Canon Elan IIe, tripod Sigma 28-105 at 32mm Fuji Provia 100 Exposure unrecorded

Old Drum Inlet

A few years ago I was invited along on a fishing trip to Portsmouth Island, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and reachable only by ferry. Fishing bores me to tears, so I regarded it instead as a photo opportunity.

As it was, I did a lot more photographing than the others did fishing, but I caught a couple of them during this rare occurrence while the setting sun turned the sky lavender over Old Drum Inlet on the south end of the island.

A note, as I add the Google Earth placemark in 2011: In a typical trait of barrier islands, Portsmouth has changed shape drastically in the eleven years since I've been there, and this location is actually not that close to the water anymore — the placemark denotes, to the best of my ability to tell, where the photo was actually taken from. I recall that the beach scrub brush was not all that far to my right. Tides, prevailing currents, and storm surges all reshape such islands rapidly, which is the primary reason why Cape Hatteras lighthouse, only 84 km (52 mi) to the northeast, had to be moved back from the receding coastline. Google Earth now features older photos in addition to current ones, so it's possible to observe how much this inlet has changed.