Carrot Island:
For those of us trapped on the mainland, Carrot Island is a little taste of paradise. Part of The Rachel Carson Reserve, Carrot Island is located near the mouth of the Newport River in southern Carteret County, directly across Taylor's Creek from the historic town of Beaufort. Home to a herd of approximately 30 wild horses, 200 species of birds, the river otter, gray fox, raccoon, marsh rabbit, 52 species of fish, the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, and 47 invertebrate species, Carrot Island and estuarine waters are strongly influenced by river and inlet dynamics and the twice-daily tides. Habitats found within the site include tidal flats, flooded salt marshes, ocean beach, subtidal soft bottoms, hard surfaces, dredge spoil areas, sand dunes, shrub thicket, and maritime forest.
Living only a short walk from Taylor’s Creek and Carrot Island, I find myself kayaking across the creek frequently. I’m always amazed by the interplay of tides, winds, and waves around the small island. Ever in flux, the beach around Carrot Island is a very dynamic environment, reinventing itself each season, each month, and each day.
The Rachel Carson Reserve
The Rachel Carson Reserve is a component of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve. Preservation of the Rachel Carson Reserve allows this coastal ecosystem to be available as a natural outdoor laboratory where scientists, students and the general public can learn about coastal processes, functions and influences that shape and sustain the coastal area.
Getting to Carrot Island:
The Rachel Carson site is only accessible by private boat or passenger ferry, though many people visit with just a kayak or canoe. Motor boats can be launched from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission boating access area located at 2370 Lennoxville Road in Beaufort (see Additional Waypoints). Canoes and kayaks can be launched from public access areas along Front Street in Beaufort (see Additional Waypoints). Ferry services are located along the Beaufort waterfront.
LOGGING REQUIREMENTS: Please email the answers to the following questions. DO NOT post the answers in your log entry. Answers can be obtained from the information below as well as from your visit to Carrot Island.
- What was the date and time of your visit to the island?
- When are the high and low tides for the day of your visit? Visit the following web page to determine the times of high and low tides on Carrot Island - http://www.saltwatertides.com/dynamic.dir/ncarolinasites.html Use the entry for "Beaufort - Taylor's Creek" and follow the instructions.
- Is this beach a Semidiurnal Tide Zone, a Diurnal Tide Zone, or a mixed tide, and why do you think that?
- If at low tide while standing at the water's edge, how wide (in feet) do you think the inter-tidal zone (distance between the high tide line and the low tide line) is at the Earthcache's posted coordinates?
- If at high tide while standing at the water's edge, how wide (in feet) do you think the distance is from the water's edge to the base of the sand dune at the posted coordinates?
- How tall are the sand dunes at the posted coordinates?
- How does the shoreline seem to shift with the rise and fall of the tides - significantly, slightly, or not at all? What leads you to your conclusion?
- How might major storms impact this area of the island?
- What are three things you see as you look out toward sea?
- (Optional) Please post a photo of yourself at the posted coordinates.
TIDES:
Surrounded by seawater, Carrot Island is affected by the ebb and flow of the tide.
Following the tides is among some of the most interesting phenomena on our earth. From ancient times there has been tidal observation and discussion about its causes. Pytheas (a Greek geographer and explorer) traveled to the British Isles about 325 BC and seems to be the first to have related spring tides to the phase of the moon. It is something that we all have a general idea about but we are going to look a little deeper into the subject of how and why tides work and why they are important to us and our earth.
An ocean tide refers to the cyclic rise and fall of seawater. Tides are caused by slight variations in gravitational attraction between the Earth, the moon and the Sun in geometric relationship with locations on the Earth's surface. Tides are periodic primarily because of the cyclical influence of the Earth's rotation.
The Sun and Moon pull on the Earth, the water, even you! But gravitational attraction depends on distance and mass. For example, you have very little mass and you're very close to the Earth, so the Sun and Moon can't just yank you off the planet. The Sun is extremely massive, but it is an average of 93 million miles (150 million km) from Earth, compared with about 238,866 miles (384,400 km) from here to the Moon. And since the Moon is nearly 400 times closer to our planet, its influence on our oceans is twice as strong as the Sun's.
The moon is the primary factor controlling the temporal rhythm and height of tides. The moon produces two tidal bulges somewhere on the Earth through the effects of gravitational attraction. The height of these tidal bulges is controlled by the moon's gravitational force and the Earth's gravity pulling the water back toward the Earth. At the location on the Earth closest to the moon, seawater is drawn toward the moon because of the greater strength of gravitational attraction. On the opposite side of the Earth, another tidal bulge is produced away from the moon. However, this bulge is due to the fact that at this point on the Earth the force of the moon's gravity is at its weakest. Considering this information, any given point on the Earth's surface should experience two tidal crests and two tidal troughs during each tidal period.
