April 3, 2026
#102 Bernie Harberts and Julia Carpenter: Wild Horses, Rough Seas, and Lessons That Stick
My guests for this episode of the podcast are Bernie Harberts and Julia Carpenter. You might recognize both of those names, as they have both been on the podcast individually. What made this episode special was that we did this conversation while they were on Bernie’s 24 foot sailboat “Grit” as it was anchored off Shackelford Banks, a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Picture a skinny, long stretch of sand, marsh and small trees about 8 to 9 miles long, standing between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland.
Bernie and Julia have been out there for about 2 weeks, sharing both sailing and horse adventures. And believe me, they have had some adventures! In this podcast, we talked about what to do when the kayaks, the only way to reach the island, took a deep dive. They shared the story of a harrowing night of gale force winds, wondering if the anchors would hold. You won’t believe the story of the help they received when their anchor fouled as they were making their way out to the Atlantic side of the island. Sometimes, help isn’t really help.
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Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing under pressure. And now here's your host, Lynn Carnes,
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welcome to the creative spirits unleashed Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. My guests for this episode are Bernie harberts and Julia carpenter. Now you might recognize both of those names as they've both been on the podcast individually. What made this episode special was we did this conversation while they were on Bernie's 24 foot sailboat grit as it was anchored off Shackleford banks, which is a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. So picture a skinny, long stretch of sand marsh and a small bunch of small trees about eight to nine miles long, standing between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland, and you'll get an idea of where they were. Bernie and Julia had been out there for about two weeks, and they've been sharing sailing and horse adventures and having a magical time. So they reached out to me and said, hey, we'd love to record a podcast while we're here. So we did, and believe me, they have had some adventures in this podcast. We talked about what to do when the kayaks, which are your only way to reach the island, took a deep dive, they shared the story of a harrowing night of gale force winds wondering if their anchors would hold when they weren't exactly in the greatest position. And you won't believe the story of the help they received when their anchor fouled as they were making their way out to the Atlantic side of the island. In this story, you'll discover sometimes help isn't really help. They both really lit up when they relayed what they are learning from the Shackleford horses. It's a Wild Herd of feral horses that have lived on the island for 400 years. These small, Hardy horses live in bands, eating the tough grasses that grow in the Sandy Dunes. And in this conversation, Julia gives us insights into how the horses look out for each other, how they watch over each other as they nap, and how the stallions cooperate in one of the bands they observed. Julia is one of the most knowledgeable horse people I know, especially about the nervous system of horses, and in this conversation, she gives us a master class on what she's observed in a herd of horses, mostly unaffected by human interference. So let me tell you a little bit about Bernie and Julia. Author and long rider.
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Bernie harberts is the subject of the Emmy award winning PBS North Carolina program, the mule rider and the author of two mules to triumph about his seven month mule voyage from North Carolina to Idaho. Even though he's traveled both ways across the United States and Newfoundland by mule, he still can't keep his mule cracker from occasionally bolting. Bernie recently started the travel grit podcast, which features other adventurers much like himself, and he lives in a small cabin in western North Carolina with his wife, Julia, two Border Collies, three mules, two ponies and 8000 wild caught honey bees when he's not riding or rambling. He enjoys bee lining, planting ginseng and 23 minute naps. You can follow his writings at River earth.com Julia carpenter is the founder of the two step way, which is at two step way.com.
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The two step way helps horse owners and caregivers learn how to be with their horses and how to really see them, to promote connection trust and health.
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Julia is interested in helping animals, particularly horses, heal from trauma, and has studied intently with that goal in mind. She grew up on a horse farm in Vermont, and has been a licensed riding instructor, licensed riding instructor and trainer, working with race horses, Hunter jumpers, polo ponies and field hunters. Julia has had a lifelong friendship and association researching training and caring for animals.
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She loves volunteering to help out animal rescues with her knowledge. She has a private practice helping people and their equines learn and benefit from her two step way. Julia has degrees in wildlife management and environmental policy from Boston University and Tufts, and has worked in the wildlife and environmental fields. She is a painter, and her animal paintings have been shown in galleries and shops in the Boston area in western North Carolina. She is the author of one little cookbook called pet food, 16 dessert recipes to make you smile. Julia lives on a small farm in the mountains of western North Carolina with her husband, Bernie harberts, the long rider, filmmaker and author, in addition to the two rescue Border Collies, three mules, a rescue pony and her halflinger that we've already mentioned, she enjoys riding in the mountains, around her farm and on longer rides with burning she blogs about her life with the animals, equine rambling and the two step way at considering animals.com. She. She also blogs about working with horses at her two step way.com website. While having this conversation, it was clear to me that magic was happening for Julia and Bernie on that tiny boat next to that tiny island. Hopefully we captured just a bit of that magic for you to enjoy as always. I hope you enjoy this podcast, and if you do, please share it with your friends. It helps us get the word out there.
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Enjoy this podcast with Julia carpenter and Bernie Harvard's well. So I'm just going to say welcome to the podcast, because here we are, Bernie and Julia in Bernie sailboat, grit Lynn in the pavilion at Mystic waters.
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Awesome. Y'all look really thanks for having us. Man, you don't look like a couple people that have been out camping for how long? Tell me for just to get started, place yourself for everybody listening. Where are you in the world and what the heck are you doing?
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Yeah. So we are anchored on our little trailer, trailerable sailboat called Grit, 24 and a half feet long, lives in our hay barn. We're currently anchored off Shackleford banks North Carolina, which is one of the bottom islands on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, eight miles long, uninhabited, no people, 103 wild ponies. Yeah, just about so We've sailed here on grit to observe the wild ponies. Been out of little over two weeks now, been wild. We learned a lot.
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And every now and then you have enough of a signal I know, to post a blog, a little bit of a Facebook post, so I've been following along, but I'm going to pretend like I haven't, because a lot of people that are going to be listening to this won't have so we're just going to be fresh beginner's mind on my part, to say what the heck has been happening while y'all were out there. Give us a why are we doing this? Julie, now, and why the heck are you doing this?
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Well, a little bit of two reasons. Bernie always gets itchy feet to go on his next adventure, and that was long overdue, and he wants me to come a lot of the time and a fair amount of the time. The issue is finding pet sitters and lining up horse help, and that I feel good about, because, as you know, Lynn, I really love my animals and but we have found have excellent, excellent friends taking care of the horses and the dogs this time.
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So I felt that we we saw the window of time, and then we were looking for something that would be really fun to do together.
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And Bernie's always tried to entice me onto his sailing expeditions with him, have to go sailing, and that's not a huge sale. It is not a huge sale for me, who is quite a land lover, barely a swimmer. We I do swim, and I don't swim badly, but I am a cat, and it takes a little while to get me into the water.
