Let Me Tell You About the Smart Asses in my Life, Then I will Tell You About Our Ocracoke Trip.

Most of my readers think they are sooo smart. Start with you Mel. I rejected your comment about me linking to a certain last name so now the whole world knows my last name. You should be a detective, except I'm one step ahead of you. This blog can only be googled with RiverYak. I'm very keen on keeping any form of I.D. from being typed into the body. If you noticed, until a few weeks ago I had a picture of myself on the front page. I don't know what happened to it, but it seems to be gone for some reason. So in short, the little shits at work cannot google my name and find this blog.

I'm not a nine year old girl, so I'm not worried about predators discovering things about me. Those of you that know me should have in mind that I work with criminals. Those are the people I don't want finding this blog and reading it.

OCRACOKE, NC

Way back in August, Mrs. Yak and I took a trip to the Outer Banks island of Ocracoke. The outer banks are a group of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. We drove our little car down there (on 3/4 of a tank of gas) with both of our kayaks strapped to the roof. The trunk was loaded with our tent, sleeping bags, clean clothes, paddles, PFD's, and assorted safety gear that Coasties generally always take to the beach.

This was my first trip to the OBX (slang for Outer Banks, only used by those in the know, like myself and 13 million other people), and I have to say, I was disappointed. The drive down to Ocracoke which lies at the far southern end of the N.C. OBX was no different than any other beach I've been to in the South. Heavily developed, crowded beaches with traffic jammed roadways were the icon of our drive. I've never understood why people drive everyfuckingwhere they go! The beach is no more than two blocks from any place of lodging, yet the roadways were clogged with SUV's and 4x4's going to the beach. Amazing why this country is so fat.

We were supposed to be at our campground before 10:oo PM, but because of all the traffic, we were delayed over an hour. The ferry runs every half hour during the day, then every hour at night until midnight. At 9:30 PM we still had about 60 miles to the campground. That mileage includes a ferry ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke. Just my luck, I got stuck behind some son of a bitch driving 35 MPH in a 55. There was a shoulder in some areas, but he wouldn't pull over. Finally we hit a long straight section of road so I was able to pass him. Not knowing how much farther the ferry was, I drove an undisclosed speed and arrived at the ferry terminal at 9:50.

Mrs. Yak called the campground to let them know we were going to be late. The guy on the phone didn't have any problem with that and told her to set up camp and find him in the morning. Good news since we were imaging the worse and figured we wouldn't have a place to stay that night.

The ferry arrived and we departed on the long ride to Ocracoke in the most narrow channel I have ever seen a boat that size navigate. Most of the buoys weren't lit, so the captain was using a spotlight to find the reflective dayboards that marked his path. Crazy.

I thought the ferry landed in Ocracoke and we were done driving. Nope. It lands on the opposite end of the island that the town lies on. Fifteen more miles to go and the time was now 11:00 PM. We pulled into Teeters Campground pretty late that night. I don't know what time it was. We had no problem locating the owners, they were the two guys sitting in the lit garage of the only house on site drinking Miller Light. It was apparent they had been in the garage drinking Miller for quite some time.

One of them stumbled in front of us as we followed in our car to the site that would be home sweet home for the next 6 days. I need to put here now that the owners of the campsite were awesome. The campground had hot showers that were decently clean and large tent sites. Everytime we saw the owners they were all smiles and friendly.

We set up camp by the headlights from the car and fell fast asleep in our little tent. We purchased the tent for this trip but also with future trips in mind as well. It isn't a large tent because we wanted to keep the weight down so that we could hike with it, but also be comfortable on car trips. We set the tent up in the back yard when it first arrived and lounged in it for the afternoon getting to know the most comfortable angles to adjust it and so forth. At that time it seemed so big and roomy...

The following morning we woke up and stayed in our domicile for a while before climbing out and making breakfast. When we finally did breach the comfort of the tent we found ourselves surrounded by log cabin sized huts that loosely fit the term "tent." I even joked with one of our neighbors that if it gets really nasty out, could we set up our camp inside their tent. Everything we had with us, including the car and kayaks, could have fit inside their tent.

