OBX Report

We have all been in the situation where you know you need sunscreen on your back, but you can’t reach. Though there are probably some people around who would do it for you, it still isn’t something you feel confident asking a random stranger on the beach about. That is the focus of the new app “Luber” The app will scan for people nearby and show your their profile. If it looks like a person you would want to lather with sunscreen you swipe right.

There are also options to enter your sunscreen preference. For example if you don’t feel comfortable rubbing it in you are a “SPRUB” which means spray but no rub. If you won’t use chemical sunscreen you are “Mineral Queen.” Some terms from similar apps have also appeared in the app depending on how much hair you have on your back. The scale starts at Seal and goes to Otter, Pup, Wolf, and finally Bear.

“It’s great,” said local waitress, Candace, “I open it up and all of a sudden I am swarmed with helpful people. I think some people aren’t even at the beach, but they come out of their way to help out. It really supports my belief that humans are genuinely good and friendly”

“I haven’t had anyone help me yet,” said Bruce the burly accountant, “I have been keeping my shirt on in the meantime, but I haven’t given up hope yet. I did get a match once, but it was a spam account, which actually got me a new pair of Oakley’s cheap!”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in cooperation with the Dare County Sheriff’s Department, has unveiled a new public information campaign to promote safer summer driving along the Outer Banks. The public face of the promotion will be cartoon crustacean “Crossy Crab,” a sign-wielding sand crab encouraging sensible traffic turns.

NHTSA Lieutenant Peregrine “Poppy” Hargreaves explains: “Dare County highways can experience dense traffic congestion, especially during the summer tourist season. Sometimes, drivers will spot their destination on the other side of the road at the very moment they are passing it and will suddenly swerve across several lanes of traffic in order to reach their objective.”

Locals call this dangerous driving tactic the “Bypass Blitz” because the principal traffic artery along the beach, the five-lane bypass, is a common location for unexpected lane crossings. Another local name is the “Buffet Blitz,” so named because many dangerous cross-lane swerves are prompted by sightings of All-You-Can-Eat Alaskan snow crab leg buffets. Other common destinations include Wings stores, mini-golf courses, national fast-food restaurant chains, and shops with names using the word “vape” as a pun/ironically/nonsensically.

The most dangerous version of the Bypass Blitz is a beeline from the far right lane, across the fast lane, the turn lane, and both oncoming lanes, usually without a turn signal or any awareness of traffic in either direction. The illustrations below show the usual result of this maneuver:

Dare County Director of Disorder Containment James “Flaco” Purdew speaks for local and national safety officials: “We hope that Crossy Crab will bring attention to the very serious danger posed by the Bypass Blitz. If we can reduce the number of blind lane crossings by 50% over the next seven years, we will feel that we have done our job.”

The job of a lifeguard involves hours of mind numbing boredom punctuated with intense adrenaline inducing emergencies. Saving lives is why they are out there, but 99% of the time they are just watching and waiting. Southern Shores Lifeguard Mitchell Buchanan watches as the woman from New Jersey wades into the ocean. His eyes continue to scan the shoreline, observing other swimmers as they frolic in the surf, but his attention keeps returning to the Jersey tourist. 

“Watch,” he says. “This one has no business in the water. This morning she was wearing floaties on her arms. Now she feels confident and thinks she can handle it.”

Sure enough as the woman slogs toward the break a two foot wave nearly knocks her off her feet. As she staggers to regain her balance she side steps closer and closer to a rip current. Buchanan stares, expectantly, as the woman moves closer toward the dangerous rip.

“I could say something,” he argues with himself, “but then I wouldn’t get to save her. I should warn her. No she will just yell at me for ruining her vacation and I will get a reprimand. Yes, yes a little closer now. What am I doing? I can’t just let her… Come on she will be fine. You will save her and be a hero. If you blow the whistle at her everyone on the beach will think your an asshole. Just let nature take it’s course and swoop then swoop in. It’s a win win.”

The woman is tumbled by another wave and this time loses her footing. The rip current sweeps her out to sea. Her arms flail above her head

“She trying to remember those swim lessons she took at the Y back in 1998,” Buchanan says. “Hard to remember important stuff when you are in a death panic. If she drowned it would serve as a lesson for the rest of the tourist herd, but then I wouldn’t get those stats. Tough call.”

Buchanan says he feels bad wishing somebody would drown but he says it is the only way to help others gain awareness of the dangers of the ocean. He says people become complacent about the ocean until somebody dies, and then for a week or so everyone is more careful, which makes his job easier. He notes that the caution level for people visiting from the area where the victim came from tends to last longer, sometimes the entire summer season.

