Renting Ocracoke

We were utterly unsure about the house we had rented in Ocracoke. It had always been the plan to rent a home in an interesting community from time to time as we travel but it isn’t an easy process and failure is the default outcome. We tried in Mexico and lost our hundred dollar deposit when the place turned out to be a room in an apartment complex for travelers or backpackers utterly misconstrued in the advertisement. Lesson learned. 

Ocracoke has been wildly successful by contrast. We were prepared to have to put up with shortcomings and overly rosy online descriptions but instead Ocracoke Island Realty came through with exactly what they advertised. $160 a day including everything: WiFi, cable, washer/dryer, parking, heat and abundant hot water. The house is decorated in beach style and is well worn making it  comfortable and pet friendly. A tiny single bathroom yes, but with two bedrooms and we use the spare to lay out our clothes and laundry - oh the space!- …

A first laundry room with modern effective machinery ready to give our van bed a deep clean:

Our bed is exceptionally comfortable and the kitchen suits Layne perfectly. She has bought some of her favorite meals to cook and is enjoying spreading out in the unaccustomed space:

“I’ll be ready to get back on the road,” she says but she is enjoying the change. Outside the cottage is similarly expansive. In summer this place would be brilliant. 

In the afternoon you can sit out in the sun, out of the wind but overnight lows below 40 degrees have a tendency to chill the air especially when the northwest winds are blowing. 

There is a hammock deployed in the shade for summer use, a couple of kayaks and a bicycle. The bicycle has no lock and it took me a moment to remember I’m not in Key West anymore. In a village of 700 with no road outlet, bicycle theft is pointless.

I watched Argentina win the World Cup, a win they deserved in an excellent game but I find cable television tedious with all the advertising. I prefer watching streaming on our iPads, never mind the small screen. 

We took a two and a half  mile walk (measured by Layne’s exercise watch as I abhor such electronic intrusions) around the village to get to the grocery store a quarter mile away and though we did see two other couples walking dogs in the distance we were alone. 

There are two main paved streets with much of the commerce on them. So between Irvin Garrish Highway and Back Road runs Howard Street, unlaced shaded and lovely. 

I tried to recreate the 2013 picture with Cheyenne this time with an uncooperative Rusty. 

And we shuffled up the shady street enjoying the afternoon. 

Layne recognized a house for rent she inquired about, below. She got no reply and we took the other one which we prefer for it’s privacy it turns out. The contact info is there if you’d like to try your luck. It has parking and it looks very nice. 

A village of 700 permanent residents with 300 rental units. It’s an odd thing but Ocracoke is not administratively part of the rest of the Outer Banks peninsula which is in Dare County.  Ocracoke is in Hyde County and I recall a conversation from a decade ago wherein it was pointed out that Ocracoke is the economic tourist engine of largely rural and impoverished Hyde County and it is a source of irritation that taxes earned here get spent on the mainland. 

Mind you, I’m not sure where they would spend the money in a village of 706 occupying 775 acres attached to a 14 mile long island which mostly falls under National Park designation…They have a Sheriffs deputy on patrol in a large 4x4 truck painted a menacing black. They have a volunteer fire department with a splendid fire house in the village. They have government subsidized ferry services. The highway is well maintained and the village is neat and tidy. 

And pretty as a picture. 

We stopped to buy a kite, an idea Layne first thought was nuts but to which she warmed and I joked we were alone in Ocracoke. The employee looked at me severely. Oh no he said there are other people about. I retreated to the docks properly chastened. 

He could have fooled us. 

Searching For Ocracoke

Geographical oddities have always fascinated me, the inveterate map reader. When I landed in New York in 1981 and bought a Vespa 200 to tour the United States I knew I was going to visit Key West all the way out there in the ocean. I’d seen it on a map…

I didn’t get to that other coastal oddity, The Outer Banks, until 2013 when Layne and I took a Spring Break in Ocracoke with Cheyenne of fond memory.

We rented a room at Pam’s Pelican bed and breakfast which is pet friendly of course. From that visit grew the notion that a winter break in Ocracoke might be enjoyable, tucked up in a small community defying storms and cold and all that wintry fantasy. We never did it, until now. 

My brother in law in Asheville wanted us present for his wedding anniversary December 31st. Aside from slowing our planned departure for Mexico right after Thanksgiving this also required us to spend four weeks in December in the southeastern United States. Which was awkward as neither of us enjoys the cold and being bottled up in a van in the cold seemed dismal. Layne had a brilliant idea: do the long postponed winter rental in Ocracoke. 

She found a cottage that looked perfect in the village at $160 a night everything included. We were skeptical but figured how bad could it be? Actually it is perfect and it’s ours until December 27th. 

The Outer Banks are a long string of barrier islands, near a hundred miles long depending how you measure them, sticking out from North Carolina. They regularly get beaten up by storms and full blown hurricanes and because they are sand dunes their shapes and inlets do get altered from time to time.