We spent a lot of money on our little home. Even though our tent was much smaller than our neighbors, it cost about the same, and in some cases it cost more. I knew in my heart though there was a reason we paid a premium for our well designed and constructed tent. One thing you can always count on while spending a few days at the beach is a good wind storm. I think it was night three while we were reading books and eating Oreos in luxurious comfort that the neighbors were running around in the wind and rain chasing flailing tent pieces and frantically staking them back down. We would have slept rather well that night, had it not been for the neighbors tent flapping in the wind.

Now the good stuff. We went kayaking! I kayaked once in Alaska in the ocean, but other than that, this was our first taste of salt water blowing over the bow. On our first full day in Ocracoke we stopped in a surf shop that also gives kayak tours. Mrs. Yak started chatting with one of the girls that works in the store, getting all kinds of useful information about the best places to paddle. She even told us about the shops put in and gave us permission to use it and leave our car there for the day. "By the way," our fellow paddler said as we exited the store, "Watch for the ferry when you exit the channel. You don't want to be in the channel when the ferry comes in."

Now that we were in the knowledge of the local paddling grounds we spent the remainder of the day walking around Ocracoke and getting aquainted with the little town. The following day we parked our car at the surf shop and headed towards the channel. As we were putting in a ferry left the channel and one was still loading at the dock. The channel was clear so we made our way out into the open water.

Wind driven swells greeted us just out of the channel. We learned really quickly that stern-to swells will take control of the kayak from you and do whatever in the hell they please with your boat. Out in open water this was tons of fun. Closer to the rocks in the channel, it sucked. But we did enjoy playing in the waves. At one point we found a sand bar. If a wave was caught just right, it would carry the kayak up and over the sand bar without having to paddle or hit bottom. That was about as much entertainment a person could ask for.

Around the point we discovered some creeks that the surf shop employee told us about. I was out in deeper water and Mrs. Yak was closer to shore looking for rays. I was playing in the swells but also keeping an eye out for fish and rays. At one point I looked at the place I had last seen Mrs. Yak, but she wasn't there. Hollering for her was futile over the wind and waves, so I paddled to the place I last saw her. It wasn't until I was almost on top of the shore line that I saw her in a creek. The entrance was completed camouflaged until you were in it.

We paddled the shallow water as far into the creek as we could. Shrimp were jumping from the water into our boats. The banks and most of the bottom were smothered in a layer of Hermit Crabs of all sizes. Some of them were by far the largest Hermits I have ever seen, even of those in aquariums. Their conch's were every size and color making each one a temptation to pluck from the water to survey.

Finally we hit the bottom and had to walk our kayaks out of the creek. Shrimp continued to bombard us during our walk out and Hermit crabs scurried out of the way of our stomping feet. Back in open water we played in the waves some more before pulling onto a beach for lunch.

This area played host to hiking trails. Mrs. Yak and I are not people to pass up a good hike, so we changed shoes and secured the boats from floating away and spent the next few hours hiking. We rested under a giant oak before heading back to our boats and finally calling it a day.

The rest of our trip was pretty definitive of any trip to the beach. We played in the surf, shopped, and ate lots of not very good food. Ocracoke was Blackbeards hideout, and ultimately his last battle ground. Blackbeard lost his head in the area where we had been paddling, which is now called Teach's Hole. Blackbeards name was Edward Teach.

We went to all the Blackbeard memorabilia shops and museums. With all the information posted about Blackbeard and pirates in general, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. It's a little disappointing when one realizes he knows pretty much all there is to know about a topic. I guess that's me with pirates...I've read too much about them, now there isn't really anything else for me to learn. I got a coffee mug, although I forgot to get a t-shirt. No problem, we'll be back.

On the drive home we stopped at another hiking area on Ocracoke where we saw a Vine snake. Once back in Virginia we stopped at the Dismal Swamp. Sounds cool huh? We are planning a kayaking trip there. Stay tuned for that one.

We didn't take the digital camera, but we bought a waterproof disposable while we were there. Maybe some day I will get those pictures on here so you can see.





Fair winds and following seas...