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So what we decided was, I said to Bernie, well, if I could go and study the wild ponies on Shackleford banks, I would love to go with you. And so he, you know, he's a horse person, too, and it just started to sound like too great an opportunity to both of us, so we decided to do it.
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So here you are. Well, that sounds like the kind of negotiations that happened in my marriage, something I don't really want to do. If you entice me with something like horses I could be talked into.
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You know, this was wonderful, because it felt like we were running in the same directions, because I love horses, mules and sailboats.
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Julia loves horses and mules.
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It's not that she dislikes sailboats, but when you present the sailboat as a way to see wild ponies, it didn't take a lot, no, once we got the animal care taken care of, which is
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tough, and that's the big piece, because you guys have quite a few animals. It's a
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really issue. Yeah, it's tough. But Lynn, something that I probably would interest your viewers. I feel like every time I go on one of Bernie's big trips, I'm a little bit in the beginning, like, is that going to be too big in it an adventure, in the sense that, you know, here I am with like an Uber adventurer that, not, you know, does, never gets rattled in any situation, and sometimes I, you know, wonder at well one certainly on a sailboat like the level of comfort. Of, you know, say, Bernie gets hit on the head, and there I am, you know, with a vessel of kind of wild place, with crazy sailing. I mean, you have to be a good sailor around here. And so sometimes I'm a thinker ahead and Bernie's I think you're behind. I think one of the reasons he's so good at doing what he does is because he doesn't do that vigilant thing up front of this could happen, that could happen. And so I do though, so setting off sometimes is getting over the hurdle of what kind of adventure we're going to undertake and just how rock and roll it's going to get
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unto your credit, you've I've given Julia at least three really good reasons, which we'll get into, to be apprehensive about going sailing with me.
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We've got caught in a 40 knot Gale at night, you know, blown up towards the Lee shore, which is bad news and Sailor talk.
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We've got, you know, anchors really badly fouled. We've been sideswiped by a boat. Get into RAM by a boat.
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We gotta get into all those. We're gonna
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get into all this. But, but, the but, the point being is it starts with that cliche first step forward, leaving the dock to get out. And if you think about all this stuff, you'll never leave. And this is very well plowed territory, but it is hard, even for me, even for me, who's traveled a lot by boat and mule to take that first step.
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It's still tough. I'm almost 60, and I still think, Okay, time to jump in the water. I do.
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So that's the leap of faith, because, you know, Bernie's gonna jump off a big cliff and he if there's a rope attached to me. I'm going to have to go with him. If it's I'm on his sailboat. We're going there. So, you know, it's a little bit and honestly, what I'd love to say, even right up front, is that, you know, apprehension, should I jump?
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Shouldn't I jump? And then you get out here and you experience the tough ends, but you then experience the thing, the nuggets that just make it just so special that you're so glad you know that you jumped. You did jump.
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Yeah, well, you're more, you know, Julia, I'm probably more in your risk profile of thinking of everything that could happen so I can head it off at the pass, versus, like Bernie said, he's the one that thinks behind instead of a thinker a header, right? There's also times when I have wondered if I haven't created the thing I'm afraid of because I was so worried about it, that's what I focused on, and it's something I at my at my stage of life, I've really thought a lot about and have become more of an adventurer, because that very thing that you're talking about, which is the thing that comes through, even just sitting here talking to you, is whatever comes up, you can handle it, absolutely who's going to handle it when it happens? Absolutely happen, but you're just Yeah,
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and that's how the Gale went. We got here. We're having a wonderful time. We were sitting quietly playing cards one evening, 930 at night and dark, dark. Nobody, nobody around, just the island behind us is quiet and dark, and the ponies are on it, and the shore off in the distance is all lit up with lights, and that's the land of the people, and this is the land of the animals, and we're sitting there playing cards in the boat, and all of a sudden, a little wind picks up, and it makes a little noise and and I copy the noise, and I just say, which is bad news.
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I haven't told you this never whistle on a boat, but carry on.
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And all of a sudden the wind starts blowing harder and harder, and Bernie says, Oh, this is a little fast in, fast in, fast out. And we looked at a weather chart, we couldn't see much of anything. Then we looked a little closer, and pretty soon, we've discovered that we were going to be riding out quite a big Gale, with 40 mile an hour, 40 knot winds, and as Bernie was describing, on a Lee shore, which means the wind is blowing off the water and pushing us on towards land,
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like 20 feet, like 20 feet from our Stern, very close, like 20 feet, not 100 feet, 20 feet. That's right there. Yeah.
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Faith in your anchors.
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Yeah. So the. That was the that was what we went to bed with, with the waves coming up under the boat and smacking down and housed it was shaking us, and it did it all night long.
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But like you were saying, and I had watched, you know, the ponies the day before, just reacting to their lives as it came up. And, you know, I study what you study the nervous system and stuff. And I just thought, well, here I am. I'm on this boat. We see this is going to last for a while. You know, I've been described the situation. I've said, put me to whatever job I need to do.
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Bernie says, nothing we do do is wait it out. And I went over on my bunk, and I actually fell asleep. I was strong. I slept solidly, very well, up and down.
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Probably got out for a very bumpy pee in the night, but literally, I just dropped it, and you just kind of become like those ponies. Here it is. It's big. See what happens. And here we were the next day. You know the Yeah, it's no
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time to the next day, because this is fascinating.
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Lynn, so like the boat, you have to imagine the waves are smashing. The boat has a wood interior. You can hear the wood fibers stretching in the wood interior. It's like the wind is how and so we got into this balance between, and we've seen this in horses and ponies on the line. We're going to get to that between vigilance and high alert and total peace. And so we got in this perfect state. I was waiting for the thunk of the crash of the keel to hit the ground, to get on deck, to do what's next, but I couldn't worry about it. And you
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have to response, or the reaction you get to the the moment happening in front of you, and that's the only time that there's anything to do.
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And so we went through the night. We did not set an alarm. The next morning, it was howling, big waves hitting the boat, stretching both anchors out. We finally got out of bed, and we felt almost like mildly stoned or sedated, mildly sedated. We had gotten ourselves into this trance, like self, slowly sedation. We got up. It was like 930 the sun had been up for two and a half hours, but we it was smacking couldn't get off the boat. Didn't get off the boat the whole next day. So it was amazing thing. And where I want to lead this to, this is one of the things that sailors worry about, and people who aren't sailors, Julie, having heard about some of my sailing stuff, conditions, worry about this. Well, once we, once it, was forced on to us, forced on to us, and we came through it.
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We came out the other side.
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You're like, oh my goodness, we have made this we survived.
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We're a little more tuned in now to the weather, and that opens up all kinds of opportunities, which we took, which we'll get into based on surviving that being a little small, you know, more tuned in. It was wonderful.