The timing of tidal events is related to the Earth's rotation and the revolution of the moon around the Earth. If the moon was stationary in space, the tidal cycle would be 24 hours long. However, the moon is in motion revolving around the Earth. One revolution takes about 27 days and adds about 50 minutes to the tidal cycle. As a result, the tidal period is 24 hours and 50 minutes in length. The lunar day is longer than the Earth day because the Moon orbits in the same direction the Earth spins. This is analogous to the minute hand on a watch crossing the hour hand at 12:00 and then again at about 1:05 (not at 1:00) because the hour hand is moving in that direction as well.
The second factor controlling tides on the Earth's surface is the Sun's gravity. The height of the average solar tide is about 50% the average lunar tide. At certain times during the moon's revolution around the Earth, the direction of its gravitational attraction is aligned with the Sun's. During these times the two tide producing bodies act together to create the highest and lowest tides of the year. This planetary allignment of the sun, earth, and moon is called Syzygy (siz-eh-gee). These spring tides occur every 14-15 days during full and new moons.
When the gravitational pull of the moon and Sun are at right angles to each other, the daily tidal variations on the Earth are at their least. These events are called neap tides and they occur during the first and last quarter of the moon.
Tides are most commonly semidiurnal (two high waters and two low waters each day), or diurnal (one tidal cycle per day). The two high waters on a given day are typically not the same height (the daily inequality); these are the higher high water and the lower high water in tide tables. Similarly, the two low waters each day are the higher low water and the lower low water. The daily inequality is not consistent and is generally small when the Moon is over the equator.
Tides are important to geology because of their ability to transport sediment and carve coastlines. Over a long period, shorelines shift, estuaries and rivers are filled in with sediment, and beaches change from the rise and fall of the tides. This is why there is the constant shifting of the shoreline. In the world of commerce, tides are vitally important to the shipping and fishing industries. Navigators of heavy freighters heading for shallow ports must schedule their arrival for high tide, when the water is deepest. Fishing boats are also subject to the ebb and flow of tides. Predicting these changes is an essential aspect of maritime travel, and highly detailed tide tables are available for almost all coastal areas.
HISTORY OF CARROT ISLAND:
Prior to colonization of North Carolina, the Carrot Island-Middle Marshes area may have seen intermittent use by the Coree tribe of Native Americans. The Coree are thought to have spent considerable time on the nearby Outer Banks especially in the vicinity of Cape Lookout.
Early settlers not only fished but used the waters in and near Carrot Island for shipping lumber, naval stores and farm commodities.
In 1782 a Revolutionary War skirmish near the mouth of Taylor's Creek involved townsmen and a small British-landing party. Following an initial exchange of fire, the British moved about one-half mile eastward and landed on Carrot Island, spending the night there. At sunrise the British crossed Taylor's Creek to the mainland, overcame the troops and swept into Beaufort to begin a short-lived occupation. With Fort Macon so close by, during the Civil War there was significant activity in the area before, during and after the siege of the fort when Union forces took control of the fort and Beaufort inlet.
As early as 1806 it was reported that mullet were being caught by a fishery on Carrot Island, then dressed, salted and taken to Beaufort to be sold. Other fisheries also developed in the region including menhaden, oysters, clams, flounder and sea turtles. The first menhaden processing plant in the state was established on Harker's Island in 1865. The first factory in Beaufort was built in 1881.
In 1854 Town Marsh was three-eighths of a mile long. By 1885 Town Marsh had more than doubled in length and its northern shoreline moved even closer to the Beaufort waterfront. The growth of Town Marsh had made the Taylor's Creek channel almost unusable. In 1893 the citizens of Beaufort asked the federal government to build a breakwater on Town Marsh to protect the channel along the town's waterfront. The request was denied, but in the early 1900s the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers began dredging the mouth of Taylor's Creek, using Carrot Island as a dredge material deposition area. Before the dredging Carrot Island was essentially all tidal marsh with some elevated hammock land. By the 1930s the island had been built up by the dredge material deposition to the point that they provided protection for the town from high winds, flooding and storm waves. The Corps of Engineers continued to utilize the islands as deposition sites for local dredging projects and maintain rights for this purpose even today.
The Rachel Carson area is especially susceptible to tropical storm and hurricanes due to the geography of the region--jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean in an east-west orientation. Since 1960 all northward moving storms have passed within 65 nautical miles of the area. Most recently, storms causing heavy damage and flooding include: Hurricanes Bertha and Fran in 1996, Bonnie in 1998, Floyd in 1999, Isabel in 2003 and Ophelia in 2005.
(For more information on Carrot Island, please visit the following web page: http://beaufortinlet.blogspot.com/p/rachel-carson-reserve-overview.html
Congratulations to Cteam for their FTF and their great photos!