In the back of the house was another kind of garden altogether, a Zen pebble rectangle with four jutting rocks placed at significant points by the original artist within the uniform expanse, looking, the Colonel thought, like islands jutting from beneath a perfectly calm sea.
Two large stones, the clean angles of their lines proclaiming the handiwork of men, were bare islands jutting from the water.
But if North Carolina's Outer Banks largely dodged a bullet on Tuesday, when Hurricane Emily grazed it and headed out to sea, few areas in America exemplify the knotty issues surrounding coastal development more than this string of islands jutting into the Atlantic.
The carrier was resolving itself into its shape, the familiar island jutting above the flight deck, the Fresnel lens now a pinprick of light off to his left.
Scholars of the cold war liken their knowledge of its inner workings to a few islands jutting above the surface of a secret sea.
Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western coast.
The people of this island jutting into the North Atlantic, nicknamed the Rock, see the energy boom as welcome news.