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And also hindsight and backside, also when you go to that numb state, that not really numb, but just sort of slowed down, the the non panic resting kind of state, which I will describe later. I saw a mayor go into today. You're there, but you aren't. You're conserving energy. You're not overreacting, but you're absorbing and the interesting thing was, we took nuggets of information from this, and it really gave us a sense of confidence, not like, oh, we need to run from the next one, but we know you can stay in a little anchorage on Shackleford banks in a big blow, and you're going to be okay. And that's pretty cool, because I think otherwise you think those risks aren't worth taking, but by taking that and being here a little super early for the season, you get a real amazing jump on an opportunity that's just unbelievable to have those pony access to yourself.
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Well, the thing I what I'm marveling at is I'm listening to you tell this story is that you didn't go home right away. Like, yeah, what you did was actually let the situation, my language for its raise your pressure threshold, but it you let it inform you and actually make you more capable. And you, like, capture the didn't die moment, rather than go, oh God, we got to get out of here and never.
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Take such a risk again, let's just go read books on our recliner at home. You know, it
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was a technical issue that we couldn't get home
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next day. Since that happened, you were not looking for that point where you could turn tail and run. You actually like, let it wash. I'm hearing you. You're describing it how it washed over you. It's almost like it changed you at a cellular level, yeah. And now you're you're like, Well, okay, we can do that now.
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What? But you know, here's the fascinating thing about the going home. One of the things is that when we first got out here before the Gale, it's like this, that was like, the third night we were on Shackleford banks, we got a taste of the wild ponies, and it was some strong magic. And so we had that pulling us. It's like, No, we don't want to leave this like, that was rough. That's magic.
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Yeah, it's a draw of a magical place. And so we
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had seen the glimpse of our new life out here, which is kind of feels like a new life.
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And so we were like, we're sticking with this new life. And we had plenty of other crazy adventures since then, but we were in our new life, and they were part of our new life that involved ponies and observations and all of the unexpected stuff that you can handle. But it was a new life, wouldn't you say,
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Yeah, magically, yes, yeah. Well, so, like, okay, so I got it. I'm going to ask you about that new life. But the other thing is, like, the balancing of there was a reason to stay too, you know, I this is a little little bit related, but I heard somebody was talking about and I think I even have this in my book about saying no, but when you're trying to say no to something, it's very hard to say no to something, unless you have something really important to say yes to. Oh yeah, right.
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And if you have an amazing hell yes, then you can say no to everything that isn't that, right? And so that's kind of what I hear you saying, is we discovered something. So tell me, what is the magic of being out there? Because, you know it in theory, sitting where I'm sitting, it sounds like it's a lot of sand and some ponies. So, so what else is there? Oh, wow, yeah, it's okay. Here we go.
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Plumb the depths, pretty spectacular one, just in the sense right now, I imagine it fairly. Does get fairly, you know, overrun in summer or busy with people everywhere, but there was a nice feeling of being especially in a sailboat, to visiting animals, to a place that survives and works on its own. Now it doesn't completely do that, because it does take some management to make sure the population of ponies doesn't overrun the carrying capacity of the island, but just things like so many oyster beds and 1000s of birds feeding on the oysters and colorful shells on beaches that or nine is nine miles long on the ocean side, and dolphins just off the coast or around your boat both sides, just leaping and jumping, and an otter swimming on His back with a light twinkling around him, and sunsets that are just unbelievable, and sunrises that are amazing, and then a feeling that there's these silent little beasts that are so intelligent, living in these cohesive little bands and managing with other bands and stallions and the drama of their lives is like watching a pony version of the As the World Turns it's, it's tremendous. It's, you want another episode you we've started to identify individuals that we re see. Oh, that's the chestnut stallion with his old mare, and the two yearlings that are ready to disperse, but are still there. Are they there today? Oh, they're still there.
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It's fascinating. We've identified, I think, about 12 different bands, and there's 25 in all on the island, and then seven bachelor bands on top of that, and just watching the dynamics, and for me, a personal fascination, I feel a bit like I'm being I've gone to my gurus to get an update on how horses really are together, and so I've done some. Very careful observing that will help make me better at what I do with domestic courses and what I see.
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But just to look at the piece, the cooperation, what they really want to be and do without humans interfering in their their behavior towards and around each other, we still interfere in their management, but we aren't interfering on over the stallions too close to that stallion or this is that's happening, and watching the level of intelligence and trust and cooperation and fairness is fascinating. So what
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sort of and I'm going to jump in here real quick to explain a little bit about the depth of this herd that we're looking at. So as Julie mentioned, they're like 100 103 of these wild ponies, and they are incredibly unique as far as US Mustangs or wild horses concerned, because they're one of the only one or two populations that have these really strong old ties to Spain, Iberia, they've been here 400 years plus. They didn't actually come up on shipwrecks. It is on galleons, and the Spanish didn't bring them as originally thought, or often thought it was probably they probably more came from the Caribbean. They did arrive at shipwrecks. Some were brought and turned loose on the island. But what we've discovered, well, not discovered, but what we've really explored is this really unique type of horse that has evolved last 400 years. They are 13 to 12
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hands to Yeah, the 1213,
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13 two hands. They don't look at anything like they're they don't look anything like quarter horses. They have
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short jowls, yeah, very, very short head and a very deep jowl. And the under that almost all of them have a under bite and little dish in the skull.
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And I mean, when we found a skull, looking at the skull, you could tell it belonged to these ponies and not any horse. They do not they're not elongated.
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They're very squat. Some of them look almost from a distance, more like a cow face, because the muzzle is pushed in tight.
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And what we could
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really, really feel, and I felt really strongly, was how when you take a group of horses and leave them for 400 years without Rah rahing them, chasing them. They make this incredible, beautiful, complex, interconnected. I describe it as a almost like a puzzle, with all of these pieces, but each piece has got like a little movie going on. And we slid some of these, some of these pieces together, and we're able to watch how these individual bands, Julia mentioned this, like one band, five animals, the main stand, stallion, Lieutenant stallion, three mayors, how they interact, how an older mayor will be, watch over a young foal as she sleeps. Could be a year old might still be nursing, and then the fog gets up, watches over the mayor. They all have this incredible interconnectedness. And then we know at some point, for genetic reasons, the stallion will need to drive the Philly out, or the young Colt, they will disperse.