Ocracoke is the southernmost inhabited community and is a full blown island. It’s connected by two ferries to the mainland. One goes due west to Swan Quarter and a three hour crossing. The one we took goes to the south to Cedar Island on a two hour crossing and costs just $15 for a car. The ferry connecting Ocracoke to Hatteras in the north is free and runs almost continuously in the busy summer season. 

Approaching from Wilmington where we spent the night at Cracker Barrel, Layne did the rounds buying her favorite treats at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Walmart and ABC spirits to stock up for ten days in a large kitchen in a real house. Some eating out, some fresh local stuff and things that Layne loves to cook, will keep us all happy on cold winter evenings.

North Carolina Highway 12 runs the length of the Outer Banks but also forms the approach road to the Cedar Island ferry terminal. It’s mostly straight and flat with some few fairly spectacular bridges giving views across the marshes. 

This is desolate countryside, a few small fishing communities, working class America on the edge of the continent.  It’s as distant in some respects as the Keys but whereas the tropical island chain is massively developed in a string of businesses and homes, this region is positively bucolic. 

An easy back country drive. The speed limit is 55 but I pootled along at barely 50, alone on the road enjoying the winter views. 

We had reserved a spot at the campground next to the ferry terminal. We don’t often use organized campgrounds but we plugged in and ran our space heater to keep the 40 degree windy night at bay. We shared the field with half a dozen others scattered far and wide. I emptied the toilet, filled the water tank (not at once), got rid of our trash and all that to feel like we were getting our money’s worth! 

The Cedar Island Ranch is dedicated to tourist pleasure with tours and horses and the chance to take a day trip to Ocracoke Island. This time of year it’s all very low key. 

I don’t think Rusty had ever seen cold weather before he came to live with us. That summer of 2016 he was enjoying views of the St Lawrence river in cold damp Québec!

Since then he has come to prefer cool weather and he had a grand time leading me through the crisp cold sunset light around the ferry terminal. 

In keeping with our policy of getting value for money I took a hot shower in the functional but, shall we say spartan, unheated shower block. Everything worked well but it was pretty stark on a cold December morning. Plus it was a long trudge from space 36! It all worked out. 

I figure the trailers in the corner were local residents possibly. It seemed rather bleak for a vacation, but what do I know? Maybe the fishing is brilliant. 

Hot shower followed by a hot cuppa Yorkshire Gold. I was ready to fiddle with cold water, our hoses and the water tank all out in the fresh cold air. Van life is not always for wimps. 

It will be a cold day in Hell before Rusty agrees to cooperate with the camera. Here he is playing Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes and the saga of Christmas family photos.

I loved that comic strip. I love my dog too but sometimes he’s too smart for his own britches, as my wife says when she feels like mixing her metaphors. 

It’s a two hour crossing which even Webb Chiles would have found dull. The ferry rolled slightly which neither Rusty nor I enjoyed especially as we moved along at 13 mph (I have a speed app). Rusty looked nervous which when I reported that fact to Webb killed off any hopes of Rusty being whisked off to sea to keep Webb company. I had matzo and Marmite to ward off the tedium of sitting still. Then we gave GANNET2 a spruce up as we waited for Ocracoke to appear. 

It’s a full two hour and fifteen minute crossing according to the literature and it does get a bit slow especially when the channel markers appear and you get ready to disembark. But you don’t get there for a good long while. You just keep chugging along. This is real island life where you get home by using  a ferry. 

That’s the village of Ocracoke on the horizon. Before the 16th century Woccon Indians on the mainland used “Wokokon” island as a fish camp until Sir Walter Raleigh showed up around 1585 and from there Europeans started the business of settling. In 1715 the colonial government decided to put a C pilot station on the island as the channel was a major commercial waterway but impossible to navigate safely. The sandy bottom kept shifting then as it does today. In fact low tides prevented the early morning ferry leaving from Cedar Island when we were waiting. They told us shoaling canceled the 7:30 sailing and it took me pondering the problem out loud for sailor Webb Chiles to point out the influence of tides. Duh! 

They call it Silver Lake, formerly Cockle Creek, which makes a pleasant waterfront for the village and a secure anchorage for boats. 

The Swan Quarter ferry arrived before us and we pulled into the dock alongside. 

The landing area is huge with room for long lines, lots of parking for a museum and national park offices. Most of the island is national park property which keeps development strictly within the village. The distance from the ferry landing to the northern ferry to Hatteras is 14 miles and on the ocean side it’s all beach. 

We hadn’t yet received a text from the realty company so we had some time to kill before moving into the house. I knew where I wanted to go. For a drive! 

Many of the restaurants are closed in winter. But not all of them. There are about seven hundred permanent residents on Ocracoke with 300 rental properties. Sounds like a familiar problem. The statisticians say the cost of living here is higher than average. The usual island problems no doubt. Highway 12 northbound toward the Hatteras ferry terminal: 

The ponies, which are descendants of island work horses were on display in their paddock so it was a good time to stop by for a portrait. Check: 

Layne cooked up some oatmeal for lunch and just as soon as she got the ingredients wet she got the fatal text: the house was ready for us. 

This is the beach in winter. Leashed dogs permitted. I guess we’re set.