8/31 – 9/7/2024
Off to Hatteras on North Carolina’s Outer Banks for our 2024 beach vacation!

Getting everything loaded up Friday night before the trip. I don’t know why, but every beach trip seems to be a flurry of packing right at the last minute. Thank goodness for my sailboat checklist!

I launched at the Village Marina on Saturday evening to motor the 2.5 miles back to the condo with my trolling motor. Dinkey’s and Breakwater restaurants were in full swing with music blaring and I got a lot of curious looks from people on the docks as I went by. I heard one guy wondering why the boat was so quiet.

It was really cool going through the narrow channel with houses on one side and marsh on the other. I have no idea how deep or wide the channel is, but there were some pretty big boats I passed along the way.

I stayed relatively close to the shore and as it got darker I didn’t realize I was in really shallow water. The centerboard grounded and the motor quickly got fouled with grass. Eventually I pulled out the oars and rowed back into the channel. I came across a number of PVC pipe markers in “The Slash” but it was too dark to know what they meant, so I just stayed as close to them as I could.

My slip was nearly at the end of the canal and we had a good view from the third story looking out towards the sound.

Unfortunately during our stay a storm came up the coast and most the week was super windy or pouring down rain. Sunday looked like the best opportunity for anything boat related so my wife and son and I took the boat out for a quick trolling motor cruise.

We nosed up pretty close to the Slash Creek Bridge on route 12 before turning around. A few weeks after we left North Carolina Department of Transportation started a 4.5 million dollar project to replace the wooden bridge with a concrete one which is supposed to be finished by the end of May 2025.

Heading towards a narrow cut around the pair of islands in The Slash. We later ran out of water and drifted into the marsh a bit before I could get the oars rigged and row us back to deeper water.

Strong winds kept the boat pushed over towards the finger pier for days. It was kind of funny how lopsided the scum line was when I hauled out on Saturday. My bilge pump and LiFePO4 battery kept most of the rain water out, although there’s no real sump so the bottom collects an inch or so of water.

One morning looking out the window I saw this center console stuck in basically the same area I drifted into. It took him a while, but eventually he wiggled off.

On Wednesday when it was super windy we took the ferry over to Ocracoke. The ferries used to hug the point before looping around, but I guess the inlet has shoaled up enough that they need to head north east before turning towards Ocracoke. What used to be a 45 minute ride is now more like 1:25. It was one of the roughest trips I can remember with quite a bit of spray coming over the bow. Every now and then we’d hit a wave just right and there’d be a loud thud and a couple times I wondered if we’d hit the bottom.

Henry had a fun time on the ferry. We rode the River class Floyd J. Lupton over and he got to wave at the W. Stanford White along the way. These are newer ferries with an off center island so there are three rows of cars on one side and one on the other.
On the island we checked out the inside of the lighthouse, hiked the Springer’s Point nature trail, got lunch at Eduardo’s, drove out on a deserted beach for Henry’s nap, went to the Village Craftsman and Ragpicker, got ice cream at the Slushy Stand, and checked out a few areas of personal significance. Ocracoke is my favorite beach vacation spot since I grew up going there most years. But I have to say it’s just not the same anymore. Everything is way more commercialized and touristy than I remember and I don’t think it’s just from rose colored glasses of nostalgia.

On the way back we rode the Hatteras class Chicamacomico. These are the older style ferries with a center island and two pairs of rows that I remember as a kid. I remember climbing up the steps to the lounge area smelling the salt air and feeling the wind blowing in my hair. I never went into the lounge much since I didn’t like the smell of all the smokers.

Friday was actually pretty decent so we made the most of it on the beach. The waves were still really rough and erosion from the storm was pretty wild. It was into the dunes in a lot of places and almost broke through Highway 12.

I took my Freiberger sextant along and made some practice sights. Someday when I have time (hah!) I’ll reduce them and see how far off I was.
Actual location: 35°12’14.8″N 75°42’21.3″W on 9/6/2024
Sight one: 13:20:11 – 31º 29.0′
Sight two: 15:19:23 – 52º 31.1′
Sight three: 16:56:27 – 60º 41.8′

Pretty soon the week was over and it was time to head home. Of course it had to rain Saturday morning when I wanted to haul out, but it was super calm and that was what was important. I put on a rain jacket and left right at sunrise.

With the benefit of research I figured out where the channel was and swung out much wider into the sound to avoid the shallow spots.

Village Marina is ahead and on the left, to the right is the main entrance out of the harbor. A ferry was going by before it turned out into the sound and back towards Ocracoke.

Back at the ramp where I hauled out. Later at the condo I got the spars all secured and the cover back on for the trip home. It rained all five hours on the way back!