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They're all in an aisle, and they all have to live together, so they're all related and connected. But it gave us, yeah, this amazing feeling of of harmony. It's like harmony with a kick. We saw some kicking and gnashing of teeth, yeah, but we saw very few scars and bites
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describe it was yes. So you've caught us in a great day, because just before, just before we came on with you, we were out. We went, gone back to look at a certain band, a really interesting band, because there's two stallions, the head stallion, and his job is mostly just to breed the mares in his his herd, he has two very cohesive, steadily mares that have been with him for a long time. And then he had another mare and her young daughter, probably around a one and a half to a two year old, that had been brought into the herd. And then the the lieutenant, Lieutenant stallion and the the dominant stallion kind of work with these mayors, and they stay about as far apart from each other as they can. They never, sort of really inter interact, but their group is with them, and we watch. That all the other day, and then and we watched them all take a nap. Lynn, I wanted to send you a picture of everybody lying down and say, See I've done I've done my same, but they were just gonna get those horses to sleep from
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that far away.
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Yeah. And I was laid out right beside her, just like the main stallion. So anyway,
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put everybody to sleep.
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Was like, let me know. We watched one mare, then another mare, and then the stallion went down, and then the stallion went down. Everybody took a great, great snooze. It was lovely. But then today, this morning, we woke up and we saw two horses on the beach, and we saw that it was the the dominant, older mayor. They're not really, we don't call them Alpha anymore, but she's kind of the one with the most experience, and she kind of the ones that the herds kind of follows a bit, and she knows a lot of things will lead them to water. And so anyway, we see her walking, sort of snaking her head, driving this, this mare that had come into their fold recently, down the down the there, towards where their their territory is. And she's putting her ears back, driving along the beach. And then we saw the stallion come out into the beach, and he's looking and he looks down on the beach past us in this direction, and he sees her young daughter, who's down the beach, just hanging out. And he whinnies at her, and nothing.
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She just stays on the beach where she is a Texas puffs up his chest, and he looks at her, and then he goes galloping off, and he heads down the beach, and he puts his head down, he lowers his ears, and he snakes around behind her, and he drives her down the beach past us, galloping the Gallop right by grit, galloped right by the silver anchor and the little marriage. She went over a tiny little driftwood jump. I think she was trying to shake him off, and he jumped it too, and they went flying off. Well anyway, so I said to Bernie part one. I said, I want to go back and find that band, because I think that's a dispersing mare, and will be interesting if she ends up back with the herd today.
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Well, we saw her staying out on the beach, ignoring that stallion, and we didn't see him anymore. And so we packed up, went off through the dunes. Is about an hour later, and we arrived at this at our group, and sure enough, she wasn't there. And so we're like, okay, so this is how we're starting to piece together, as Bernie was saying, the jigsaw puzzle story.
00:32:41.140 --> 00:32:56.740
So she's not there, and the stallions are grazing. They have their two mares that are steadily with them. They have the one that the other mare brought back to their fold, and they're missing the other one.
00:32:52.180 --> 00:34:15.599
Well, we're sitting there, and we're just enjoying that. We eat our peanut butter sandwiches, and then all of a sudden, Bernie looks to the left, and he sees two bay mares that we don't know who they are approaching brand new. And they start to stick their heads up really high, because now they realize they're approaching this group. And so they stop for a little while, and they lower their heads and they're behind no there's dunes everywhere. We're standing on a dune where we can see everything. And so that one of the mayors, the the sort of older looking of the two, she she's looks a little concerned, she whinnies, and so she winnies A couple times, and then she just goes back to grazing. And they kind of stay where they are. And we, and our group is still very busy here. Well, few minutes later, we look to the to the west, which is so the mayors were on the east. We looked to the west. The band is right in front. The band is eating right in front of us. And we see a stallion approaching way off, half a mile off, a half mile off. Wow. And he's got his neck arched, and he's standing on a sand dune bin, and so then he starts to trip it along, and he comes as close as he dares, which is still, I don't know, quite a long ways away, yeah.
00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:53.260
And the mares are still there, so one of the mayor starts to to join into the group that's right in front of us. Well, the stallion greets her. One of the mares greets her. They paw a little bit, and then they all go to eating. They're fine. And the other Mayor clearly doesn't want to be involved in this. And she sort of stays very quiet, just like I was saying later on, as she got a little closer and the other ones were all around her, she kind of did what I said. She went into one of those very conserve your energy state.
00:34:48.940 --> 00:35:18.827
Don't make any moves, don't try to attract any attention, stare straight ahead, and she just kind of stayed by herself. Like that. Well, this other Mayor integrates into the herd, and the stallion hears the squealing and stuff, so he comes as close as he dares. And this is the stallion off to the right. This is this stallions. Mares are on the wrong side of this right.
00:35:14.867 --> 00:35:25.340
Well, oh man, pretty soon it look it looks like nothing. We wait and it looks like nothing's going to happen. So he's grazing and kind of watching.
00:35:25.340 --> 00:35:28.039
So he got three stallions, two in the group and one
00:35:28.940 --> 00:35:34.219
on the side, and hit mares are over on the other side.
00:35:34.280 --> 00:35:34.880
We're the other
00:35:34.940 --> 00:35:55.119
exactly, and exactly the the mayor that's joined them has now said hi to both stallions and the squeals really attracted that other stallion. Like it, and so you watch him, though he's sniffing the air and he's eating his grazing his way closer and closer, and kind of keeping a dune between them.
00:35:55.780 --> 00:36:14.099
Well, finally, the lieutenant stallion, which is not the breeding stallion, but he's the one that's in charge of mostly he gets to stay in that herd, because he does most of the fighting and the paying attention. Well, he gets aware of that stallion and we filmed it. We got the whole meeting.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:34.039
All of a sudden he's galloping at the other stallion, chases them out and they meet and they run and they do their introductions, and they're, you know, they're arching their necks and they're pawing and they hanging their heads over each other's back and biting rumps. And they do something where they'll, they'll poo on the ground, and then they'll turn around and sniff it, and the other one will poo over it.
00:36:34.460 --> 00:37:29.480
And they do all of their rituals, lots, lots of rituals, mingling rich behavior. Then they go back to eating really fast, kind of together, you know, eating together, yeah, but anxiety eating together stallions. And then he, the main stallion, starts to walk tenants, the lieutenant stallion starts to walk back towards his herd, but he keeps turning around and make sure the other one won't follow him. And the other one is not ready to give up the mayor, so he kind of keeps sneaking over. And we watched this for a while, until the the lieutenant stallion had gone back to him three or four times. And finally, the guy got the idea he wasn't getting his mares back there. He he trotted back off to that far distance where we'd last seen him and his one mare, she kept herself separated from the herd, and the third, the other mayor, the other Bay mayor, seemed to have joined them, and they all walked off, and that's when we said, oh, man, we're gonna fly in.
00:37:30.739 --> 00:37:33.079
That's the kind of thing that drives you back.
00:37:33.918 --> 00:37:45.818
Well, I was gonna say what? What I'm sitting here thinking about is this has been going on for 400 years, but only a few times people really get to watch it and see all the dynamic.
