Rollin n Rockin

On Thursday we crossed Pamlico Sound from Ocracoke to Cedar Island on a 2.5 hour ferry ride with 40 mph winds and 6 to 8 foot waves. It was so windy we had to be very careful even opening the door of the motor home which was travelling backwards. For most of the trip the ferry was heading into the wind and waves so there was not a lot of motion. For the last half hour the boat turned and sailed across the waves. This caused it to roll back and forth quite a bit. Looking out the door window from the drivers seat the horizon would disappear both above and below the window. We were very happy to get into the harbor. On the drive after landing I had the signal I have been waiting for to show I am officially retired, we had to stop the motor home for a school bus. We are going to spend the weekend with Brian & Lori Sharp and Mike & Sherri are going to be there. We are looking forward to getting together with all of them.

Ocracoke

We are spending a couple days on Ocracoke Island. To get here we took the motor home on a forty minute ferry ride from Hatteras Island. The island is almost entirely national seashore except for the southern most point where the village is built around Silver Lake. We have been here in the summer when you can hardly move because of the number of people but at this time of the year the streets are empty. We walked and drove around and enjoyed the great weather and scenery. Driving along the northern end of the island the dunes are gone and you are very close the the ocean. Nearer the village the beaches are very wide. We saw at least a dozen dolphin in the water close to shore. They were jumping out of the water and circling to feed on the fish. If you look closely you can see a fin and the swirling of the water. We also saw the Ocracoke ponies that arrived here from ship wrecks along the coast in the 1500 & 1600's. At one time they roamed freely but have been penned because of the increase in traffic. We visited to the lighthouse which is the oldest in North Carolina. The campground is beside the British Cemetery where British sailors whose bodies washed ashore are buried. Most of these are from WWII when they patrolled the Atlantic coast looking for German U-boats. The U-boats sank so many ships in the area it was named Torpedo Alley.

Still having a HI Time

We are on Hatteras Island until this Tuesday then we will move south to Ocracoke for a couple days. Next weekend we are going to visit Brian and Lori Sharp before heading to Lake Norman for Thanksgiving with my brother Rick and his wife Denise. We made our first reservation for Florida at Cape Canaveral to see the shuttle launch in early December. The weather here has been much cooler with highs in the 50's but it does not get much lower than that at night. It's been great being here for a month experiencing the off season. We have taken long walks, fished, and just chilled out. It has been interesting seeing how the weather has changed over the month and watching the ocean. We started out with beach weather then we had the "hard blow" and now we have cooler temps. Now when I go fishing I wear a coat. We drove north to Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to see the birds and also saw how much sand was blown across the road in Rodanthe during the storm. The first house on the left in the picture had waves breaking under it and the road was also closed for a day. We did have visitors this week when Georgie and Tom came down for three days. Having this personal mail delivery is really pretty nice. We took long walks, went out to dinner, played cards and had a great time just visiting. It was very comfortable with four of us in the motor home. The pictures are just a few random shots of the island.

Just a Hard Blow

We are a having a visit from NOEL. We always wanted to see what a hurricane was like but we did not expect to have one in November in our motor home. Actually, just the fringe of the storm is hitting the Outer Banks with winds up to 40 miles per hour and almost no rain. We took a drive at high tide to see what effect the wind was having on the surf. We did encounter a sanddrift near the cape that forced us to turn around. You can see that some people actually were having fun in the wind. We stopped at the Outer Banks Motel where we have stayed many times. In the office we talked to Miss Barbara, who has worked there for forty years. When we asked her about the storm she just smiled and said this was "just a hard blow". We were really impressed that the power stayed on for the first 18 hours of the storm but it just went out about a half hour ago and the owner of the campground came around to tell us a main line was down on Oregon Inlet and it would be a while before power would be restored because of the continuing wind. For a blog first I shot a short video that I hope will show what the wind is like.

Seeing the Lights

This past week we did a tour of the lighthouses. We have seen and been to the top of the Hatteras lighthouse many times but it is always neat to see it again. We were here when the Hatteras light was moved 2900 feet away from the ocean in 1999. It is hard to believe that a 208" tower could be picked up and moved. We stopped again at the Bodie Island light and learned it is due for a major renovation that will allow the public to climb to the top. We also drove to Corolla to see the Currituck light which we have never visited. It is the exact design as Bodie Island with the the only difference being it is not painted. It is open to the public for climbing and you get a wonderful view of the area. It is unbelievable the development that has taken place along route 12 going north to Corolla. There wasn't even a paved road to the area until 1984. Now there are houses being built north of the pavement in an area where you need a four wheel drive. You can purchase a ten acre lot in this area for a mere $1,000,000 or so. Many of the houses in Duck and Corolla now sell for more then that. Driving through these towns at this time of year is very strange because there is no one staying in 90% of the houses. The weather until today continued to be above normal with highs in the 70's & 80's. We did have some rain but mostly at night. Today it is cooler (68) and very windy. The catching is still not very good. There was a fishing tournament with 300 participants and in the first two days only five fish were caught. This has not deterred the fisherman. We walked to Cape Point one day and vehicles where lined up side by side for over a mile.

HI from Hatteras Island

We have been at the Sands of Time Campground on Hatteras Island since last Sunday. To get here from Williamsburg we drove through a tunnel under Chesapeake Bay and across three different long bridges. The weather this past week has been fantastic with highs in the 70's & 80's. The big difference from inland areas is the low temperatures have been very comfortable. It has only been in the 60's one night. We have been able to have the widows open and even Nanc has been wearing shorts. We have gone to the beach to sun and fish several days. The catching has not been great because the water is still so warm but just being on the beach any day of the week in October is what retirement is all about. There are not nearly as many people here as in the summer but most hotels had no vacancy signs up over the weekend because of the number of fishermen. Some of these fishermen have been here for a long time.

A Little History

We have been doing some touring from the campground at Williamsburg Pottery. One day we went to Jamestown where the 400 anniversary of the first successful English colony in America is being celebrated. We only went to the National Park Service area where you can watch an on-going archaeological dig. In this area they continue to extract remains of Jamestown from over a two hundred year period. They have statues of Pocahontas and John Smith as well as a rebuilt portion of the old fort, but most of the site is dedicated to archeology. Nearby, Jamestown Settlement is a reproduction of the ships, houses and original fort. We also went to Yorktown to tour the site of the last battle of the Revolutionary War in 1781. There were the usual film, artifacts and talks. At Surrender Field there is a display of captured cannons and a tape to explain how it was done. We always thinks it is a unique experience to be able to walk the actual ground where the famous events in history have taken place. It was also interesting to be reminded what an important role the French played in our victory. Without their assistance the outcome of the war could have been very different. The plaque lists the names of the French who died at Yorktown. The freedom fries crowd should go reread the history books before badmouthing the French. Our plan from here is to spend a month on Hatteras Island in North Carolina. I'm really looking forward to doing some surf fishing at this time of the year. I talked to a couple here who have fished Hatteras during these months in the past and they said it was great.