floating locator electronic SOS beacon, navigation aid, and handheld VHF radio with its build-in GPS giving the vessel’s latitude and longitude as well as DSC button, and “blue card” with additional emergency procedures are located. PLUS:
♦ All storage area/hatches, and doors to be closed to prevent taking water aboard;
♦ Bilges kept dry to prevent loss of stability
♦ Passengers seated and evenly distributed;
♦ All passengers encouraged to wear PFDs during rough seas or inlet crossings;
♦ International distress call and call to the Coast Guard over the H2O Captain hand-held VHF (channel 16) radio made if assistance is needed and is constantly monitored.

Measures to be considered in the event of a man overboard
♦ Type IV PFD (behind helm) and/or kayak throw rope (mounted on the port side of the console) thrown as close to person-in-the-water (PIW) as possible;
♦ Lookout posted to keep PIW in sight.
♦ Strong swimmer or Captain Mark, wearing a life preserver and tending line standing by to enter the water to assist in recovery, if necessary;
♦ Coast Guard and all nearby vessels notified by VHF (channel 16) or DSC button;
♦ Search continued until after VHF (channel 16) consultation with the Coast Guard (if possible).

Measures to be considered in the event of a fire at sea
♦ Cut off the air supply to the fire by closing hatches, door, etc.
♦ Portable fire extinguishers (the H2O Boat carries two B-1’s located inside console door just left of center on the bottom) discharged at the base of the flames of flammable liquid or grease fires, or water applied to fires of combustible solids.
♦ If fire is in machinery spaces, shut off fuel supply by turning off ignition key.
♦ Vessel maneuvered to minimize the effect of wind on the fire.
♦ Coast Guard and all vessels in the vicinity notified by VHF (channel 16) of the fire, and location of the vessel.
♦ Passengers moved away from the fire, with all hopefully wearing life preservers.

How Gallant's Point and Gallant's Channel Got Their Names

On the majority of H2O Captain Eco-Tour Private Boat Excursions, Captain Mark takes his passengers through all of Gallant’s Channel and past Gallant’s Point.  There is a lot of history in this area and we bring some of that history to you in our Blog series which features points of interest on H2O Captain adventure tours.  Captain Mark wants to personally thank Mary Warshaw for her compilation of this history as we have reprinted her words and research with permission.

1709 Map by John Lawson

John Galland and his sister Penelope were the stepchildren of Governor Charles Eden. (Originally the name was most likely spelled Golland.)

John, born about 1698, and his sister Penelope, born about 1695, were the children of John Galland (abt. 1677-1704) and Penelope Belchier (?) (abt. 1677-1716).

In 1705, after the death of John and Penelope’s father, their mother Penelope Belchier Galland married Charles Eden, who became the second governor of colonial Carolina in 1713.

Penelope Galland Eden died 4 January 1716. About 1719, Governor Eden built “Eden House” on Salmon Creek near Chowan River and the “Town on Queen Anne’s Creek.” Charles died of yellow fever in 1722; shortly afterward, the town was renamed Edenton in his honor. At this time, John Galland would have been about 24 and his sister Penelope about 27, then married to William Maule.

John’s sister Penelope Galland (1695-1750) married four times.

1.    Penelope married William Maule about 1710. Maule was Surveyor-General of Bertie County, planter, politician, and military leader during the Tuscarora War and Cary’s Rebellion. He died in 1726.

2.    Penelope married John Lovick about 1726. Lovick served as a member of Gov. Eden’s Council and, in 1722, inherited much of Eden’s estate including “Eden House.” Lovick died in 1733, leaving Penelope as one of the wealthiest women in the colony.

3.    Penelope married George Phenny about 1734. Phenney was "Surveyor General of His Majesties Customs Southern District on the Continent of America." From 1721 to 1727, Phenney was Governor of the Bahamas. He died in 1737.

4.    Penelope married Gov. Gabriel Johnston about 1740; they lived at “Eden House.” Gabriel Johnston became the longest-serving governor in state history, 1734 to 1752. Penelope died in 1750 at “Eden House.”