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:54.280
Yeah, this was like two hours. This took this took place over two hours today, two, two and a half hours, maybe three.
00:37:55.239 --> 00:38:49.000
And it was amazing for us to watch, and we commented on this with this dynamic, where there's room, there's awareness, there's lots of posturing, a little bit of nipping and biting and bumping, but there's not blood drawing violence. And it's kind of like, everyone's like, Okay, well, that's red the third stallion, and that's lieutenants that everybody, it's almost like they knew they were related, and they knew their spot. And it was amazing. And then we'll get into like, how this compares to how we keep horses, domestic horses, which I think is a fascinating subject, with how they live on their own, but it was a real amazing kind of a baseline experience, and a pool for us to dip into and keep dipping. We can't wait to go back to the law
00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:55.059
not seeing, we're not seeing a whole lot of scars on any of these animals. Oh, so
00:38:55.119 --> 00:39:00.840
yes, but I don't really hurt any. Of course. They're not wearing shoes. That's That's one. Yeah, exactly,
00:39:01.139 --> 00:39:06.179
yeah, but, but they're not, but, but they're not, but they're not kicking each other.
00:39:03.659 --> 00:39:06.179
They're not kicking each other,
00:39:06.179 --> 00:39:07.559
not making a lot of contact,
00:39:07.619 --> 00:39:18.659
very little contact. And they've, and I have seen amazing hails and manes, like massive without a single bottle of cowboy magic, or anywhere,
00:39:21.059 --> 00:39:22.820
probably fine too, like their
00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:24.860
hood amazing. We don't know how in the
00:39:24.860 --> 00:39:30.920
sand, I don't see any biotin or, yeah, you know, failures formula, but how the
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:40.460
feet wear too, that's beyond us, because the sand is very soft and there's barely any rock. So, yeah, they aren't chipping off. No, there's some definitely,
00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:47.079
somehow the sand is, it's working for the way their hooves have evolved. Yeah, they must
00:39:47.079 --> 00:39:49.480
be evolving some we're we're actually found.
00:39:49.480 --> 00:39:57.039
And by the way, we filmed and photographed tons of this Julius posting it considering animals.
00:39:54.340 --> 00:40:59.679
I'm posting at River earth.com one of the things we found was like. That hoof? Yeah, we found a hoof from a dead pony. Julie described the skull, and you could see, like the coffin bone was still in there. But it was a beautiful, like a little shrunk hoof. And we should post photos of that, of just, just a naturally wearing hoof, probably of four and a half year old, yeah, so amazing to see. That's four. So it's just amazing for us. Who we do keep horses at home. You know, we have three mules and two horses. They do live in pastures. We have a dry lot. We feed grain and hay. But it's amazing to dip back into what Julia refers to as the masters. Yeah, these masters are worth spending time with, and there are plenty of other ones, but boy, I feel like it's really changed the way I look at our animals based on how these animals
00:41:00.579 --> 00:41:21.380
work as a group, immediately strikes me as their size, you know, because if you think about domestic horses, like a really small horse is 14 hands. And you said, these are, that's right, yeah, a lot of the warm bloods are, you know, north of 17, yeah, yeah.
00:41:21.559 --> 00:42:03.059
Well, Lynn, you know, we found that the forest they have to they go into when the weather, when the weather gets bad, secret forest. And they really wiggle in to places that Bernie and I actually have to get on our to get through. And I'm thinking, you know, the the trees are shrunk. Here because the wind blows so hard too, that everything seems to be, you know, down, shrunk. And they have these very big manes and their ears will tuck in to their hair and their squat. I think there's a lot of evolution involved. It's often size for these conditions. What happens?
00:41:58.780 --> 00:42:54.460
But this forest, Lynn, this was amazing, and this is where you won't get a scientific answer on this one, but both of us had the same feeling. So the whole land feels very explored, almost over explored by ponies. You'll see there, they've gone everywhere, looking for, I mean, they will be eating, which, even in your binocular, binoculars, will look like a patch of sand, and they're actually eating the little, teeny stubs of grass that they see sticking up through the sand. So they're very careful picking everything that they can eat to eat, and so they've been over. They've combed every square and combed the island. Well. We were walking along, and we decided to enter. Let me back up a quick
00:42:54.940 --> 00:43:35.119
so remember the Gale like we hadn't planned on the Gale and the Gail introduced us some beautiful things. We're walking in from another outing, looking at horses. We're walking up the beach. It's high tide, and we're on the sound side of Shackleford banks, and we come across this huge tangle of fallen trees that fell right on the beach, out in the ocean, high tide, out in the sound. We couldn't get around it, and I'm cussing because I want to get home and drink a beer and be a sailor. And so instead, we entered to cut home, to grit the secret force we get around,
00:43:35.480 --> 00:43:38.480
just cut here, and then we can crawl into this forest.
00:43:38.480 --> 00:44:13.860
So we crawled into the forest, but then the forest opened up and it got a little bit bigger, and immediately there was no poo anywhere. Nope, some specific paths. They're not traveled a lot. They're the whole thing has the the live oak leaves on the ground. So it's just all live oak leaves. The sun is filtering through these kind of wild, huge, beautiful branches going every which way, cedars and branches. And there's Jasmine with these flowers coming down.
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:59.920
We're dropping these beautiful yellow flowers of light coming in. But there is a one poo in there. There's little trails, but doesn't look like they're walk till that the leaves come off, and Bernie and I, individually, without talking to each other, had made the same notes about how it felt sacred, like we were entering a cathedral. It's the highest point of the island. We both assume that it's safe sanctuary from storm, so that the ponies almost we both made this note without seeing us, that when they enter there, they become peaceful and they can stand, as you know, a huge island herd, rather than these bands full of stallions that are trying to keep mares. We got the idea.
00:45:00.288 --> 00:45:12.947
That it felt like a sacred space, like a cathedral, cathedral for shelter from the storm, but also a place where there's a love, nature of respect that
00:45:12.947 --> 00:45:15.467
you like. It's like a shared territory,
00:45:15.708 --> 00:45:24.380
and you don't know and you don't overuse it. You don't over there, in there, no brows.
00:45:25.338 --> 00:45:34.278
Really funny while you were telling me about going in there, because I was on Cumberland Island back in September, so I kind of got a feel for ponies on an island.
00:45:34.338 --> 00:45:45.159
It's a Cumberland has a lot more people on it with the ponies, but there was poop everywhere, yeah, and in this case, you're telling me I was picturing, I wonder if there's any poop in any poop in there that there was no poop, no
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:54.940
zero, none were there, none in there. There is so the manure on the open part of the island that, which would be the dunes, a little bit
00:45:54.940 --> 00:45:58.539
of the marsh, yeah, and they'd have some sort of load for us that they
00:45:59.860 --> 00:46:08.639
they, but the manure is, it's really interesting. It's it's a lot of it is piled up.
