We set out on Tuesday night (nov.25th) after Marjorie was off work and headed for Morehead City which is about 1 hour from the Cedar Island Ferry which take you to Ocracoke Island, the first in the chain of barrier islands that form the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
We were up about 5:30 the next morning to drive to Cedar Island and catch the 7:00AM ferry to Ocracoke Island
This ferry is no bigger than the smallest Gulf Island ferries. I think it carries max. 50 cars.
The ride is 2 1/4 hours. On the way I talked with the captain. He pointed out that this was just about the largest ferry that could make this crossing. The depth here is at most 20 or 30 feet, so larger ferries with deeper drafts would not be able to make it.
During the summer months this is a very busy holiday destination and if you don't reserve a spot you will wait up to 5 sailings. This is fortunately low season so we had no problem even without a reservation, but good info for the next time.
We arrive in heavy overcast at Ocracoke village and drive north to the end of the island where we catch an even smaller ferry to get onto the next island where hurricane Isabel made landfall.
Between the small villages of Hatteras and Frisco the storm surge from the hurricane cut a complete inlet through the island. Left to nature the island would have become two, but for the US Army Corp of Engineers effort. There was apparently some controversy as to weather the inlet should be refilled as fish had taken up habitat there already.
This is the repaired road and filled in inlet
This is taken from the car. The Ocean is right there maybe 50 feet.
Here are some shots of the destruction that hurricane Isabel left in Hatteras village which was about 50 mile north of the eye. This is where the winds are the worst. The hurricane is traveling North west and rotating counter clockwise, so the winds are coming in from the ocean at top speed I believe 100 mph.
Along the way we saw many trucks outfitted this way. Surf fishing is a big deal. In some places there were as many as 50 trucks lined up on the beach fishing. Cooler mounted on the front, sometimes the back. This is also part of the tail gating tradition. People go to the football games (high school, college even middle school) early to have a cook out (BBQ) off the back of their pickup truck.
