THE LAY OF THE LAND

In the four-wheel-drive area of Carova, professional land surveyor Jamie Furr spends a lot of time playing in the sand (i.e., digging holes) in order to capture the precise measurements that are crucial to his job. Photo courtesy of Helen Furr.

Survey says? Pirates, snakes and wild horses are all part of a day’s work for local land surveyors.

The Lay of the

Land

BY STEVE HANF

WHEN JAMIE FURR SETS UP HIS SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS to dial in those precise measurements and mark property boundaries, he’s completing painstaking and exacting work.

But just how painful and exactly how crazy the work will be depends on the day and the location, especially when he finds himself in the four-wheel-drive area of Carova.

Sometimes, it’s an inquisitive homeowner wanting to know what he’s doing on their property.

“Our favorite joke as a surveyor is to say, ‘This is where the tunnel from Norfolk’s coming through,’” Jamie says with a laugh. “Their response immediately tells you who you’re dealing with – the person either laughs and you share a few giggles and move on, or the person gets quite irate, like you’re the worst person in the world.”

For those who can laugh it off, the next question often involves pirate lore: Is Jamie getting any closer to finding that X on the treasure map?

“Yeah, I’ve been looking for 25 years, and I haven’t seen any buried treasure yet,” Jamie says goodnaturedly. “I did find an old fiberglass pirate like you would see at Jolly Roger or a putt-putt course one time while I was doing a survey in Corolla. It looked like it had been there for at least 30 years.”

When Jamie made that discovery on a vacant lot near the Whalehead Club, he took several photos, and then took it home – where the pirate continues to scare visitors to this day.

“That’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever found,” Jamie says. “I’m still waiting for somebody to accuse me of stealing it!”

Treasure aside, the job of a professional land surveyor is mainly supposed to be pretty tame and straightforward: Using landmarks, GPS, maps and other instruments, Eastern Geomatics, PLLC – Jamie’s company – and a number of local land surveyors mark boundaries for construction sites, make sure people aren’t putting their pools or fences on their neighbors’ property, and ensure that the myriad of ordinances for every local municipality are being followed before projects begin.

It’s still the type of work that can come with its own unique set of challenges, however. By way of example, Jamie recalls one story of a surveyor who missed the mark on a relatively nondescript sandy lot in Carova. The lot was staked. The house was built. The proud owners came to see their new house – and promptly told the surveyor that it wasn’t on their lot.

Luckily, surveyors have insurance for that kind of thing.

But despite curious people, and the discovery of unusual property markers like gun barrels and car axles, the biggest challenges local surveyors tend to face come from the resident wildlife…especially in Carova.

Everybody loves Currituck’s famed wild horses, right? Not so much for Jamie, whose expensive equipment seems to draw members of the herd faster than a visitor with a forbidden carrot.

“One time I was 300 yards away from my instruments, and next thing I knew I had six horses jumping up and kicking each other as they ran around my equipment,” Jamie says. “Sometimes you just have to stand and watch it go down – and hold your breath hoping nothing else happens.”

Jamie will not, however, stand by idly when the water moccasins come out to play. He’s had days when the snakes were so bad they forced him to leave a job site…and other days when he’s tromped through marshy waist-high weeds in snake chaps.

“I always say, ‘Well, at least I won’t die from a snake bite – I’ll just die from the heart attack when I see a snake attached to my chap,’” Jamie explains ruefully.

Countless ticks, wildlife encounters and disgruntled residents – there are some good things about being a land surveyor, right?

Luckily, for Jamie, the answer is a clear yes. Jamie graduated from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington with an environmental science degree before eventually training to become a surveyor. For more than a dozen years now, he’s worked for others and for himself, dealt with building booms and busts, and put in the long, hard hours to learn the lay of the land all over the Outer Banks.

It’s a profession that’s hard to get into thanks to the need for a bachelor’s degree and years of experience before being allowed to sit for the state exams. Jamie jokes that surveyor conferences filled with guys in their 60s and 70s only make him realize that he’s doomed to never retire. And yet...

“I’m just not cut out to sit in a cubicle, that’s for sure,” Jamie says. “I tell people all the time that the best thing about my job is that I’m in a different location every day, and every day is different.

“If I’m driving up the beach on a nice sunny morning, it can be bumper to bumper even up there, but it’s not like being bumper to bumper in Chesapeake,” he adds with a smile. “Some people have it a hell of a lot worse when it comes to commutes.”