00:46:04.260 --> 00:46:21.019
Whether it's for stallion Mark doesn't be the stallions marking, but it actually looks like it's kind of concentrated and not randomly. Everywhere it would cover all the grass and everything. It was really interesting, but not in
00:46:21.019 --> 00:46:25.880
the confusion. That's one of the things I noticed at Cumberland. When I say it was everywhere, it was these piles.
00:46:25.880 --> 00:46:40.599
It wasn't like it was right, scattered everywhere, but it was like it was that they used everywhere they knew to go to a certain area, kind of like sometimes dogs do or something, right, sure, corner of the yard.
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:48.940
And you know, when you think about comparing it to how we keep animals, one of the first things you figure out if you're going to start keeping horses is, what are we going to do with all the manure, the manure, yeah, that's right,
00:46:49.179 --> 00:46:59.920
that's right. And it was interesting. We so this, we got curious about this. And Julie, you actually kicked a pile of manure. Because we're like, Well, what does it look like?
00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:07.139
Because at home, if you kick manure sometimes, if it's really old, you'll find a red wriggler worm might find a dung beetle.
00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:08.880
Might find some larvae,
00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:10.800
grub worms, no, just dried
00:47:10.920 --> 00:47:17.340
nothing dried up, just blew away, like dried marshmallows. It was really interesting.
00:47:18.119 --> 00:47:26.239
Yeah. Well, so did so what I have noted, and again, this isn't in the scientific realm.
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:59.019
This is more in the experiential or almost existential realm. But as I walk through different forests, as I walk out in nature, sometimes in the desert, any anywhere I go, what I've noticed is there is a different quality of feel from place to place. Sometimes you walk in and it's almost like I feel like I'm being watched. Other times you walk in and you get the tingles, or you feel a lightness or something. So it sounds like you guys, when you walked into this forest, felt a change of let's call it a change of energy. What did you feel when you Oh, yeah,
00:47:59.260 --> 00:48:06.780
I definitely think we both felt like you came into a church, that you should be quiet, you should be respectful.
00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:25.579
You almost like maybe a pony was looking from somewhere, saying, I hope they aren't. You know, you had that feeling that it didn't belong to you and that you were going to have to walk through quietly, respectfully and really not moving anything.
00:48:28.099 --> 00:48:42.579
She found it, yeah, actually, because I came back and I wrote in my notes, I said it, it felt like a cathedral. Me too. You don't crap here and you don't crap in a cathedral. It just felt like it was
00:48:42.818 --> 00:49:02.938
that direct. Yeah, I felt you don't take, you don't touch, you don't move anything, and that they would almost wish we didn't go in there in some funny way, like it's just that. It's just there's like, I think there's a law with them. They don't go there unless there's a hurricane. If there's a hurricane, we could go there too.
00:49:03.900 --> 00:49:45.579
And you know, the other feeling that I got was this thing is ancient, because when you're standing on a sand dune looking at the ocean, that's a timeless feeling. It's just is it 2026, or 1626? Now the same applies in the forest, but it feels old. These were huge live oaks, massive cedar trees. And a lot of them would come up, and they looked almost like if you rip the whole tree up, stuck the roots in the air. They, you know, they had roots all over.
00:49:42.460 --> 00:49:57.280
They were gnarled. They were twisted. There were there were Jasmine with yellow flowers coming through. And we're just about to get passed by osprey, the flying kind. Listen to this.
00:49:57.699 --> 00:50:02.715
You. Right over the boat.
00:49:57.699 --> 00:50:07.576
Can you hear that? Love it. I couldn't hear it. Zoom, zoom.
00:50:02.715 --> 00:50:19.576
Will not let the background noise in, yeah, I'll make it for you, because it was fun to watch both of you. You immediately, because you can see outside, yeah, yeah.
00:50:20.056 --> 00:50:23.360
Totally, totally disrespecting the cathedral.
00:50:23.358 --> 00:51:18.179
For we've seen, we saw that earlier today, and the ponies have habituated to things that happen often. And the cool thing for me is to see, because when I work with a person and their horse, often, the story is mirrored in the horse's behavior. For me that I'm looking at, it's almost like the horse is telling me the story of their lives. And then when you look at these horses, you get a picture of you know, well, we've become habituated to the fact that there's going to be tourists, but mostly those tourists are respectful, and they keep the school bus distance that. And they aren't dead face. They aren't like people sat there and wave flags at them, and they had to get so that they, you know, just toned you out. They were very aware.
00:51:14.278 --> 00:52:32.838
They put an ear on us, but, and they're aware of where you are, but you're not really, you know, they go right back to their story and their lives. So they're a beautiful band to study if you're a person that's trying to study because they have their lives and their behavior that feels uninfluenced and not over influenced, but that they aren't so scared or hyper vigilant or worried from never seeing man to not accept you there to watch like, I mean, we we got to see everybody lie down and sleep. We got to see two stallions, you know, figuring something out around these mares. The mares were still coming in the space. We were on, on a side and respectful, but everything we were in the middle of all of the things, the story that was going on, and yet it could still happen without a lot of concentration on us instead. And that's fascinating. I can't think of another herd you know that that that has had that two things going on where some management has been able to say and people have been respectful enough to, I'm sure that they aren't always, but I think in general, you're getting a reading that things work out.
00:52:33.380 --> 00:52:59.440
And so something, Lynn, I'd like to just jump in really quickly and add, like, I mean, I understand. We're here on a sailboat. We've had all these crazy adventures just to buy the hang time, because we just we're buying time here. To buy time, you have to go through some crazy stuff. But the just amazing, amazing thing about this herd here on Shackleford is that it's open to the public.
00:52:54.699 --> 00:53:35.000
People, if they're interested, can go to Beaufort and get on a boat looks like a huge pontoon boat. Dogs ride for free. Yep, and they can, if they're willing to spend the time, they can spend as much time observing these ponies and get the same experience that we did, whether it's a one, come out in the morning, sit with them, come back in the afternoon, you'll get a couple hours. You'll get a little glimpse of them. Or you can camping. Is allowed? I was going
00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:40.760
to ask you that, is it like? Are there any buildings on Shackleford? No, well, I guess a dog basically,
00:53:41.179 --> 00:54:28.280
or something further west where the main ferry arrives, there's a toilet block. So a toilet block, but, okay, really, basically, the coolest thing is the first time we ever came out here, we were on the National Park Service ferry, which is not the one, not the more expensive one, and it didn't have like a, it was like $7 didn't have an awning or anything, yes, like a John boat with a there was one other guy, or a couple. We got picked over here in in the fog, and on a day that looked like it might rain, and let out by a pole on a beach. And then ferry backed out, and he goes, you can come back, you know, on the next ferry. Wait, wait, wait, wait, next ferry, next John boat.
