Reluctant leavetaking
October 1, 2009

After today’s perfection, it will make our departure from the Outer Banks even more wrenching. A unique and wonderful place at a great time of year, the Banks has not seen the last of me. Next time, I will arrive a bit earlier, perhaps just after Labor Day, and plan to stay for a month.

Chris thinks this would be a good place to be a “work camper”, one of those RVers who put in a requisite number of hours of work each week in exchange for a free or reduced space to park one’s RV. I have another idea: Chris can be one of those beings; I will hold down the beach while he is otherwise occupied.

We fish & laugh . . .

I feel completely sunned up after yesterday and today. Yesterday was still a bit breezy, but what fun to go fishing on a charter with Ken Dempsey, guide extraordinaire. We remained sound-side so I could keep control of my gastric parts and had a blast catching Spanish mackerels, a sting ray (Canadian flounder, he called it), a gar, and some gargantuan Loch Ness monster that took the entire spool of line off my reel before my mind could even engage that anything was happening. The underwater mystery was going so fast that I surmise he has circumnavigated the globe several times since then.

Not being much of a lover of seafood, I hesitated at supper when Chris grilled our first fresh-caught fillets, but not after the first taste. “Fabulous” covers it nicely, and we have plenty to grill for Mom and Dad when we get back over there. May even hold on to some long enough to get to Darren in Florida.

Ken is a master North Carolinian tale spinner; he regaled us for hours with hilarious (and true) yarns about the local culture and his part in it. His way of educating us about how each OBX village looks down on each of the others was hilarious. Turns out he’s an outsider, having been brought into the world on the opposite side of the sound. Although a Hatteraster for decades, he paid his dues by being “worn out” by those who took on the task. “Worn out” is local vernacular is having the tar beaten out of you.

I have never heard anyone poke such fun at himself and his native land in such an amusing way. His stories need to be recorded. And he’s a great guide, too, for fishing and waterfowl hunting.

Amazingly, he logged the cypress for his boat himself and designed and built it with his brother. We felt we were leaving a friend after just one afternoon.

Pea Island, snapping turtles, raccoons . . .

Today was relaxing with a walk at the Pea Island wildlife refuge and some easy birding. In my sidetrackedness, I shot pics of a huge snapping turtle (his head was easily five inches across) and two raccoons.The masked creatures peered out at us from tall grass, then made a dash across the lawn to gain cover on the opposite side. They were adorable!

While bask-walking in the most perfect day ever created, we even got some new birds: Forster’s tern, semi-palmated plover, snowy egret, little blue heron, tri-colored heron, Wilson’s warbler, in addition to life birds: Hudsonian godwit, black-throated green warbler and greater yellowlegs.

A parallel universe, the Lost Colony . . .

It has been a wondrous stay: the historical aspect makes me feel as if I’m living in some parallel universe that I will step out of, but can return to at any time. It seems to bring to life the people who have been here before me in this place. Perhaps it is because so much of such great impact has transpired here.

Walking through the woods on Roanoke Island epitomized that feeling for me. When that original small colony of just over 100 people was basically abandoned there because their resupplier was unable to return, it created a mystery that likely will never be solved. There is no one now who could begin to imagine what it was like for those 1587 pioneers, alone in a wilderness about which they knew nothing at all, in a land that was a complete unknown, totally unprepared to fend for themselves and without the tools and supplies to do so anyway.

One of those unsuspecting souls, Eleanor Dare, gave birth to the first English child born on this side of the ocean to English parents - Virginia Dare. Eleanor’s father, John White, returned to the homeland for supplies and was unable to effect a rescue for his family and the other colonists for three years. Upon his return, of course, there was no sign of them, and no trace has ever been found beyond the word Croatoan carved into a post, supposed to be indicating their destination - the island south of there now known as Hatteras, the place where we are camped.

Even the exact site of their settlement has not been located, although it is known to be near an earthenwork fortification, Fort Raleigh, that has been reconstructed. Undoubtedly, we walked in their footsteps, and could only imagine what it was like for them. Did they integrate into a native group, as some surmise, or did they all perish in a journey hopeful of finding solace? Did some survive? Are some now descended from Virginia Dare? Did they turn on each other? Was it a peaceful passing?

Elizabethan Gardens . . .

Near that place is an astounding acreage created in memory of the lost colony by the North Carolina Garden Club: The Elizabethan Gardens. We wandered for a fraction of the time needed to truly fathom what has been created there. There are formal gardens, woodland glades, herb gardens, antique and modern statuary, topiaries, mossy bricked walkways, even a venerable oak tree that saw those colonists of more than 400 years ago - a veritable Eden on the shore of Roanoke Sound, accessed via a replica English gatehouse - wonderful!





















We treated ourselves to a seafood feast on the opposite side of the Sound, and one of the better pizzas I’ve ever eaten - at Lisa’s on Hatteras, and a stop at another lighthouse - Bodie Island.

The sunsets across the Sound have been without exception each more breathtaking than the last. And thankfully, we have had no rain for two days.

Best restaurant name: Board wok