Wednesday, May 27th

Back to the Sea

For once, I had a plan: I needed to be at the Cedar Island Ferry Terminal no later than half past three in the afternoon for a four o’clock departure. The route planner suggested the fastest route to be around five-and-a-half hours, leaving about an hour’s buffer if I left at nine. There, then, was the plan: follow instructions and don’t muck about.

I left town after fuelling up, thankfully in peace, at quarter to nine. The road through Monroe was busy again with an endless array of trucks. Thankfully, pretty much all of them turned south at the end of town where I turned east. The road kept its divided arrangement. Eventually, it was supposed to be transformed into an Interstate motorway. This process involved removing the few remaining crossings. Most had been turned into proper ramps already and I made good progress.

The landscape was unremarkable. Hills with trees and grass, some farms. The sky couldn’t quite decide between overcast and sunny, the temperatures were in the rather lovely upper seventies. Dark clouds appeared at the horizon, it gently started to rain, it started to rain properly, it stopped raining, the sun came back. Such was the life on the fast lane.

An electronic display announced a Silver Alert and suggested to call 511 for more information. I was pretty certain that making phone calls while driving was illegal, though, so I didn’t and remained ignorant for the time being. As it turns out, Silver Alerts are a system established to find missing elderly people or those suffering from mental disorders, a system similar to requests for help made as part of the traffic news in Germany. Another system, AMBER alerts, exists for the search for abducted children.

After two-and-a-half hours, I returned onto smaller country roads. Sadly no less than three trucks had the same idea. These roads were straight and the country relatively flat, so overtaking wasn’t a big issue. I crossed through four, five villages and quickly approached Jacksonville. The town had acquired a motorway bypass, though, and I saw nothing of it. Instead, I circumvented town on the Ronald W. Reagan Freeway.

Quite a few cars seemed to be in a hurry, swerving from lane to lane, jumping into narrow gaps between cars. All of them turned off at an exit labelled Camp Lejeune Main Gate. The camp was a huge base of the U.S. Marine Corps, encompassing all the land between Jacksonville and the ocean. Opening hours for the main gate had been posted frequently along the road, but closing time was still far away and didn’t serve to explain the stress.

Beyond the base, the road swung to the ocean, too, and thereby entered into holiday land: an endless parade of businesses and homes and more businesses along a busy road. At Swansboro, it crossed the White Oak River on a long bridge. This looked more like a fully blown inlet than a river mouth. Beyond, things quietened down a little, but at least on the ocean-side of the road, one building followed another.

For a while now, I had been following a pair of Harley drivers, sporting impressive beards and wearing bandanas. The country music their bikes were playing even drowned out the already rather impressively loud noise of their engines.

If the name of the visitor centre at the entrance to Morehead City was to be believed, this was the Crystal Coast. The city was a strange mixture of port and pleasure. A railway line ran between the two parts of the divided main street towards the port. Judging by the large collection of railway cars there, the line was still active, probably causing a major disturbance in the city with every train.

Another giant bridge, this one over the Newport River and across the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway—a three thousand mile shipping route along the Atlantic coast protected from the ills of the open sea—lead to Beaufort, proudly boasting a founding year of 1709. For the traveller more used to the American West and its town that barely celebrated their centennial, this quite old, indeed.

Beyond the landscape turned into the opening credits of Dawson’s Creek: Marsh land of tall brown grass waving in the wind, interrupted by canals of murky brown water; white wooden houses on stilts, red barns with white roofs and beams. This similarity wasn’t actually surprising. The series was shot in Wilmington, perhaps 80 miles down the coast. ‘So, open up your morning light and say a little prayer for right …’

Where the ground was a little more predictable there was small villages with cute names: Otway, Smyrna, Davis, Stacy. There had been signs for a while showing the distance to Sealevel and Atlantic, which both turned out to be towns, too. The road to the ferry terminal bypassed them. But since it was only quarter past two with only ten miles left, I decided to go and have a look.

Atlantic, formerly Hunting Quarters, was a tight little community right by the shores. It had a pretty little boardwalk waterfront, but I wasn’t sure if it would have been appreciated if I parked on the meticulously mowed grass alongside, so I didn’t and instead headed onwards to Sealevel. At first, it seemed to consist merely of a church and a post office, but eventually there were more homes and towards the end also a bank, a fire station and a restaurant. A medical centre was right next to the graveyard. These obviously were practically minded people.

Off across yet another long bride to Cedar Island. This was an island, indeed, even if the waterway that separated it from the main land was merely a five foot wide canal. I arrived at the docks quarter to three and was informed that loading would start at quarter to four. Perfect timing.

I walked along the beach for a bit and then visited the visitor centre. It was in a light blue wooden house with a lovely porch and rocking chairs. Finally, I could sit down and play out my retirement.

When I returned to my car, I realized that the couple in the car behind me was German. That irked me no end. Particularly, because their rental car was bigger than mine.

Soon the boat arrived and loading started. I had made a phone call in the morning for a reservation which turned out to have been completely unnecessary. There were nine cars aboard, leaving the ship about a third full.

This was a perfect day to set sails. The sky was blue in all directions, the sea, protected by the outlying sandbanks, was flat as a tablecloth. The air was warm and the breeze perfect. For two-and-a-quarter hours we ploughed along. Eventually, Ocracoke slowly rose on the horizon. This was my destination for the day. Honestly not chosen for its name but it surely was a bonus.

Some passengers coudln’t await the arrival. The nautical equivalent of those people who make for the doors ten minutes before a train’s scheduled arrival in the next station, they started their car’s engines a good five minutes before the boat had even docked.

Ocracoke turned out to be a most agreeable village. Only reachable by ferry or aeroplane, it differed substantially from other American vacation towns. For one, bicycles and golf carts seemed the preferred way of propelling; with walking an accepted alternative. The roads were narrow and cars forced to a pedestrian pace. I made quarters and enjoyed the sunset from the comfort of my own balcony.

Or, as a sign outside a church had said the other day: ‘All is well.’