Moseley Map - 1737

About 1726, Penelope’s brother John Galland, then about 28 years old, received a patent for acreage in Core Sound signed by brother-in-law John Lovick. Galland became clerk of court for Carteret County in 1727; he continued in that position until December 1729 and died in 1730. Part of Galland’s acreage north of Beaufort became known as Galland’s Neck, Gallant’s Point, or Gallant’s Creek.

DOCUMENTATION

1857 Gallant's Point

Sep 1727: THIS DAY JOHN GALLAND PRODUCED A COMMISSION FOR CLERK OF THIS COURT WHICH WAS ACCEPTED OF AND THE COURT ADJOURNED TO THE HOUSE OF MR JOHN SHACKLEFORD AT FOUR O CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON.  THE COURT MET ACCORDING TO ADJOURNMENT AND IS NOW SETT.

Jun 1729: IT IS ORDERED THAT MR JOHN GALLAND, CLERK OF OUR COURT FIND US A DINNER ALWAYS THE FIRST COURT DAY AND HAVE THE AMERSMENT FOR HIS TROUBLE.

Aside from his normal duties as Clerk and acknowledging adjournments or various deeds, there is no mention of John Galland Esq. after Dec 1729.  Therefore John Galland died 1730, since the last official act he performed was…

Dec 1729: RICHARD RUSTULL, JOSEPH BELL AND JOHN GALLAND ESQS IN OPEN COURT ACKNOWLEDGED A DEED FOR A LOT IN BEAUFORT TOWN NO 2 IN THE NEW TOWN, UNTO WILLIAM OWINS AND ORDERED TO BE REGISTERED. There was no spring quarter session for 1730.  John Simpson became the succeeding Clerk of Court.

Jun 1730: JOHN SIMPSON CAME INTO OPEN COURT AND PRODUCED A COMMISSION FOR CLERK OF THIS COURT FROM JOHN LOVICK ESQ, SECRETARY. HE TOOK THE OATH ENJOYNED BY LAW FOR QUALIFICATION OF PUBLICK OFFICERS BEFORE ENOCH WARD ESQ.

The Carteret Court abstracts above were compiled by Rebecca Willis Sanders.

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May 1731 – Minutes of the North Carolina Governor’s Council (Colonial and State Records): The Deposition of Mr Richard Russell being first sworn on the Holly Evangelist saith that some time agoe Mr John Galland Brother in Law to Mr Lovick Brought a blank Pattent down to Core sound (as he remembers) without mention of number of acres inserted and a reciept inserted on the back of said Pattent signed by Mr Lovick and the Deponant not approving to have ye sd Pattent filled up but at ye Secretarys office he sent ye same up to ye said office & had the patent perfected.

And further this Deponant saith not

        RICHARD RUSSELL

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In September 1731, Richard Rustull Sr. sold the lot #13 in Beaufort to Mary Galland for £3. Mary was most likely the widow of John Galland.

Rich:d Rustull of Carteret Precinct, Bath County in consideration of £3 current money sells to Mary Galland, a lot of ½ acre in the “town of Port Beaufort” No. 10 [sic], formerly belonging to John Shaw and made over to the grantor. (Original deed (book D pp.95-96): Dated 22 Mar 1730/1, registered Sep 1731) This deed contains a clause that she must build a habitable house on the 20’ by 15’ lot within two years. Witnessed by Jo. Bell and Jm:s Winright. Acknowledged before Jm:s Winright.

