A Story that Starts with C

Clams. On Carrot Island.

My dad grew up in a maritime town called Beaufort in the southern Outer Banks. We visited my grandparents and cousins frequently and spent many hours traipsing around the barrier islands and sand bars just outside town. We would anchor the boat on one end of Carrot Island (actually named Cart Island for the fish carts that hauled catches across Taylor Creek) and then walk across at low tide in time to find the best sand dollars. At high tide the insides of the island were channels filled with a couple feet of water.

The island holds a sanctuary of fauna and flora that alternatively revealed and hidden by tides falling and rising. One of the animals that resides in the mud is the razor clam. On our treks across the island we would guess at the best route with the least boggy mud. On the rare occasion that we chose an unfortunate route with sloppy, knee depth mud I would invariably get anxious and ask my dad to carry me. I was terrified of what lurked within the black, smelly mud.

My uncle Fred was with us on one of these nearly unnavigable journeys and sliced his foot to pieces on a razor clam. I vaguely recall the walk back to the boat and being doubly concerned for the safety of feet. After that trip I wore shoes as much as possible. This was around the time that neon spandex beach shoes became popular, and we lost many a shoe in the mucky muck. The razor clams could still penetrate the sides of the shoes, so they weren't great protection, it alleviated some of my anxiety.

I've done some scary, adventurous stuff in my life, but none is quite so fearsome as the hidden clams on Carrot Island.