Ocracoke: Sunburns, Ocean Storms, and Crabs

So what's the first thing you do when you get to an island? Well, I slept, but most people go straight to the beach with a rum punch in their hands. So we showed up to our amazingly gorgeous Air B&B (Thanks again for finding these, Lisa!) and then we slept. For some reason, driving all day makes you more tired than you ever thought it should.

The Beach
The most experience I have with beaches is the pristine white Florida beaches, and this beach is very much not that. The sands are this beautiful golden color and the water is this deep blue-green. Fun fact, the island itself has a company that rents chairs and umbrellas to all the beaches. This was my only saving grace. More specifically.... this was John's only saving grace. We had a lot of fun dunking people in the ocean, playing a version of sand ping pong, and building sand castles. Our downfall came with the lack of reapplying sunscreen. A few of us did, but not enough for how much we must have been washing it off in the ocean. Thankfully, I don't have any pictures of our shame to show you, but damn. I am really marrying into an Irish family. Red heads throughout the family and skin as delicate as the finest silk. We were burned for
days. But hey. We had fun.

The entire time we were up at the Wright Brother's memorial, the park rangers kept telling us that the undertoe is strong and how to survive a riptide. A riptide is when the water goes out, in the most simple terms. You, as a swimmer, need to swim parallel to the shore until you're back in waves and they will bring you back to the shore. No one warned me of the however. The drag on my legs walking back to shore tired me out like none other. I spend the last half hour asleep with my toes in the water, which is one of the reasons I burned to a crisp.

Fishing: 
Another great activity on this island is the fishing. Crab fishing, shrimp fishing, fish fishing, all if it is a good time had by all. We went out on the boat Miss Kathleen with Captain Ronnie. If anyone is planning a trip to Ocracoke any time soon and really wants to go fishing, I would highly suggest him to you. Not only is he quite the character, but he is a

native islander with a smaller boat. You don't ever get the feeling of the large commercial fishing tours and his price is quite modest. He's happy to come down and help you bait your hook and chat with you about not only what you'll be fishing for, but what life is like for a fisherman on this island. We all caught some variety of spanish mackerel, blue fish, and flounder. That's just the ones we were able to bring home. There was a lot of seaweed, lizard fish, and robin fish caught and returned. Bob got the record of the smallest fish caught, which takes a lot of skill you know. You have to aim for something so small!

We passed by the island to the south of Ocracoke called Portsmouth. The island is now technically abandoned because the jobs left and so did the people. I believe it was officially left in the 1950s. All the buildings are still there and intact, and the post office is still kept up by the local park rangers. Many people still charter private ferries or boats to bring them over and camp on the island, but that sounds like a good start to a horror movie to me and I'll happily stay with civilization on Ocracoke.

The whole fishing trip, I was watching the beautiful green ocean kiss the purple storm clouds on the distance marveling at the colors they produced. Don't believe me? Well I actually got a picture of this, thankfully:

Photo Credit to Lisa Regan

As we were anchored and fishing just off the shore of Portsmouth, Captain Ronnie proclaimed he didn't like the way that storm was coming in and proceeded to drive DIRECTLY INTO IT to get back to Ocracoke. Now don't get me wrong. We weren't riding into the Perfect Storm on the back of some revenge driven captain, but it was still spooky to watch the lightning flash deeper in the heart of the roiling gray-blue clouds. I took a great many videos, soaking my camera lens in the process, but nothing could quite capture that feeling of impending doom. I think the best picture of that feeling was caught by Lisa who has also entered it into a photo contact for Ocracoke Realty. I'm always so surprised at how awe inspiring natural powers can be. As nervous as I was driving into it, I couldn't just sit down and enjoy it from a seat safe near the cabin. I was at the back of the boat with John, watching the waves roll by and us drive deeper under the storm cloud. It. Was. Beautiful.



Crab Fishing:
The next day, after some cruising around downtown and having a Pokémon date (which is just like a normal date, but you play Pokémon Go the whole time) the family went to the pier on the northwest

side of the island and went crabbing. I have only ever used crab pots to catch crab before. That's when you put a big chicken wire box into the ocean with some bait and then ignore it for a few hours. It's really my kind of crabbing. However, even if crabs don't bike the bait like fish do, they are stupid enough to not let go once they have it meaning that if you're careful, you can pull them up to your net. First things first, you buy a bunch of chicken necks. Then you throw those on the end of a string and wait. There are lots of fish in the water who will nibble at it so you will feel lots of tugging, but you have to wait until your line starts to walk away before you pull it up. Amazingly, it works. With six crabs bubbling away in a cooler, we happily went home that night.

That night we were treated to a beautiful lightning show along the northern coast. I was boosted onto the roof to get pictures of the full moon and the myriad of strikes. Sadly, not a single one of them turned out otherwise I'd show you why it was worth getting 5 bug bites on my left foot alone just to watch the splendor.