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Carteret Court minutes 1731 (Rebecca Willis Sanders' abstract): RICHARD RUSTULL ESQ CAME INTO OPEN COURT AND ACKNOWLEDGED A DEED FOR A LOTT IN BEAUFORT TOWN NUMBER 13 TO MARY GALLAND AND ORDERED TO BE REGISTERED

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Letter from Robert Williams to the NC Council of Safety, 14 Sept 1776 (Colonial and State Records)

...........I think I heard that Gallands Neck was valued being abt 270 Acres at about £270, surely it would not sell for 1/3 of the money exclusive of 3 or 4 Acres the Salt work stands upon, if any more works are made there 10 or 12 Acres would be sufficient for the Country but guess better places may be had hereafter, Although I had Sufficient reason to fix there at the time I began as Tenders with great reason were hourly Expected.

We have cut all the pines that we could find as at foot of the acct, few would have squared 8 Inch at 20 feet long, nor one of them maul into rails, the land for many years past had been constantly Pillaged by the town People. There is a bit of tolerable land where a Plantation formerly was but the chiefest part is only low grassy piney Land with tolerable Clay bottom and no ways preferable to piney land of the kind in Common; only for this disadvantage that it has no trees for turpentine, or rails, nor a knot of lightwood left unpillaged.

 ..................................................................................................................

John Galland died at about thirty-two years of age. For the last four years of his life, he owned acreage in Beaufort and was Clerk of Court for Carteret County.

Contemporary Map - Gallant's Point

Our Coast’s history: The early days of Bogue Banks / Part 3 of 3
Excerpts from an article by David Cecelski, reprinted with permission

An H2O Captain excursion is an experience. We get to see the Atlantic Ocean, the wild horses of Shackleford Banks, discover great shelling on Sand Dollar Island or on Shack, or on The Cape. See a lighthouse and the Beaufort and Morehead City waterfronts, USCG Station Ft. Macon, not to mention the Rachel Carson Preserve.

If that already wasn’t a WOW, if you go on our exclusive excursion, “Lunch in Swansboro and the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway),” we will travel approximately 25 miles one way, the complete length of Bogue Banks along the ICW.

**********

Now and then, the sea provided very different kinds of gifts. In her memoir, Alice Guthrie Smith recalled, for instance, how wind and waves knocked a load of lumber off a schooner during the great hurricane of 1885.

The lumber washed up on Bogue Banks and after the storm, she wrote, “everybody that needed lumber went over to the beach and pulled up all they wanted. Dad saved enough to start him a small house to the Rice Path.”

I am always surprised, when I visit the old homes on Salter Path or on Ocracoke or some other island village, how often people tell me that this room’s floor or this chest of drawers or this table came off a shipwreck years ago.

It always feels as if there is no limit to the way that the islanders were bound to and shaped by the ways of the sea.

A girl or a young woman sitting in the doorway of her family’s cabin on Bogue Sound, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy State Archives of North Carolina

Now and then, I get a glimpse in “Judgment Land” at something that I rarely hear talked about: the fear that the island’s women felt for their safety and the safety of their daughters when their husbands were away fishing and hunting or when their husbands had died and left them on their own.

Kay Stephens tells the story, for instance, of a night during the Civil War when three men from the mainland forced their way into the home of Francis and Horatio Frost and raped two of their daughters. At the time, Horatio and their only son were gigging flounder on Bogue Sound.
In another part of the book, Lillian Golden recalled the fear that she and her widowed mother felt at their home in Salter Path when she was a girl.

“The neighborhood wasn’t thickly settled, and you didn’t think of calling nobody … I was scared to go to sleep nights. We were in the woods. The other young’uns had a father with them, you see.
Like so many other young women of the time, Lillian did not wear make-up and rarely wore jewelry in the hope that she could avoid men’s attentions.

Young women visiting in the doorway of a cottage in Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

I found Lillian Golden’s recollections of her widowed mother especially entrancing when I reread “Judgment Land” the other day.

Her mother, Mary Francis Smith, took her husband’s death very hard. He was scarcely 30 years old when he died after a long illness in 1901. Beset by grief, Laura Francis was visited by nightmares for years.

Lillian told Kay Stephens that, in order to comfort her mother, she slept with her, nuzzled against her back, from the time that she was a little girl until she was married in 1918.

