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By Michelle Wagner
Every morning for the past ten years, Nags Head resident Barbara Hall has been combing the beach along the stretch near Jennette’s Pier. It doesn’t matter if its raining buckets outside. It doesn’t matter if a frigid northeast wind is blowing.
Beachcombing for her, and many others who roam the Outer Banks beaches in search of the ocean’s treasures, isn’t just a hobby. As she escapes at dawn for an hour or so and wanders the beach, Hall is searching for more than just the ocean’s gifts and bounty that it puts upon the shore.
“I’ve found sea glass of different colors, starfish, jars and things that may not seem important to other people, but they have been the answers to my prayers,” Hall says. “Every morning I anticipate a new surprise and I’ve never been disappointed with what the ocean has thrown up there for me.”
Beachcombers may be looking for different gems the ocean hands to them. Many are in search of the much sought-after sea glass. Some are looking for a piece of the past. But all of them seem to be looking for some peace away from a hectic world. And the Outer Banks shoreline provides the perfect backdrop.
Perhaps no one has a better collection of what treasures can be found on Outer Banks beaches than Nellie Myrtle Pridgen, an avid beachcomber who died in 1992. Pridgen’s awesome collection is displayed in the old Mattie Midgett Store, now called the Beachcomber Museum. The museum, which is only open sporadically during the year and is located at milepost 13 on the Beach Road in Nags Head, houses such wonders as a 500-year old bottle top from a German jug, hundreds of pieces of beach glass and bottles, large fossils, messages in bottles and even a large Japanese Net Float Ð all items Pridgen collected over her beachcombing years.
“She picked up a little of everything,” said museum operator Chaz Wilkins, who said that her collection even includes a large intact argaunt shell, a very rare shell from the octopus family.
Combing the beach is a year-round hobby for most, but locals and off-season visitors are more likely to find the real gems along the beach Ð not only because there are fewer people out on the beach, but also because the Atlantic Ocean is more generous during the off-season months.
According to Richard Lamotte, author of Pure Sea Glass, beachcombing is at its best during the fall and winter months. “The tides are much more dramatic,” he said. “The high tides go higher and the low tides go lower.” A full moon creates the same result. The moon has a heavy draw on the tide change.
“Also, the seas are much more violent, they have a lot more energy during the winter months.” Hall agreed with Lamotte. “The worse the weather, the more you find,” she said. Lamotte also said that the northeastern wind common during the fall and winter creates a lot of washing up on the beach. “The westerly wind doesn’t get nearly the same effect.”
The best time to comb the beach, according to Lamotte, is after a really high tide. “It is not always what is thrown up on the beach, but what is uncovered,” he said. “Beachcombers should also look along the tide line. And it is good to get out in the early morning to find the gifts of the day.” The seas really calm down in June, July and August and there isn’t a lot of on-shore wind, he explained. These conditions don’t create the best playing field for beachcombers.
On the Outer Banks, Lamotte said the hottest spots for beachcombing are from old Nags Head south to Oregon Inlet. “There is a lot of history there and a lot of activity in that area during the late 1800s and early 1900s.”
Beachcombers who are looking for sea glass may have to look harder and harder these days, warn Lamotte and other avid beachcombers. “Sea glass is in diminishing supply,” he explained. Wilkins agreed. “Sea glass is becoming harder to find. A lot of beachcombers are going after sea glass.”
He also said that the older glass was layered and more durable. “It’s not as impressive as it used to be,” he added.
Lamotte said the most unique thing he has found on the Outer Banks beaches was a message in a bottle one Thanksgiving up in Duck. The message was from a boy visiting from Virginia who had thrown it in the ocean down in the south part of Nags Head that June.
Hall, who owns His Shells By Brenda at the Phoenix Shops in Manteo and makes gifts from seashells, said she uses her time on the beach in the mornings to become inspired and come up with fresh ideas for her work. She recalls one morning when she found a whelk on the beach. “I remember walking down the beach with it under my arm and feeling this squiggly thing. I looked down and a little octopus had come out of the whelk and was crawling down my arm.”
While Hall hasn’t yet found anything of great value during her beach walks, she said she sees much more. “What I do see are miracles every day,” she said. “I’ve seen things birth right out there on the beach. I’ve seen turtles and whales wash up. I see dolphins all the time. It’s an adventure that has been given to me and I never take it for granted. It’s a privilege.” One local jewelry maker in Nags Head, said she has found sand dollars near Oregon Inlet and sea glass near the piers, where there is typically more litter.
She even found un-drilled marble buttons in the South Nags Head area. She later learned that the buttons were from a boat that went down offshore that was carrying buttons from a factory in New Orleans up to New York. Hall describes beachcombing as an adult Easter egg hunt. “You hear people say that they never find anything,” she says. “Too often they are looking for the big things.” She says that beachcombing provides her with something that she can get nowhere else. “Every moment the ocean has a different look. And I love the quietness of it all. You’d be amazed at what you hear if you just open your ears and what you see if you just seek.”
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