One of the great free rides in this country is the ferry that plies the waters of Hatteras Inlet between Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. From May 12 to September 28 every year, they run every half hour from 6:00 A.M. to midnight. The ride takes about 40 minutes, which gives you just enough time to get out of your car, wander around the decks and – on the way over – prepare yourself for a visit to a wild and wonderful seashore, jealously preserved and defended against the kind of gaudy, cheesy high-rise junk that’s ruined so much of our nation’s seacoast.
Gordie and I boarded the ferry at about mid-afternoon on the Saturday of our high-adventure camping weekend (see previous post); by the time we debarked on Ocracoke, the sun was shining. Things were looking up.
So we thought.
We drove down Highway 12 to the National Park Service campground, about three miles north of Ocracoke Village, and booked a site to pitch our still-soggy Navy-issue tent. The park guard told us they were expecting a tropical storm to blow through during the next 24 hours. We said thank you and proceeded to set up the tent and hang some of our wet stuff out to dry....
Then we drove down to Ocracoke Village, a seriously tiny little town that looked like little more than a collection of fishing shacks. As I recall, there was one restaurant, whose name has long since faded from my memory. We stopped there to eat, and came face-to-face with the 1975 Ocracoke version of clam chowder – a thin brownish soup containing some clams (since, by Federal regulation, a restaurateur is prohibited from calling anything “clam chowder” that doesn’t have clams in it) and a large quantity of sand. A forerunner of the high-fiber diet craze, I suppose. At supper, we overheard some more chatter about “Tropical Storm Amy,” which was said to be brewing out there someplace we couldn’t see it.
From the Cedar Island Ferry landing in Ocracoke Village, we viewed a sunset much too romantic for two Navy guys away from their significant others, and drowned our sorrows in some of our onboard liquor supplies. After dark had fallen, we returned to our campsite and made preparations to bunk down for the night. Just before lights-out, a park ranger came around in his Jeep and told us the ferry service was being suspended after 9:00 P.M. because of storm warnings. If we weren’t aboard that ferry, we wouldn’t be getting off the island until service resumed sometime the next day. In other words, we had about 20 minutes to catch the last ferry, or else...
We did notice that the wind was picking up.
After a brief, half-sober council of war, we decided that no little tropical storm could keep us from our adventure, and turned in. After a short while, we noticed the wind was picking up a bit more, and it seemed to have started raining again.
And so to sleep, lulled by the whisper of the wind and the gentle drumming of the rain on our not-so-waterproof tent....
It was about 3:00 A.M. when we awoke in at least six inches of water, with our tent collapsed all around us. The wind howled and the rain drove down in torrents. For mid-July, it was
cold. We got the tent standing again, after a fashion, and bailed out as much standing water as we could. Then, with what was starting to feel like grim determination, we curled up in soaking misery and occupied our individual versions of hell until morning.
Which looked something like this....
I don’t know exactly why it is, not being much of a meteorologist, but once a big storm blows through, the weather usually turns beautiful. The sun was shining again; the wind had dropped to a dead calm. We took bleary-eyed stock of our situation, set up drying clotheslines, splashed some water on our faces (as if that would help anything), had another beer and went back to the Village for breakfast. We noticed that portions of Highway 12 were flooded to a depth that made Gordie quite cautious about navigating.
Spirits restored by a day in the sunshine, we boarded the Cedar Island ferry for the two-hour trip back to the mainland, from which we returned to Norfolk by way of Morehead City, with only one automotive breakdown when something hiccupped in the Mazda's Wankel engine (which we all know run by magic and at the time were not too well understood by auto mechanics in rural North Carolina gas stations). After some duct-tape and baling-wire repairs, we got the old Mazda running well enough to get us home not too ridiculously late, ready for another week of Anti-Submarine Warfare School, which should probably have been called "Anti-Climactic Submarine Warfare School
That's how I remember it, anyway -- with the help of some old photos I found in the back of a closet. See the following link to a wonderful Ocracoke blog:
http://villagecraftsmen.blogspot.com/2010/05/reentry-stickers.html
In case there's any doubt in your mind about what a "haywire private dock" looks like, this image should give you an idea...
Across the harbor, seemingly careened on the beach for caulking, but on closer examination permanently affixed to the real estate, was a vessel which may or may not ever have gone to sea, but which now apparently swashbuckled from a fixed position...
All of this happened so long ago, I wouldn't even try to chronicle it were it not for the photographic evidence. Even though I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest that summer, I've only been back once -- for a short visit in May 2008 with my cousin and his wife in Gig Harbor, near Tacoma. There's still nothing that stirs my love for the sea quite as much as the clear, cold, wildly tidal waters of the North (anywhere in the world, but particularly here), teeming with creatures and peopled by quirky characters like the Kendalls (if they ever existed).