Yet for all that, Mary Francis managed to provide for herself and her children.
”She clammed and caught soft-shell crabs in the spring and summer. She took in sewing, sometimes staying up late into the night to finish a dress that was wanted the next day. In the fall and winter, she and her children would cut wood and sell it by the cord …
“She would cut the leaves off the yaupon (bushes) and sell them to a factory on Harkers Island. (Harkers Island is 18 miles east of Salter Path.) There the leaves were cured and put into sacks and sold under the brand name `Carolina Tea.’

“In 1905 after her aunt Mahalia Ann Guthrie was no longer able to serve as the village midwife, Laura Francis began her long career delivering the babies not only in Salter Path but elsewhere on the banks.”  She was a little bit of everything: fisherwoman, seamstress, woodcutter, herbalist, midwife, and mother, as well as, for a time, the village’s postmistress.

To get by, Mary Francis saved and reused every little thing, kept two big gardens and spun her own thread, and made her family’s clothes. Her neighbors shared and together they made do and got by.
My friend Karen Willis Amspacher is the director and guiding spirit at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island. Many of her ancestors came from Shackleford Banks, the island I mentioned earlier that is just to the east of Bogue Banks.

More than once, when we have been discussing how hard it was to survive on those islands back in the day, Karen has just shaken her head and told me, “Those were some tough folks, David. That’s all I can say. Those were some tough folks.”

A mother and her children on their front porch, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

Coastal Review is featuring the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture, and politics of the North Carolina coast. Cecelski shares on his website essays and lectures he has written about the state’s coast as well as brings readers along on his search for the lost stories of our coastal past in the museums, libraries, and archives he visits in the U.S. and across the globe.

About David Cecelski
Historian David Cecelski shares his time between Durham and his family's homeplace in Carteret County. He has written several award-winning books and hundreds of articles about history, culture, and politics on the North Carolina coast. His writing focuses on telling stories from his little corner of the world that illuminate American history more broadly. Dr. Cecelski was recently the co-recipient of the N.C. Literary and Historical Association’s Crittenten Award for lifetime achievement.

Reprinted with permission from www.CoastalReview.org, 

Our Coast’s history: The early days of Bogue Banks / Part 2 of 3
Excerpts from an article by David Cecelski, reprinted with permission

An H2O Captain excursion is an experience. We get to see the Atlantic Ocean, the wild horses of Shackleford Banks, discover great shelling on Sand Dollar Island or on Shack, or on The Cape. See a lighthouse and the Beaufort and Morehead City waterfronts, USCG Station Ft. Macon, not to mention the Rachel Carson Preserve.

If that already wasn’t a WOW, if you go on our exclusive excursion, “Lunch in Swansboro and the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway),” we will travel approximately 25 miles one way, the complete length of Bogue Banks along the ICW.

**********

A solitary gentleman in his collard patch next to Bogue Sound, Salter Path, 1935-40. In the distance, you can see that he’s put up a pen made of old fishing nets to protect his chickens from predators. You couldn’t find a scene more typical of the North Carolina coast in the 1930s. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

The early settlers at Salter Path did not hold deeds to the property that they occupied but saw the land being unused and made their homes there, a very old practice on the banks.

For that reason, the squatters, as they became known, later ran into legal entanglements, including a formal complaint from the land’s actual owner, a New Yorker named Alice Hoffman, who was Eleanor Roosevelt’s aunt. The legal issues were resolved in the 1920s and the Salter Pathers were allowed to stay on the land, though with restrictions that limited the village’s growth.

Methodist church, Salter Path 1935-40. This was not the building described by Alice Guthrie Smith. That church was a smaller frame building that had been moved from the Rice Path in the 1890s and was used as a church and schoolhouse. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

Community life at Salter Path revolved around a solitary church, a tiny graded school and, for the men at least, the general store. In her memoir, Alice Guthrie Smith recalled that first church in Salter Path:  “That was the place where all the churches in Carteret County would meet and have their summer picnics. Oh, wasn’t that a happy time for everybody present! Everybody was in love and harmony with each other, and we looked forward to that day. Everybody took their baskets full of good things to eat and after everybody got through eating and drinking lemonade…, we would have preaching and singing or somebody would make a speech. Now, that was the good old days!”

