ocracoke island, NC

when dave back at ball creek told us that ocracoke was only 33 miles away, we decided to go.  for some reason, tom had manteo on roanoke island in mind - we lived there for a while - and forgot about ocracoke (so many places to visit!).  anyway, so we went.  crossing the pamlico sound was generally unremarkable and uneventful except at the very end when 1) the wind picked up considerably, 2) the depth sounder was showing half the depths of what was written on the chart, and 3) my computer started acting up.  my ONE AND ONLY computer, i might add, since i had a hard drive failure on the other one a couple of weeks ago and it has not yet been repaired.  all i know is that all of a sudden, my screen dimmed and when i checked the system tray, it showed that the laptop was running on only battery power even though it was plugged in. the breaker for the DC outlets had tripped, too.  anyway, after trying a few things like plugging elsewhere and changing the charging cable to another 12V adapter and then finally to a regular wall outlet adapter, still no go.  the battery icon was showing 83% and so i just shut the whole thing down.  i had to help keep watch anyway as the entrance channel to ocracoke was unfamiliar territory.  we got into silver lake with no problems and docked at the national parks service docks.  there were only two other boats there and  with tom's senior pass to the national parks, we got a pretty hefty discount so that was nice. 

once we got settled, i started seeing to my computer.  i wasn't panicked yet as tom's old computer still had my work software in it, otherwise, the situation would have been pretty dire (as far as work was concerned anyway).  as it turns out, i had five days left on my laptop's warranty!  i called dell and explained the situation and the tech asked me to remove the battery, plug in the computer and fire it up.  well, it worked so that was a relief.  i was told that they would send out an on-site tech to replace the battery and charging port.  what?  send someone out to ocracoke island??  that would have been something considering that wherever this tech was driving from, he/she would still have a greater than 2-hour ferry ride one way!  in any case, the computer worked fine plugged in with the battery removed so i wasn't too concerned about when and where the repair was going to take place.  after several phone calls, it was finally decided that the tech would meet us in norfolk in a week.  we will be anchored at lafayette river then but can meet the tech at a friend's house nearby.  anyway, so that was that for that!   things could have been a lot worse so i was cool with it. 

so...  on to ocracoke island which is a totally charming place.  tom and i had been to the island before back in 2008 when we lived in manteo.  we had come by car, taking the hatteras ferry which is on the other side of the island from the the ocracoke village.  at that time, it rained hard all day so we really didn't get to go around much plus we had to catch the ferry back.  this time around, it was extremely windy but dry at least.  our marina was right by the ferry dock so we got to watch that show often. tom and i love workboats of any type and ferries are no exception. we just like watching them do their jobs. 

we brought out our bicycles and went around town, around silver lake to the ocracoke lighthouse and to the british cemetery.  we went to the beach (spectacular) and we even went inside the gift shops!  we also took a little hike at the springer's point preserve.  i worked mornings and nights and reserved the afternoons for exploring.  it was very relaxing and we had a fabulous time.  it's too bad that dell decided that coming out to ocracoke would have been too much of a hardship - we certainly wouldn't have minded staying longer!  it is just that kind of place.  maybe they were afraid that the on-site tech wouldn't leave once he/she got there?  hahaha...   about the only thing that we didn't do was  eat out although we did check the fish markets - why is seafood so expensive???  i'm glad that we had our fill of shrimp and clams at mcclellanville!

in any case, we enjoyed our stay in ocracoke but aside from my computer needing fixing, tom also has work to do in norfolk so we had to leave.   the weather was also starting to deteriorate so i'm glad that we had a couple of really nice days in that beautiful island. 

ocracoke lighthouse

silver lake and tadhana in the distance

swan quarter-ocracoke ferry

some kind of barge with reef balls

close-up of reef balls

ahhhh.....  the beach! 

more beach

the trail at springer's point preserve

and the trail led to the beach on pamlico sound

someone carved a racoon on this old dead tree stump

sunset over pamlico sound

we did not check to see if they had eggplants

we left ocracoke on april 25, 2015.  the weather wasn't bad although the forecast called for rain in the afternoon.  pamlico sound wasn't uncomfortable at all but it was not flat and the day was grey.  at that point, we knew that we we were going to cross the sound to the pamlico river and then to the pungo river but after that, it was either belhaven, dowry creek or onward to stage for the albemarle sound crossing.  it was hard to make a decision - tom kept checking the weather but even the meteorologists were having a hard time calling it, plus somewhere in the middle of pamlico sound, we lost our internet signal so it was kind of hard to check the weather.  we ended up stopping mid-day at belhaven since we hadn't been there before and we would at least have some protection at the town dock if the weather got nasty. 

well, poor little belhaven is a town that is struggling to come back but i'm afraid that it is a long way from it at this point.  i feel bad for places like that - they remind me so much of the chesapeake bay's Eastern Shore.  we walked around town a little.  we made the mistake of going into the museum.  it may have been that no one had been there in so long that the attendant felt the need to follow us around and talk incessantly!  and the items in the museum consisted of stuff from one woman's house - some of it was pretty weird like the jars of dead things preserved in formaldehyde hahaha....

the rain finally came in the afternoon but it was very light, not the nice boat-wash kind of rain and not only were we a bit salty, we were also a bit muddy. since i wasn't doing anything at the moment, i went out in the rain and hosed down the boat.  the chamber of commerce person came over to say hello - she said she always greeted the new boats at the town dock, which was really sweet, her coming down in the rain and all.  they are trying...  but i'm afraid that belhaven is going to have to do a lot more to bring people in to their town.  and, of course, now that we are all safely tied up and plugged in, the rain has stopped and the wind has dropped, i don't have work and there is no place to go :)