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Arriving at: Oregon Inlet Campground Cape Hatteras National Seashore Nags Head, NC |
TRAVEL DAY - 70 miles
OCRACOKE CAMPGROUNDto
OREGON INLET CAMPGROUND
The distance between Ocracoke Island and Hatteras Island is less than two miles, yet the ferry boat ride is nearly 11 miles long because they have to navigate around the very shallow waters of Hatteras Inlet. That's why you see the horseshoe shape in today's route. It's not uncommon in this area to see small boats nearly a mile offshore, stuck on the shoals of this inlet. People out of their boat, only knee deep in water, trying to push their way back into deeper waters. It is an area better suited for kayakers and stand up paddle boarders.
Today's ferry boat ride is shorter than the last one, only about an hour or so. Better than that is the fact that this one was FREE. No reservations either, just show up and board the boat. Also today's ferry is much smaller than the previous one, but we sort of lucked out because on this trip there was a large refrigerated box truck getting on which took up two lanes on the boat. They pulled us in right behind him so we weren't as tight a fit as the last ferry ride. This older, bearded biker looking guy gets out of his truck, you're allowed to do that once the boat pulls away from the dock, walks past us and proceeds to check out THE POD and then I see him checking out the back of my truck. As I'm watching all this in my mirror I'm not sure what to think, but he appears to not be any kind of a problem.
Imagine my surprise when this large guy comes back past me and stops at the rear of his truck, I guess to make sure everything is secure and operating properly. He's wearing his company tee shirt with a large phone number printed on the back, it has a (305) area code, I've got find out where he is from. Turns out his name is Bigfoot and he used to live onboard a house boat in Islamorada, near where Tricia and I got married. He runs seafood back and forth between The Florida Keys and the Outer Banks of North Carolina and just recently purchased and moved into an older (1999) Airstream motorhome with only 40,000 miles on it. His plans are to do the same thing we're doing, travel fulltime. Here he was 1,100 miles from home and he meets two people who frequent the same restaurant as he does when he's home, The Lorelei. We have revisited this restaurant every year for our first six wedding anniversaries. On our seventh anniversary we will be in the northern mountains of Georgia somewhere, but we'll be thinking of the sandy beach out back at The Lorelei.
Bigfoot and I talked about work, life, retirement and other things, until they announced over the speakers it was time to get back into your vehicle. We had arrived at Hatteras Island and it was time to get off this ferry.
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