My mother was born and raised in Harlowe, a little community 12 miles from Salter Path on the mainland of Carteret County. I still remember her telling me about a Sunday school picnic on Bogue Banks. It may have been the only time that she visited the island as a child, which was around the time of these photographs.  She said it was quite an adventure. They made the journey by boat and at that age, she had rarely if ever traveled so far from home.

Mullet fishing camp and striker boat, probably Harkers Island built, on the ocean beach, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina
One of the state’s oldest and largest fisheries, the salt mullet fishery was a big part of life on Bogue Banks in the 1930s.

This is one of my favorite images from “Judgment Land”:
“In the summer when the mullet would run in big black schools out in the ocean, some of the settlers would come to the beach near Riley (Salter)’s home. They would encircle the mullet with the long nets which had … been knit by their women. Hundreds of pounds of mullet would be brought to shore. All day long the women would sit with their `sitting up babies’ between their legs and split and gut the fish. Their long cotton dresses and even their sunbonnets were slick where they had wiped their hands ….”

Mullet fishing is still important in Salter Path today, though perhaps it means more now to the fishermen’s hearts than it does to their pantries or pocketbooks. The beach seine fishery for mullet has come and gone elsewhere on the North Carolina coast, but a solitary crew of the village’s men still persist in fishing in much the same way as their ancestors did for many generations before them.

Young boy and a haul of striped “jumping” mullet, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

In “Judgment Land,” Kay Stephens also quotes Alice Guthrie Smith’s memoir about the way that the islanders traded their salt mullet for other things that they needed in life.

“They would wash and clean them so they could salt them down, head them up, and leave those barrels of fish on the beach until sometime later. In the fall, October or November, a large boat from Down East (the eastern part of Carteret County) would come up to Salter Path loaded with sweet potatoes and corn. They would trade the corn and potatoes for the fish that the people had salted.

“The way they got the fish from the beach to the sound was to tie a rope around the barrel and two men would get a long pole and put it through the rope, take the poles on their shoulders, and carry the barrels down the Salter Path to the sound. There they put them in skiffs, took them out to the deep water where the large boat was, and put them aboard the boat after they took the corn and potatoes out.”

According to legend, the coming and going of those mullet fishermen wore a sandy path from the ocean beach across the dunes and swales to the shores of Bogue Sound. The path ran by the home of Riley Salter and his family, which led people to call it Salter Path and gave the village its name.

Women at work, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy State Archives of North Carolina

When Kay Stephens was researching “Judgment Land,” she spent a great deal of time with Lillian Golden, a local woman who was born on the island in 1901.

I love Lillian Golden’s descriptions of island life because they are so granular: in Ms. Golden’s words, you can really hear and understand the practicalities of how the Bogue Bankers fashioned a life there on the edge of the sea.

In this excerpt from “Judgment Land,” Stephens recounts how Lillian Golden described how the islanders made their mattresses.

“The villagers made their ticking out of flat homespun. The mattress that was placed on top of the slats was stuffed with seaweed. A feather mattress was placed on top of the seaweed mattress. The seaweed used in the mattresses was gathered along the shore and spread on bushes. It was left there through several showers of rain so the saltwater and other material could wash out. The sun would then bleach the seaweeds.”

Well into the 20th century, the villagers made feather mattresses. Stephens talked with another local woman, for instance, whose mother had a mattress stuffed with robin feathers.

In the 1800s and into the 1900s, the islanders often caught robins and other songbirds in fishing nets spread among the wax myrtle and yaupon bushes around their homes. They valued the birds for their feathers but also sought them out in order to feed their families.

