The Outer Banks Barrier Islands begin south of Virginia Beach, Virginia and span almost the entire coast line of North Carolina, some 300 miles. These barrier islands lie off the mainland anywhere from 3 to 30 miles and are usually from 1-3 miles wide.
Cape Hatteras (and Cape Lookout, farther south), part of the National Seashore system, consists of 3 'islands', Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke, stretching some 80 miles. Route 12 runs the length of these barrier these islands (with a little help from a couple of ferries).
I'm on Roanoke Island and we've had some major winds the 2 days I've been here. The radio says 45 and gusting. That seems a little high to me. I'd say a steady 20-25 with gusts 40-50.That is not my kind of paddling weather, even if I was 100 percent. It certainly rattled the tent last night. The cheap blue tarp held up great. Two of my crappy knots slipped and the wind lifted the tarp off all but the two end poles but that was it.
I gave up on paddling here. Instead, I've been driving around, taking some of the nature walks and doing a little beach combing and shell collecting.
Alligator National Wildlife Refuge and the Alligator River, part of the Inter Coastal Waterway, are nearby, so yesterday I took a ride over to check out the paddling conditions over there, hoping they might be in a protected area. No such luck. The river is a couple of miles wide and had a large chop because of the wind. It didn't seem to offer any more possibilities than the area's bays and sounds.
They were performing some kind of maintenance on the Croatan Sound Bridge and they only had a single lane open. On the way back I was watching a 15 foot (or so) runabout battling the wind and waves. The bow was lifting way up in the air and belly flopping down with big splashes. I saw the guy a couple hundred feet in front of me brake and come to a stop. I thought he was watching the boat also and thought the guy was in serious trouble.
But then I saw a pickup truck really slammed into the side of the bridge. We had arrived less than a minute after an older (than me) guy rear ended a woman who had stopped when directed to do so by the bridge crew. The pickup must have been flying because she was knocked more than a hundred feet from where he crashed into the bridge.
When I saw him, he was angled into the bridge and looked like he was making a left hand turn because I couldn't see the nose of his truck. That, of course, was because it was really smashed in.
The first I really believed something was wrong was when the guy in front of me got out of his truck with a cell phone in his hand. We both went up to the pickup, thinking people coming in the other direction would help the woman.
The guy's head and face were streaming blood and he was holding his chest. He didn't have a seat belt on and his body slammed into the steering wheel. We worked on him a little and then I backed away and pulled 2 rifles out of the cab and threw them out of the way in the truck bed.
No one was attending the woman, whose back was hurt, and as I headed towards her I heard the sirens of the first ambulance to arrive. Fortunately the woman had sat there with her miniature poodle and didn't try to move.
I'll say one thing, the EMTs were there in minutes, followed by police and firemen and more EMTs and more police and more firemen. There must have been 10-15 official cars and trucks on that bridge from towns on either end of the bridge. Plus an army helicopter flying around for a while, plus some army and coast guard guys on foot. Unfortunately it was almost 2 hours before they got the whole mess cleared away and traffic could move again.
Let it not be said that a good deed wentunpunished here. The wind got my good hat. A dog ate my last good one and I spent a month looking for a baseball hat that fits properly. I hate those kind that sit on top of your head like a silly little beanie. I found one that fits on the Cherokee Indian Reservation in the Smoky Mountains and really liked it. But a big gust picked plucked it right off my head and threw it over the bridge and all I could do was watch it float away. That's why my floppy OR paddling hat has chin straps when I'm out paddling.
A woman I talked to today called what I'm looking for a boat hat, one that pulls down on your head the way they used to, not like the crap they sell now. So with that thought in mind I stopped at a couple of marina stores and eventually found one close to what I was looking for but paid through the nose (or some other orifice) for it.
After a wild night in a wind blown tent, I decided to drive down to the end of Cape Hatteras to where the free ferry crosses to Ocracoke Island. On the way down Bodie Island I stopped at the Bodie Lighthouse, a big black and white structure. I'm a little confused at its location because it's on the sheltered side of the Barrier Islands with a fair amount of marsh between it and any water. The same was true of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse too.
As soon as I crossed the Oregon Inlet Bridge, I saw a parking lot full of cars and pulled in. A good number of (apparent) birders with high powered binoculars and tripods were crossing to the other side of the road where there was a little lookout. I walked up to the opposite side of the bridge and there in the water were about 2 dozen pelicans.