“Where’s she from?” the supervisor asks.

Buchanan’s radio crackles to life; it’s his supervisor asking about the situation with the drowning woman. 

“Trenton,” Buchanan says. “Jersey.”

“Shit. We just had one from Trenton drown in Duck last week. Maybe this lady didn’t get the news. Go ahead and pull her out.”

Buchanan shrugs and slings his lifesaving buoy over a shoulder and he jogs toward the water. He cuts through the water like a pike, straight toward the drowning woman. He reaches her just as she appears to go under one final time and tows her back to shore. She staggers from the water, sputtering, while her family busily records the moment on their cell phones. 

“Look, next time you jump in to save me, could you use a yellow floatie thing? The red doesn’t look so hot with my bathing suit,” she tells the Buchanan. Buchanan shrugs and returns to his stand. 

“Maybe the next one will be from Philly,” he says.

A bear from Currituck swam across the sound this month in search of adventure and better trash cans. In bear culture there have long been legends of the food Northern Outer Banks people throw away, but few bears make the journey. One brave bear dared to make the trek only to find out that legends aren’t always as described. We sat down for a chat at a local coffee shop to see how he was doing.

Bear: “Don’t get me wrong, the trash is amazing and hardly protected. It is everything I dreamed of, but I just can’t find a 3 bedroom for under 1600 a month. I don’t have that kind of scratch. Being a bear doesn’t pay much. I couldn’t afford that even with a roommate or two. I’m not going to live like those coyotes who pack 4 families into a house. I will just take my furry butt back across the sound to where no one would want an AirBnB.”

Report: “What will you tell the other bears.”

Bear: “I will tell them the truth. This place is wonderful, but soon you won’t be able to live here if you work here. Mark my words, soon instead of OBX locals worried about Currituck bears moving into their neighborhood, it will be us bears making room for y’all on the mainland.”

A visitor to the popular seafood restaurant, “I Got Your STD’s” caused quite a stir yesterday by making patrons and staff at the restaurant disappear in a cloud of dust. The man was identified by police simply as “Thanos” from Pennsylvania. 

“I was in a hurry and snapped my fingers to get the attention of the wait staff for the check,” Thanos said. “Ooops.”

Thanos was booked at the Dare County Detention Center under a $300,000 bond. 

Joel Copeland, the owner of I Got Your STD’s, told the OBX Report, “This situation has me totally upset. Do you know how hard it is to get help during the summer? And all those tabs that didn’t get paid? Worst of all that creep left a one-star review on Yelp for our ‘slow service.’”

The Dare County Board of Commissioners presented Marjorie Russell with their first annual “Superlative Driver Award” for her contributions on social media in improving general traffic safety. This is the fourth citizen’s award the Commissioners have made up out of thin air this year, following such awards as  “Gnarliest Phone Case Stickers” and “Paper Towel Roll Replacement Citizen of the Year.”

Ms. Russell was presented the Superlative Driver Award by High Commissioner Robin “Rob” Woodpecker who said, “We thank Ms. Russell for her tireless efforts to point out the poor driving habits of other motorists. She has become a reliable early warning system for everything from tourists driving five miles per hour under the speed limit to improper use of the turn lane. Ms. Russell’s daily, nay, hourly, mission puts her in harm’s way on a regular basis, but she does it for us to make us all safer.”

Ms. Russell began posting her observations of other driver’s bad behavior back when she joined Facebook in 2016. She has raised her online presence by starting a Twitter account this year which allows her 32 followers instant access to her notes and warnings.

In accepting the award, Ms. Russell read from a list of her most popular posts of all time based on “likes.”

There’s some idiot at the Kitty Hawk Road traffic light with his turn signal on BUT HE’S NOT IN THE TURN LANE!!! SOMEBODY COULD GET KILLED!!! – (6 likes)

Watch out friends!!! Little Miss LAWBREAKER didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign at E. Bladen Street. SHE COULD HAVE KILLED SOMEBODY! – (4 likes)

If you’re on the Basnight Bridge WATCH OUT!!! There’s some MORON in a blue pickup truck NOT wearing his seatbelt. HOPE HE DOESN’T FLY THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD AND KILL SOMEBODY!!! – (2 likes)

Ms. Russell will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Committee in July.

Duck, NC – Big Game hunter and Duck oceanfront property owner Tess Talley rarely misses what she aims for.

Using her trusty .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle with laser sights and GPS triangulation, Talley has hunted giraffes, antelope, pangolins and manatee across around the globe from the safety of her designer portable steel and concrete bunker. But a local juvenile osprey has managed to evade the self-proclaimed “Mistress of Murder” and she is one unhappy camper.