A young man, probably a fisherman on his way back from the mulleting beach, Salter Path, 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy State Archives of North Carolina

Reprinted with permission from www.CoastalReview.org, 

Our Coast’s history: The early days of Bogue Banks / Part 1 of 3
Excerpts from an article by David Cecelski, reprinted with permission

Map of the western end of Bogue Banks and Bogue Sound around 1900. From Kay Holt Robert Stephens 1984 work, “Judgment Land: The Story of Salter Path,” vol. 1.”

An H2O Captain excursion is an experience. We get to see the Atlantic Ocean, the wild horses of Shackleford Banks, discover great shelling on Sand Dollar Island or on Shack, or on The Cape. See a lighthouse and the Beaufort and Morehead City waterfronts, USCG Station Ft. Macon, not to mention the Rachel Carson Preserve.

If that already wasn’t a WOW, if you go on our exclusive excursion, “Lunch in Swansboro and the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway),” we will travel approximately 25 miles one way, the complete length of Bogue Banks along the ICW.

**********

I found this group of photographs at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh. They were taken in Salter Path, a fishing village on the North Carolina coast, probably in 1938 or 1939.

Salter Path is located on Bogue Banks, a 21-mile-long barrier island best known for being the site of Fort Macon State Park, the North Carolina Aquarium, and some of the state’s most popular beach resort communities, including Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, and Emerald Isle.

I want to look at the history of Salter Path before the first hotels and condominiums were built there. When Charles A. Farrell took these photographs, Salter Path was the only settlement of any kind on the western two-thirds of the island.

At that time, no paved road yet led to Salter Path. People came and went largely in boats. Lights were few and far between. On a clear night, you felt as if you could see every star in the heavens.

Farrell’s photographs give us a glimpse of Salter Path just before the hotels and beach resorts showed up, the first paved road was built and all the rest.

I have paired Farrell’s photographs today with brief excerpts from a book called “Judgment Land: The Story of Salter Path,” which was written by an island visitor and sometimes resident named Kay Holt Roberts Stephens back in 1984.

Long out of print, Kay Stephens’ book lets us hear the voices of some of the village’s oldest residents at that time. Several of those island people recalled when Salter Path was first settled in the 1890s.

The oldest of those islanders even remembered other settlements that were located on the western half of Bogue Banks in the late 1800s — Yellow Hill, Rice Path, Bell’s Cove and others. Those communities faded away in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some of their people moved to Broad Creek and other communities on the mainland, but others helped to build the new village of Salter Path.

With the help of those people’s memories and Farrell’s photographs, we can learn at least a bit about what Salter Path and the whole western part of Bogue Banks was like in those long-ago days.

Salter Path 1935-40. A mother or grandmother and a little girl stand on the dune line that helped to shelter the village from wind and waves. We can glimpse Bogue Sound in the distance. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

Approximately a mile west of where Salter Path is now, in a section of the island that was nestled down among live oak glades and sand dunes, there used to be a little village called Rice Path.

In “Judgment Land,” Kay Stephens described how Rice Path got its name:
“Sometime between 1865 and 1880, a ship loaded with rice wrecked on the beach. The families living on the banks … went aboard the ship, filled their bags with rice, and carried it across the sand dunes through the low growing shrubs, through the closely-knit live oak trees, and then on to the shores of Bogue Sound. There they loaded the rice on their skiffs and took it home. From then on the path and the settlement that grew up in the vicinity was referred to as Rice Path.”

According to the old islanders who visited with Kay Stephens, the move of the people in Rice Path and the other little settlements on the western part of Bogue Banks to Salter Path was prompted partly by a changing economy and partly by a changing landscape.

“By 1896, some of the settlers on the western end of Bogue Banks were becoming dissatisfied with their homesites. Each year it became more difficult to raise a garden due to the encroaching sand and … salt spray. The families living … between Hopey Ann Hill and Yellow Hill were especially affected as portions of the banks were eroding rapidly. Also, the settlers felt a need to be closer to Beaufort and Morehead City, the towns they turned to for trade. Therefore in March of 1896 the first permanent settlers moved to the area, which would be called the village of Salter Path.”