00:54:28.519 --> 00:54:33.920
When? When's your next boat?
00:54:28.519 --> 00:54:37.039
Yeah, but they will drop you off over. They will drop you off on the on the island. And so,
00:54:37.039 --> 00:54:44.980
where did you Where did you guys put in your sailboat to sail to it Oriental. Okay, yeah.
00:54:39.800 --> 00:54:44.980
So we wanted to do
00:54:44.978 --> 00:54:52.838
a little, a little sailing. We were visiting friends. We got married in oriental so we, we took the boat there and sailed here, right?
00:54:52.838 --> 00:54:59.619
So we live in western North Carolina, outside of Lenore, six hours from oriental.
00:54:55.659 --> 00:55:16.018
Trailer down, launched the boat, spent. It two days, two, three days with friends, waiting for some rain to blow out, and then we sailed across the Neuse River, motored most of the way here and got here. No, we sent one. Well, that was all other debacle.
00:55:16.798 --> 00:55:20.219
Okay, so I want to hear some of these debacles. Oh, okay.
00:55:20.938 --> 00:55:36.739
Well, sure, we could start at the beginning, okay, like before we even left the dog. And allow me to present this symbol. Okay? We should reenact these. So we'll reenact these. All right, honey, we're gonna go to Shackleford on grit.
00:55:36.918 --> 00:55:43.478
Now I'm just gonna tie the kayaks along ropes behind grit and tow them to Shackleford.
00:55:44.260 --> 00:55:45.940
Shouldn't we put them on the deck?
00:55:50.500 --> 00:55:53.079
Kayaks before that, that didn't go well,
00:55:54.880 --> 00:55:57.940
so I wouldn't listen to you either. Lynn, we're gonna talk.
00:56:00.699 --> 00:56:06.960
So we get off the people that are those forward thinkers that say, but this might happen if we did that. You all
00:56:06.960 --> 00:56:10.860
are you two? Are so negative? Lynn, negative, not
00:56:10.858 --> 00:56:12.358
negative experience.
00:56:13.739 --> 00:56:20.039
Well, I want to stay inexperienced until the last kayak sinks out from under me.
00:56:16.860 --> 00:56:32.719
Oh, that's exactly what happened. We're going across the New River. Sorry, I'm starting to shout, but I'm getting a little so. So we're roaring along. Grits. Got two masts.
00:56:27.800 --> 00:56:53.019
I've got the main cell up, the mizzen up. That's the stern sail. I've got the genoa Big Sail. It's a cloud of red. We're roaring along down with 20 knots spectacular. Julie got some beautiful, beautiful video. And then we get to where the the water narrows down to go down what's called Adams Creek, or Adams canal, to get to Beaufort.
00:56:54.280 --> 00:57:09.420
I'm at the helm. It is blowing stink. 20 knots. We're roaring along. Julie looks back and says, Oh no. Look at the kayak, and I look around us, and Julia's which I call the loon.
00:57:09.599 --> 00:57:13.800
It's an eight foot green kayak.
00:57:09.599 --> 00:57:17.159
It's flipped upside down, and it's snaking through the water like a loon looking for a fish.
00:57:17.159 --> 00:57:19.679
Looks like it's got its heels dug in it, yeah.
00:57:21.599 --> 00:57:26.480
And my kayak, which is which I call them, the manatee.
00:57:26.480 --> 00:57:38.840
It's this big, bloated, fat kayak. It's dove down under the water. It's three feet underwater, and it's cutting in front of the loom like totally submerged.
00:57:38.838 --> 00:57:54.998
You would have thought there was so much drag. You'd have thought that the that grit couldn't be but the wind was blowing so hard, didn't feel the thing. Nope, she's just pulling them, and they're going lower and lower, and she's
00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:18.360
still just dragging along. And the problem is, we've got all sail raised going downwind. And if you're a sailor, that's not good news, because you can jive, which means the boom can go swinging over and, you know, smash you in the head, knock you off the boat. So we kind of ease up into the wind. I claw the sails down.
00:58:13.980 --> 00:58:29.480
We get an anchor over the side, and it's like, Okay, now we got to sort this so we look over the side of the boat. My kayak, the manatee is doing the upside down, submerged, sunning manatee.
00:58:29.960 --> 00:58:30.980
It was about four
00:58:30.980 --> 00:58:36.019
feet under water, sunk.
00:58:30.980 --> 00:58:36.980
And Julia's kayak, the Loon is nowhere to be seen.
00:58:36.980 --> 00:58:39.139
It's just a rope that goes straight. It's a yellow
00:58:39.139 --> 00:58:43.420
rope going into the muddy water. You have another anchor, basically, yes,
00:58:44.619 --> 00:58:57.460
two acres, a metal one and a kayak one. And we're like, oh, man, so we're not really big people. And then, then the manatee full of water. It's like three, 400 pounds.
00:58:58.599 --> 00:59:00.840
Oh, I mean, two of us almost going over.
00:59:00.838 --> 00:59:05.998
You know you sunk before.
00:59:00.838 --> 00:59:07.378
I know. I just like, I've been in this picture
00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:14.820
holding like his his face and ears are going already. He's holding it up, and I'm trying to crank it over.
00:59:14.820 --> 00:59:32.300
And we got to pull it up like a three foot onto the boat, not a beach. We're trying to lift it up to get it over the over the bed, over the over to the cockpit. So we finally do this. It's like the slow motion tillsbury flop, like where a jumper goes over a pole, and we're like,
00:59:34.280 --> 00:59:37.519
and did a ton of water just pour out. It's filled the cockpit.
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:39.920
Just, yeah, now he's got a drain plug.
00:59:40.760 --> 00:59:48.940
But look out. So we got that in, and we finally got so we got the manatee aboard, and then we got the loon up, but
00:59:48.940 --> 00:59:56.920
loon was straight down, and we couldn't pull it took for it took a good long time to pull that one in. We finally
00:59:56.920 --> 01:00:06.523
get the loon aboard, which is Julius kayak. You. And then we discover it. The bottom of it is covered in red paint.
01:00:06.523 --> 01:00:16.304
We've got red paint on our hands, our clothes, and it's like the loon had been rubbing up against the anti fouling on grit, which is that soft,
01:00:16.724 --> 01:00:21.199
poisonous paint she was underneath, underneath the boat rubbing
01:00:21.199 --> 01:00:37.639
under the boat. So now there's two kayaks, red bottom paint all and it's like, well, now we got a storm, and this is what hurt the most. We got a storm like Julius suggested before we took off.
