Winday

Today is Winday....the first day of the week. I think some of my hait blew out in that 50 mile an hour southerly gust - which sped my travel into the office. If hair did blow out - the rain caught it and returned it to the earth. That's nasty...but so is the weather. Hurricane season will be here June 1, but unless it calms down soon, many folks will be none the wiser.

Two inches of rain, again. This has been the rainiset year of my life. Not that it really matters. I am just a little pawn in Mother Nature's wonder ways. Over the weekend, I spent some time waterfowling of Hushmouth Point in the Pamlico. Want to feel small? Spend an hour in the Pamlico. Want to feel lost? Spend 30 seconds in the pocosin. Only in the pocosin can up seem down, down seem up, and left can seem right. Right is always right, and don't forget that...

The next time (or the first time) Bear Grylls calls me for a recommendation, I gonna tell him to visit the pocosin around Stumpy Point and Engelhard. Will he win in his Man vs. Wild... Here's why not:

1) To survive, one needs food, water, and shelter - and oxygen to breathe. There's nothing to eat in the pocosin, other than cattails. But you really want to cook them...there a lot like a really starchy potato. The water, which is the color of sweet tea is hardly potable. A UV Sterilizer pen wouldn't work well in that water. In the pocosin, everything is so wet, that absolutley nothing will ever catch fire, especially this year. One thing will burn - cattail seed heads...they'll go up like gasoline, but there has to be some dry sticks to keep it going. There's some shelter out there...you'll need to find an old cypress and climb into it...you could also cut several hundred cattails and build a nest above the floating grass mats...this works, but would take all day. Oxygen - there is some out there...but enjoying the swamp gas will be necessary.

2) The pocosin is a lot like a Jackson Pollack painting...somebody called his works a "beautiful mess". That's what the pocosin is to a lot of folks. They only see it when cruising to the beach. Get out in it, just take rope and tie it your car. Dropping breadcrumbs will only get you tracked by the nearest quarter ton bear. If carnivorous animals were the only things you had to worry about you still be in trouble, but there's even carnivorous plants. The mosquitoes alone could tote Bear Grylls off...that might be his savior. Unless he falls into one of the many sink holes formed by an old peat fire.

3) Bear Grylls likes to find a nearby river. Go ahead...say "Hello" to the big gators I have seen in every river around here. The gar can take afinger off, and the bowfin can just give you the creeps. The snags and duck weed on the surfaces can mar one up for days.

4) Nobody else lives in the pocosin. There's no one to call for help. Loneliness is your only companion, but it'll never leave your side. No one else would be silly enough to traipse around out there.

5) There are no hotels for him to stay in at night. Most of his events are staged. He's not "lost". But even the "Survivorman" Les Stroud couldn't handle it...otherwise they would have already been here.

The pocosin is the gateway to some of the world's most spectacular beaches. Anything worth seeing or doing has it's obstacles. There are no "Keep Out" signs on the fringes of the pocosin (well, only at the Dare Bombing Range)...but I imagine that there are some signs deep in the pocosin that read "Keep In"...cause that's what is gonna happen. All types of great paces have great security. The White House, Norad, even the North Pole probably has security. Rumor has it that a new highway is gonna be forged through the pocosin enrout to the beach. A four lane to the beach...How about the Dismal Swamp Canal...George Washington built a ditch in the water and it took long enough...a road? Good luck, but please leave us with some great views.

Enjoy the day...