Two girls on the main path into Salter Path 1935-40. Photo: Charles A. Farrell, courtesy, State Archives of North Carolina

One of Kay Stephens’ best sources is an unpublished memoir written by an island woman named Alice Guthrie Smith. Ms. Smith was born at the Rice Path in 1892, and she apparently wrote her recollections of her early life on the island sometime in the 1950s.

I have never seen her recollections, but fortunately Stephens quotes from them liberally.
Like quite a few other families, Alice Guthrie Smith’s family came to Bogue Banks from Shackleford Banks, the barrier island just to the east. Her grandparents, John Wallace and Hopey Ann Guthrie, left Shackleford Banks after he had a severe fall at the Cape Lookout Lighthouse and was left crippled.

Hopey Ann Guthrie apparently thought that life might be a little easier on Bogue Banks than at Shackleford. I am not sure why, though I suspect that she wanted a new home closer to the mainland and a bit more protected from the hurricanes that had been so hard on the villages at Shackleford.

John Wallace died two or three years after the family’s arrival at the Rice Path. Hopey Ann raised their large family on her own, living largely off the sea. The site of their home came to be known as Hopey Ann Hill.

In her memoir, Alice Guthrie Smith remembered when her family left the Rice Path and moved to Salter Path.  Kay Stephens quotes her in “Judgment Land”:
“Well, we lived to that house … until March 1896. (Our neighbors) Rumley Willis, Henry Willis, Alonza Guthrie, and Damon Guthrie all decided they would move to the Salter Path. So, here we go. Well, the day came for everybody to go down to the Salter Path and clear up their place, burn the pine straw and leaves and get their place ready to take their house down. So, Rumley put his house on a hill near the sound on the east side of the Salter Path that runs from the ocean to the sound. There were large oak trees all around his house. It was a beautiful place to build… There were only four families at first, but it wasn’t long before most of the people that lived to Rice Path, Yellow Hill, Bill’s Point, and Belco moved to Salter Path and Broad Creek.”

Reprinted with permission from www.CoastalReview.org, 

USCG Station Ft. Macon

On an H2O Captain excursion, you are most likely to see and go past USCG Station Fort Macon. Captain Mark will point it out to you. A bit of history would disclose Date of Conveyance: 1903, Station Built: 1904, Fate: Discontinued in 1963 and reestablished as a Coast Guard Group office.

In 1904, the Treasury Department received permission from the War Department to build a lifesaving station on the Fort Macon Military Reservation. The Lifesaving Service, an organization later combined with the Lighthouse Service to form the Coast Guard as it is known today, started here in Atlantic Beach, NC with one main building, two small shortage sheds, and water supply facilities. When the War Department gave up this installation in 1924, by Act of Congress, the Treasury Department received 22.6 acres of land for the lifesaving station, and the remainder was given to the State of North Carolina (the area now known as the Fort Macon State Park, with Fort and beachfront area). Please know that Captain Mark is a Lifetime Member of the Friends of Fort Macon!

In 1938, many improvements were made to the station, with the construction of a larger main building with a watchtower, a boathouse with an attached marine railway, an equipment building, and other associated utilities. Of these, the boathouse (less railway) and the equipment building (Fort Macon Aids to Navigation Team Building) are still in service.

The dock area was built by the Army in 1941 after the start of World War II but was then turned over to the Coast Guard after the war in January 1946. These docks were improved in 1946/47, with the engineering building being constructed in 1948 and the actual designation of this unit as a Coast Guard Base following shortly afterward. In 1963, a concrete dock was constructed for the Cutter Chilula at the end of the Base grounds. The construction was completed in l965.

Finally, the Lifesaving Station and the Base were combined organizationally into a Station in 1963, then changed back to a Base in 1965, and finally, the formation of a Group Office was attached to the Base to coordinate other local North Carolina units. The old station house and the main building were replaced by the current 7O man barracks in 1965 and these structures were removed.

