Frying Pan Shoals BUOY has come online! This is a wonderful day for mariners along the Cape Fear Coast. The much anticipated buoy has been deployed and is online.

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.phtml?station=41013

Station 41013 is slated to replace the beloved Frying Pan Tower this coming spring. The "Tower" is scheduled to be removed to become Southeastern North Carolina's newest AR. John Walters, chief of the waterways management section of the U.S. Coast Guard has been quoted as saying "The aging tower is too unstable for workers to maintain it or the weather instruments it carries, and some time next year, the tower will be demolished."

Money has NOT been allocated to it's removal as of yet.

The Tower's reading are stable and reliable since it is rooted in the sea floor. The newer buoy is a floating platform and it can be tossed around in the sea causing the weather readings to be less than correct.