In the morning we took the short drive to the harbor and took the free forty minute ferry ride with our car to Ocracoke Island. No bridge exists between Ocracoke and Hatteras; probably because the islands gradually change their location over the years. During the forty minutes ride we saw a couple schools of dolphins swimming near us than in the wake of our ferry. Once ashore, we drove the length of Ocracoke Island to the far end of the village of Ocracoke. There we parked our car and got out our bikes.

Adjacent to the parking lot at the harbor are the National Park Service Visitor center and the Ocracoke Visitor Center and Museum. Ocracoke was home to the world's most infamous pirate, Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. The museum had books and drawings of the pirate; aaarrrr matey. After touring both visitor centers, we headed to The Slushy Stand (a frozen desert parlor) we saw on our drive through town. Eric, who strongly lobbied for this stop, had an orange juice slushie. Since we had forgotten to bring our portable grill, we asked the store's proprietor for lunch recommendations. The woman was also a vegetarian and recommended we dine at the restaurant on the second floor of her building, the Creekside Cafe. We shared a vegetable tortilla wrap, linguini primavera, and a basket of french fries. The food was fabulous!

Ocracoke is a small village. At this time of year, with little tourist traffic, it is best covered on bike. Instead of stones or gravel, some of the small roads are made of seashells. From the slushy store, we pedaled to the Ocracoke Lighthouse (yet another class field trip was there; the young people seemed or at least acted supremely disinterested in what the Park Ranger had to say). The Ocracoke Lighthouse is stubby and plain white, not as attractive as the other lighthouses on the Outer Banks. We next biked to England--or rather some English land. During World Wars I and II, German U-boats prowled the waters off the Outer Banks and sank hundreds of U.S. supply ships traveling to Europe. This was "Torpedo Alley". From January through July 1942, German U-boats sank 397 ships filled with food, supplies, and oil in U.S. Atlantic waters and killed 5,000 people; mostly civilians and merchant marines. The sinkings were so easy the Germans called it the "Great American Turkey Shoot." While the U.S. concentrated its naval efforts in the Pacific, the British sent antisubmarine ships to protect the Americans. One such ship, the H.M.S. Bedforsire was torpedoed by a U-boat 40 miles offshore on May 11, 1942. All hands were lost. The bodies of four sailors washed ashore on Ocracoke. They were buried there and the small cemetery holding their remains was ceded to England.

Across the street from the cemetery is a fudge and candy shop. We hoped to find some dairy free chocolate or fudge but we were out of luck. The next place we stopped was Teach's Hole, a pirate specialty shop containing a Blackbeard exhibit. We bought some t-shirts (Eric likes the Blackbeard concept) and toured the exhibit. We biked over to the real Teach's Hole; the part of the Pamlico Sound where Blackbeard hung out when not pirating ships. It was only a short distance south of here where Blackbeard met his death. In hand to hand combat with Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard and his crew, Blackbeard sustained five gunshot and twenty sword wounds before succumbing. His head was cut off and hung on the ship. His body was thrown overboard into the Ocracoke Inlet.

Driving back to the ferry, we stopped in to check out some of the "15 miles of beautiful, pristine beaches" on Ocracoke. At least where we stopped, everyone on the beach seemed to have a four wheel drive vehicle and fishing equipment. After the ferry ride back to Hatteras and our campsite, we dined then Missy turned in while Eric and Curt went to the nearby beach with flashlights to look for ghost crabs. The weather was starting to turn nasty; it was windy and drizzling. We didn't go far in the darkness and only found one rather large ghost crab. Forgetting to bring gloves, we didn't risk picking her (him?) up with our bare hands. (Last summer, a smaller one had drawn blood from Curt's finger.)
 

© 1999 frantzs@geocities.com