As much as I love the ocean, I don’t really like boats. It’s something about getting out of sight of land and losing the shoreline. The vastness of the boundless ocean worries me.
A boat slicing through the water is miraculous to my mind because I tend to see magic instead of science. But that also means I get scared easily, unable to lean into logic and reason and the properties of water and weight and whatever engineering feats keep boats afloat. I also feel trapped on a boat. I always have the urge to jump into the sea when I’m on one just to feel free, which is fine on a friend’s boat a few miles from shore. But on a bigger vessel like a ferry, I have to grip the railing or sit in the sun distracting myself with friendly warmth. Fortunately, my aversion to sea crafts isn’t crippling, and I’ve never had a bad experience on a boat. Still, an excursion on the water is not typically first on my list of things to do when traveling. I have never been on a cruise and I’m not sure I ever will.
Though, some places are worth the boat ride like Ocracoke, NC. When the beach road finally runs out, we have no choice but to drive our car onto the ferry and shove off for the island. Even with my worry, I can’t resist the allure of the effort. So much organization and work to drive off into the sea for an elusive strip of sand as if the whole of America just isn’t enough. All this coastline, all these beaches, but I want that tiny scrap of land that only a boat can take me to. As much as we all love our conveniences and civilization, sometimes we desire isolation and a place still ruled by nature.
The ferry ride is long but the scenery is glorious and expansive. For awhile, we are in between worlds, aloft on the sea, and I know despite my qualms why people love to be out here. Even I begin to lean into the salty air as I shush the voice of the ancient mariner whispering in my ear, “with my crossbow, I shot the albatross.” All the literature of the sea goes racing through my mind. Odysseus and the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, Ishmael, Ahab, and Long John Silver are all like ghosts in the sea breeze. My wild brain overwrought with fiction always intrudes. Writers have always been enchanted by the sea. The bookshelves are full of romance, tragedy, and mythology, for the sea is irresistible with its mystery and beauty, its dangers and its whims.
Ours is a simple, uneventful trip, though we do give a wide berth to the shifting currents and unpredictable shallows carved by past hurricanes. The expert ferry pilots know that stillness often belies a watery grip that will take down a hull in a flash of destruction. The day is fair, the boat is steady, and the water sprays playfully. We see dolphins and turtles and try to name the color of the water to no avail. Not quite green, not quite blue but vibrant and akin to something from a treasure chest, aquamarine, peridot, the specks inside an opal.
I wonder if the people working on the ferry have names for all the colors of this waterway, a palette of words to pick from each day, each hour as the sun and the sky color in the surface. I’d be lost all day in the poetry of it all, unfocused and wrecking the ferry everyday. It’s good to know when you aren’t fit for certain jobs.
As the ferry keeps chugging along, we start checking our watches worrying that Eduardo’s Taco Stand will close before we can make it to lunch. But we start to see the ferry dock come into view, so we get back into our cars and sit for a moment on the moving boat inside our car, a strange sensation and unnatural order of things. Once we are docked, the crew moves fast to get us off the ferry, and we seem to pick up the beach road just where we left it in Hatteras. The weather is perfect, but we can’t help but imagine the fury of a hurricane whirling its rain and wind across these parts. It feels like a place shaped by havoc, beaten and buried then brought back to life by calm, soothing months of sunshine and stillness like on the day we arrive.
We made it to Eduardo’s just before they closed up for the day. We enjoyed a taco lunch sitting outside in the umbrella shade feeling grateful to get the last tacos of the day. We continued down the road to find our lodging for the night, The Castle Bed and Breakfast.
After being greeted by the friendly hosts, we settled into the Harbor Room which sleeps 4. Our family of five filled the space quickly as we each carved out our territory, setting invisible boundaries. The upper room of the old cottage showed off its best angles where the sunlight streamed in and the polished wainscotting gleamed and the lampshades curtsied.
The antique vanity sat in a nook between the living space and the bathroom with a wicker chaise lounge and a skylight that bathed us in sun spray and turned the wood-paneled walls a lovely shade of caramel. We are hotel dwellers typically when we travel, so this place was a novelty for us and we enjoyed feeling like guests in someone’s house especially when we came down for breakfast the next morning. We followed the smell of bacon down the staircase into the kitchen where the food was on display buffet style. We fixed our plates and ate in the dining room feeling underdressed in a room that felt like it was from another era.
Over the course of two days, we enjoyed sunsets on the island, visited a lighthouse on a bright, hot morning, ate seafood sitting outside, and strolled the beach looking for shells and treasure. I thought of the past, thinking the island was crowded with ghosts: sea wives and sailors, pirates and adventurers, fishermen and families.
These are the true people of the sea who live and work in this scenery we seek for respite; just like the crew on the ferry that returns us to the mainland. Where I see a postcard of sea, sand, and sun, the pilots are working the water looking out for hidden treachery in the currents and winds and noting the weather and the patterns in the clouds. Their expertise puts me at ease onboard, and I take time to enjoy another afternoon at sea letting the magic of invention bring me home safely.