CHESAPEAKE, VA / Thursday, April 14 to Sunday April 17 (Days 84-87)

Thursday we drove to see more of the Outer Banks. It's funny how trips that take a whole day to go 50 miles in the boat, only takes an hour in the car. We drove past the dunes, the sand was flying everywhere and the wind was howling. I got out and took a quick video of the Atlantic Ocean waves. They were huge. Did not see any surfers, but there were quite a few kite boarders and kite surfers.
         

              

We made a one night reservation at the Inn on Pamlico Sound, which is about mid way down the Outer Banks. We first drove to the Bodie Island Lighthouse, which was not open, but I did get my Lighthouse Passport Book stamped. I think I forgot to mention that the lady that runs the tour boat in Georgetown gave me a spare Lighthouse Passport Book, when I mentioned to her that I was collecting art and photos of the lighthouses we will see along our trip. We then drove to the end of Cape Hatteras and took a car ferry over to Ocracoke Island. You can only get there by boat or ferry. We found the Lighthouse but no one was there so we could not climb it, but I did go to the information center and get my stamp. 

Bodie Island

We had a quick so-so lunch and since it was not really "season" yet, not a whole lot was open. The ferry ride takes an hour and only runs on the hour, so we figured we better get back in line if we wanted to make our dinner reservation.   There was only one ferry working and did not look like it held more than 20 cars. We just missed the 4:30 ferry and the 5:30 was cancelled for whatever reason. So we had to wait 2 hours for the 6:30 ferry. The wind was howling and blowing salt and sand everywhere! Our rental car was covered with sand inside and out! Luckily I had the Kindle App on my phone so I could kill a little time reading. I called the Inn to tell them our situation, they said we should be able to make the last reservation at 8. They told us ferries run aground or break down pretty regularly so they understood.

Ocracoke

We made it to the Inn with 2 minutes to spare! We did not even get to shower or change. It was a cute place with 12 rooms; a popular wedding venue.
Each room was named after a flower. The dinner was good, not great. But the free breakfast was very good. They grew many of their herbs and vegetables themselves. It was a nice place, but we think our mattress could have used replacing. 

Friday, we went to the Maritime Museum and read about all the ship wrecks that have been raised and the many more still unidentified. The Outer Banks were visited quite frequently by Pirates, including Black Beard. There are over 600 ship wrecks in the area; from Pirate Ships to a WWII sub.  They islands were all originally Indian names, but evolved over the years. The most interesting name to me, was Nags Head. A lantern was tied around an old horses neck and it would slowly shine out to sea. A ship's captain would think it was a sheltered harbor. So when he tried to anchor, he ran aground and would be raided by pirates, thus he was duped by an old "nags head". 

Shows all the ship wrecks 

Cape Hattarus Lighthouse

Looking up the Lighthouse stairs.

Looking down the stairs.

We went to the 4th Lighthouse on the Outer Banks. The famous Hatteras Lighthouse, sometimes referred to as "America's Lighthouse" because of it's iconic look. We got in free because it was the opening day for the season. Maybe that was why we could not get into Ocracoke the day before. We could not go to the very top because of the high winds. The Ranger said they clocked the highest gust so far at 47 mph. We took a few pics, got my book stamped and bought a print for my collection.

As far as we could go to top of Lighthouse.

My Lighthouse Passport Book (kind of nerdy I know).

We got back to the boat around 3, fixed shrimp on the grill for dinner and watched the Lightning beat Detroit in their second NHL Playoff game.

Saturday,  we walked to a great place for brunch; Sunrise Cafe. Mike had been craving corn beef and hash. He said it was some of the best. I had French Toast. On our walk back to the boat we saw some markers down by the river. They said that was the sight of the Battle of the Great Bridge during the Revolutionary War in 1775. We are actually staying in the town of Great Bridge, VA. While we got laundry started we walked around and looked at the boats at the Yacht Basin. Saw some really old wooden boats to a 90 foot custom built Burger Yacht. Mike was drooling.

 We walked to "Off the Hook" seafood market and restaurant for dinner. Mike had soft-shell crab. I just had a couple of appetizers. Blackened tuna bites and She Crab soup. We shared a crab dip and hushpuppies, both their specialty and both worthy of the claim. We Ubered back to the boat and watched some hockey playoff games.

Sunday, was a lazy kind of day. Getting ready to go home for 10 days (so you will not see any updates until around May 6th after the Looper Rendezvous). Securing things, throwing out food and packing. We read off and on most of the day and watched the NHL Playoff games. We grilled pork chops for dinner and watched the Lightning again.