01:00:41.840 --> 01:01:03.059
And I know, you know, Shackleford Banks has some really windy weather at that time of year. Yep, we'll be fine. So then, then all was well, after the storm engine and we decided to go see the eastern part of the island, yeah, let me explain
01:01:03.059 --> 01:01:26.119
the geography real quick, and then we'll get into that. So track of her bank eight miles, you know, oceanfront dunes in the middle, and then the sound. The western side has a lot more dunes, and it's got a fair amount of ponies there. But the big, bigger herds are on the eastern side, which is much flatter.
01:01:27.199 --> 01:01:29.360
Swamp here, swamp here, little wetter.
01:01:29.358 --> 01:01:44.139
So we thought, right, we've been here in this anchorage where we survived the Gale four or five days. Let's go into the eastern end and experience that. And boy, did we experience it.
01:01:46.599 --> 01:01:50.679
Okay. I want to hear you.
01:01:52.360 --> 01:02:16.739
So it started with me pulling up the first anchor, which is fine, and then the second anchor came up, all tangled up and upside down. And you know, that was okay, but we got that straightened. And then we take off. We go by Harkers Island, and then we turn, make a turn to the ocean, so the tide is starting to go out.
01:02:17.159 --> 01:02:45.159
Let me just say one thing, this whole area has a lot of Shoals, sandbars, oh, man, so you have to really know it, and it's hard to spot the buoys, and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble. So you always have to, you have your binoculars out, you know? Sometimes you have to slow them the engine, so you can really check for buoys,
01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:48.940
and the buoys also change the river turn thing gets thrown off.
01:02:49.239 --> 01:02:50.980
So it's a tricky waterway.
01:02:51.699 --> 01:02:55.659
Really tricky. You really have to pay. I mean, tide matters too, right?
01:02:56.679 --> 01:03:03.239
Like so it pulls the boat drifts, you know you need, yeah, yeah.
01:03:03.239 --> 01:03:06.599
So we we got off on enough tide to get out of here.
01:03:06.599 --> 01:03:25.039
So we didn't run on to sand bars, but the same tide that helps push you to where you want to go. In our case, we were heading towards the ocean. Well now it's sucking us out into the ocean. The tide is going out and, and this is, like, almost
01:03:25.039 --> 01:03:33.260
like a river running, I've been it's like, it's, yeah, there's a current, almost, yes, there's a strong,
01:03:33.260 --> 01:03:58.719
lot of current and, like, and then the wind, and you go by one of these buoys, like, it's called a day mark. It's like a oil drum. It could be red, it could be green, and the tide is pulling them over, like they're 45 degrees, degrees, and you can see the it's like a river. It's just like you're saying, the water is sluicing by it. So we've made the turn, and we're heading towards the ocean.
01:03:54.460 --> 01:03:58.719
But it's not just the ocean.
01:03:58.900 --> 01:04:57.940
It's the Graveyard of the Atlantic Ocean. So we're heading towards the eastern part, as I said, a Shackleford. And there's a place there called the bite, and this B, I, G, H, T, okay, and it's right next to Cape Lookout lighthouse. So the bite is shaped like a fish hook. It's actually a very good anchorage for when the wind blows from the south and the east and the lighthouse, there's Cape Lookout that marked one of the most dangerous shoals on any part of the East Coast, like Blackbeard, ran aground not far for sewer sitting right now at the mouth of Beaufort inlet on Queen Anne's range. So I'm thinking of all this, and I'm I've got our little 9.9 horsepower Yamaha little small outboard. Me women's laughing. I have.
01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.619
9.9 the river current.
01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:07.559
The river current is about the same speed as the boat, so you can't even really, it's like, yeah,
01:05:08.760 --> 01:05:14.400
you're talking to a woman who drives a 300 horsepower ski boat. But the but the problem, oh, we've seen what those can do.
01:05:14.400 --> 01:05:24.800
But my point nine, little outboard, we like, use that for putting around in the river, or, you know, whatever, imagine taking me on the ocean. I'm like, I feel like you need a bigger
01:05:28.219 --> 01:05:31.880
motor. This is why. This is why I didn't talk to you, Lynn, before I get this
01:05:36.500 --> 01:05:42.699
trip, let's get a bigger boat. All right, that's right, sorry, don't do much about myself.
01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:57.400
It's very funny, because, like, you'll understand. So we're going along 9.9 horsepower to Yamaha. It runs very fast, and it makes it sound like this. That's my current.
01:05:57.400 --> 01:05:59.079
Is drifting us off course,
01:05:59.800 --> 01:06:14.880
pushing us out of the channel. We're navigating the red and the greens. It's sucking us towards, you know, the Graveyard of the Atlantic. A guy comes by in a big it's got as a big Skiff. It's got like, a 250 horsepower outboard on it.
01:06:15.239 --> 01:06:26.480
There's a bloodhound with a life jacket in the back. And he's like, Are you guys okay? Do you know how deep it is? How much do you draw? And we're like, we're a foot and a half. He thinks we're going to run a ground, yeah?
01:06:26.539 --> 01:06:29.059
So, so he thinks we have a bigger keel, yeah?
01:06:29.059 --> 01:06:52.119
He thinks we have like, six feet. But me, being the confident, backward looking captain, says, we're fine. Thank you. And I feel good about this guy, because, like, this is a fellow Captain brother, looking out for another semen, heading out. Okay, I'll do the sound again. You missed it Now listen.
01:06:52.119 --> 01:06:56.320
You gotta listen this part. This is exactly right here. Yeah,
01:06:59.019 --> 01:07:04.559
so we're not. That's not us cutting out,
01:07:08.519 --> 01:07:10.980
but that was supposed to be the motor starting to cut out.
01:07:11.219 --> 01:07:14.760
It's showing us how the motor was cutting out.
01:07:14.878 --> 01:07:21.619
Yeah. So it skipped a beat, and both of us tried to pretend like we hadn't heard that. And then and they went.
01:07:26.719 --> 01:07:28.880
And we looked at each other because the motor
01:07:30.380 --> 01:07:35.000
I have been here on a river with my husband, with our 9.9 horsepower, so I
01:07:35.059 --> 01:07:38.840
guess so there it is, right at the mouth, sucking us
01:07:39.260 --> 01:07:45.099
see into Davy Jones's chest, and like we're clipping along, we're getting
01:07:45.099 --> 01:07:48.280
sucked out to the inlet.
01:07:45.099 --> 01:07:49.719
Not like you can just drift, because if you drift, no
01:07:52.119 --> 01:07:54.820
very speedy try to get the thing started.
01:07:54.818 --> 01:07:58.119
I fumble around with it.
01:07:54.818 --> 01:07:59.139
It's not starting, and I spend like five
01:07:59.139 --> 01:08:02.940
and we're going almost into a buoy. Now it's alright, so
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