“It’s one of the most disappointing moments of my life,” Talley said while standing on top of a pile of local wildlife slain earlier in the day. “That dumb bird was sitting perfectly still in its nest. I had the shot lined up and at the last second one of those damn marsh mosquitoes flew right up my nose.”

Talley’s bullet shattered the wood frame structure of the nest, sending small bits of shrapnel into the osprey. The bird was wounded but survived.

“Honestly, I just thought it would bleed out and I certainly wasn’t going to waste another bullet. But then some jackass in an SPCA jacket comes running out there and scoops the thing up and carries it off.”

Talley said she’ll wait for the bird to heal up before trying to kill it again.

“I mean, I’m a sportswoman. Fair is fair,” she said.

Duck, NC – In an effort to thwart a rash of trespassing crimes against Duck’s oceanside property owners, the Duck Police Department has deployed adhesive “tourist traps” along private beach accesses throughout the town. The traps snare unsuspecting tourists when they violate the law while accessing the beach. Duck Police Chief QewDiePie said the traps are also 78.12% effective against trespassing locals.

“Duck’s beaches are public up to the high water mark; access to them is not,” said Duck homeowner Jared Carson. “We pay a lot of money to keep the riff raff out. I’m pleased our police department has taken steps to eliminate this ongoing threat to our privacy.”

The traps hang from 12 foot scaffolds and are made from a ten foot polycarbonate sheet coated with an industrial strength adhesive. A few inches of skin contact is all that is necessary to trap the unsuspecting trespasser. Struggling only envelops the lawbreaker more completely and ensures they aren’t going anywhere until the police arrive.

“As long as they don’t get their faces covered and suffocate themselves, we can get them free with a little WD-40,” said Chief QewDiePie. “After a week in the slammer and a few showers with Bubba most seem to learn their lesson. We aren’t seeing a lot of recidivism.”

When asked if the traps had managed to snare Duck Private Trespassing Enemy No. 1, Robert Hobiecat, Chief QewDiePie admitted the outlaw had thus far managed to evade capture

“But,” he added, “It’s only a matter of time before he shows up stoned out of his mind, not quite on his game, and gets snared. In the meantime, if anyone sees Mr. Hobiecat in the village of Duck I encourage them to call 911.”

Another stick of dynamite was tossed on the bonfire of controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a new 18 story hotel in Hatteras Village when it was announced today that the hotel would be named “The Basnight” after former State Senator Marc Basnight.

SAGA Construction, the company which purchased the Sea Gull Motel property where the new Basnight Motel would be built, has petitioned Dare County to allow a variance in the building code restricting the height of developments. At 18 stories, the proposed Basnight Hotel would be the tallest building on North Carolina’s eastern seaboard, surpassing the current tallest building, the PPD Construction headquarters in Wilmington, by a whopping 6 stories.

Andy Anderson, a spokesperson for SAGA, told the OBX Report that the company chose to go with the Basnight name after the Bonner Bridge replacement was named after the former 13-term state senator.

“We saw how quickly the bridge was approved after a secret agreement was made to name it after Sen. Basnight. We’re hoping that naming our hotel after Sen. Basnight will have a similar, red-tape cutting effect.”

Mr. Anderson said that the hotel would be topped with a first order Fresnel lens to aid with navigation in the area, adding, “That would open up SAGA’s long term goal of purchasing the Hatteras lighthouse to remodel as a bed-and-breakfast.”

Making the best of a bad situation has long been a trait valued by residents of the Outer Banks, and a new local business is doing just that. OBAXess noticed that the local demand for admittance to the public beaches in Duck had long been stymied by the lack of any beach access points that would allow locals to use the beaches that they help to pay for. Luckily, Grayson “Gray” Dough-Umphlett happened to be in possession of several aquatic landing craft left over from World War II that had been slowly decaying in a shipyard in Newport News.

Gray states: “Well, if you can’t get to the beach by land, I figure your only options are by air or by sea. I don’t own any helicopters, but I been trying to find some use for those old war surplus landing craft for years. It’s a win-win, as far as I’m concerned. I can plop the locals right down on the beach, and there ain’t nothin’ those homeowners associations can do about it.”

Dough-Umphlett is quick to point out, though, that he welcomes tourists as well: “Far as I’m concerned, the more rowdy teenagers, tattooed hipsters, and screaming kids we dump on Duck beaches, the better.”

Service from the Southern Shores Hillcrest Drive beach access is available seven days a week, approximately every hour on the hour from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Fares are $8/person or $35 for a family or other group of five.