Yeah, pelicans! Surprised hell out of me, I thought they'd be farther south. And these were the first ones I ever saw outside of a zoo. Some were all brown (apparently these are or were on the endangered species lists for some time) and some had white heads.
They would float or swim around for a minute then get up and fly 30 feet, land, float for a minute and then repeat the process. I watched them for awhile and then went over to the other side of the bridge to see what had attracted the birders. Nothing.
Back on my side, large boulders had been stacked up forming a breakwater. Beyond that lay a very large sand flat. Beyond that, was line after line of 2 foot breakers stretching out for 100 yards or more. The wind was driving them in and I suspect the water was pretty shallow there.
The area has many, many surf fishermen. I say fishermen because I haven't seen or noticed any women crazy enough to stand out there in heavy winds with 3-4 long poles stuck in the ground, with layer after layer of clothing piled on and still hopping around to keep warm.
These are some serious people. They all drive either pickup trucks or SUVs, some brand spankin' new and some not so new. They all have these custom made chrome rod racks on the front or back bumper and some have both. These rod holders have little platforms for coolers and other gear. The number of rods these things hold ranges from 4 to 12 and they all seem full. And there's a lot of them down here. Cape Hatteras is one of the best surf fishing areas on the east coast.
I walked to the waterline to get a better look at the waves when I noticed the shells in the sand. I spent the next 2 hours just walking up and down the beach plucking shells that looked good. Since this was my first time shelling, everything looked good. I was particularly intrigued by the different colors of the bay scallops (they're the ones on the Shell Oil logo I think). And I found an almost perfect 6 inch conch type shell, one of those curlicue shells, fat on one end and skinny on the other.
I came across a couple of small sandpiper type birds hunkered down behind a small log out of the wind. They were no dummies.
10 pelicans flew directly overhead. I saw them coming and they weren't moving fast because of the wind. I had rag wool gloves on and fumbled to get the camera turned on and the zoom out but by the time I threw the gloves on the ground it was too late. Damn. While out running this morning, I heard a lot of honking and a dozen Canadian geese flew directly overhead too.
In one stretch, route 12 went between sand dunes 15-20 feet tall on both sides of the road. Signs warned of drifting sand.
A little farther up the road is the Pea Island Visitor's Center. I pulled into the parking lot and saw a bunch of white things out in this little pond or lake or cove or bay or whatever. My cheapy binoculars didn't bring them close enough but I thought they were snow geese. The volunteer in the center, however, said they were tundra swans that migrate down from northern Canada. They had a telescope and high powered binoculars they let me use and that brought then right up close. Most of the swans were facing into the wind, their heads tucked under their wing, sound asleep. That's one way to ride out a storm.
And they were really pretty. Large and white with long graceful necks. They were split into several groups and numbered close to 50. On the way back I would spot 2 pairs of swans and try to get close enough for a picture. I started walking out through packed down marsh grass and the closer I got to the swans, the squishier the ground became. After 5 minutes I was close enough to think about getting a picture when they started drifting away from me. Oh well! I guess if I wanted easy I could go to a zoo.
Cape Hatteras is also the northern range for logger head turtles to breed. Camping is not allowed in the summer when there is a full moon. This is when the turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.
A self guided nature walk went along one side of the water with watch towers and binoculars for better viewing. Lots of ducks were out feeding. They're fun to watch with their butts up in the air as they scrounge for something to eat off the bottom.
A larger group of ducks were congregated behind a small island out of the wind. I scared up a couple of blue herons tucked in behind some bushes keeping the wind off them. One took off down wind but one started up wind and wasn't making a lot of progress. I yanked the gloves off but the camera was around my neck inside my coat and of course the heron was gone by the time I got it out.
When I looked at the ducks behind the island on the way back, I saw this big gray thing on the island bank. My binoculars almost brought it into focus. When I first saw it, it looked like a tiny little old man in a gray overcoat. I think it was about the same height as a blue heron but seemed heavier. It had a white head but its beak seemed shorter and thicker. I dunno what it was. Damn, this nature stuff is starting to get me curiouser and curiouser . (Later experience indicates it probably was a blue heron at rest).
With these barrier islands lying between the bays and sounds on one side and the ocean and the Gulf Stream on the other, they don't get a chance to warm up or cool down the way the mainland does. Cape Hatteras averages 13 days a year below freezing (which is less than Tallahassee, FL) and only 1 day per year in the 90's. This even allows dwarf palmettos to grow here.
Blackbeard the pirate used to hang out in these waters too. In fact, he was finally caught and beheaded at the tip of Cape Hatteras.