COAST GUARD BASE FORT MACON TODAY
Base Fort Macon still occupies the same area of land it started on in 1904, with many of the older buildings still finding use today. The Base serves as a host for 6 other commands which are colocated within its fence. While each has its own Commanding Officer, the Base and ANT Ft. Macon (Aids to Navigation Team) are attached to the Group Office. Its responsibilities extend from Hobucken, NC to the north, to the NC/SC border to the south.

Base and Group Fort Macon has many missions it is required to perform, from maintaining a constant ready status to aid the mariner in distress to keeping the various navigational markers in working order. With these comes the responsibility to enforce Federal Laws covering boating safety to drug interdiction. Many hours of training and work go into these areas so as to be ready when the need arises.

Some of these same missions are also shared with the various boats moored at the Base. We have a buoy tender, and some FRCs (Fast Response Cutters), plus other assets. A tour of the assets of the base may be possible. Please ask Captain Mark as he serves as the Immediate Past Flotilla Commander of the USCG Auxiliary.
Source: USCG

Photos by Captain Mark:  (middle) USCG Cutter Maple taken from the Bridge; (bottom) Sonder with Lt. Commander/Executive Officer Lesniak USCG on the FRC Richard Snyder

The first item needed to visit the WILD HORSES and discover great shelling on Shackleford Banks, or see the CAPE LOOKOUT LIGHTHOUSE is to have a boat.

Thinking of purchasing your own boat?

A seller of a boat has only two basic requirements: getting paid the amount they have agreed to receive and meet the due dates of the contract. The fewer contingencies your contract includes, the better your chances are for success. Presenting your offer with banking and insurance ready, as well as the survey dates scheduled, shows that you are organized and removes doubt from the seller. Sellers appreciate a buyer who has taken the initiative to line things up in advance.

Most purchase agreements include an accept or reject the date. To move forward and accept, the buyer commits to complete the sale. At that point, the deposit becomes non-refundable. As a buyer, you can’t accept the boat until the bank and/or insurer approves the survey. It is critical to make sure your lender can do so on or before the closing date.

With these assurances, you can accept the vessel and transition to the banking transfers and paperwork signatures.

It is important that someone on your team (a documentation service or lender) obtains a current USCG abstract of title to determine whether there are any recorded liens on the vessel. The abstract should be ordered once the purchase agreement is signed.

There is a lot to accomplish in a limited window, but try to keep your ultimate vision in mind: sparkling waters, friends and family, en route to paradise.

If this is not for you, please reserve your wild horses, great shelling, and/or lighthouse adventure experience today with H2O Captain Eco-Tour Private Boat Excursions at https://h2ocaptain.com.

If it IS for you will need to hire a captain to take you around our waterways to investigate our "skinny" water and know where to navigate.

Looking forward to welcoming you aboard!

We Have Changed People's Lives!

We believe in the power of bringing water and people together, which is why our excursions create compelling memories, that deliver life-changing experiences!

Greetings to all who have an interest in our environment, nature, animals, dolphins, water, eco-tours, wild horses, oceans, bays, discovering great shelling, charter boats, the sport of powerboating, walking, smelling the fresh saltwater air, and of course, our National Park, the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

This corner of the website will contain our weekly blog, released generally on Tuesdays.  The purpose of this educational blog is to provide content on the above-named subjects that answers our prospective passengers' questions and helps us all learn about our flora & fauna along the paradisical Crystal Coast in the Southern Outer Banks.  This is our opening effort. 

Should there be a topic of interest you would like Captain Mark to have a discussion about, please contact him and let him know.

As H2O Captain introduced 3 Exclusive Excursions in 2021, please look for 2 additional introductions for 2022!!

In the interim, a (re)introduction to our company may be needed.  Please click to view our video.

Help us spread the news about our new Blog for all that have an interest in the Crystal Coast, Shackleford Banks, the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, Atlantic Beach, Beaufort, Emerald Isle, and all it has to offer.