Ocracoke Island

Today we headed off to Ocracoke Island, where Blackbeard the Pirate met his doom.  He was quite a creepy guy apparently, not at all like Jack Sparrow.  We drove to the end of Hatteras Island, to Hatteras Landing.  There's some cool stores by the marina where  Zac bought a really cool t-shirt. When we were leaving the store we saw our van driving on the ferry, so we had to wait till the rest of the cars were on, then walked on board. We crossed the Oregon Inlet to the marina in Ocracoke.  It takes about 1/2 hour to get there.

Left to right:  Zac, Bronwyn, Zoe and I on the ferry to Ocracoke. Zac’s wearing his new shirt.

PJ loved the boat ride

Gabe and his little buddy PJ

Phil and PJ

. 

We drove to the village, looking at the museum and marina, and Teaches Hole

Jonathan the pirate

We headed back and passed the corral where there are wild mustangs.

It was an over cast day today, but we still ended up at a beach.  I bought some shovels and beach toys for the little kids, so they had tons of fun digging holes and building stuff.  Shelling is also great in Ocracoke, so we have more to add to our collection. 

Zoe really wanted to find a sand dollar, so she prayed and within 10 seconds she found this one.  They are really hard to find.

PJ with his new shovel

Nina

Zoe with her big shovel and toy truck

Loading up to catch the 3:30 ferry

Well we missed it, there it goes…

But no worries, there’s one every half hour till about midnight.

We caught the 4 pm ferry back to Hatteras Landing.

 

Some really funky little cottages in Hatteras Landing.  Most of the cottages here are huge though, so this was different.  Bronwyn wants the blue one, and Nina wants the pink one.  I should post a picture of our cottage.

I made supper while the kids got all rinsed off, then some of them got in the hot tub. 

Some of the kids eating supper in the screened deck off the kitchen

After supper, Zac took me out for ice cream (I got a Heath Blizzard, and Zac got an Oreo Sundae - yum!)  We took our ice creams and headed to Avon Pier and walked out to the end.  The pier is really long and very high up.  Since it has to survive lots of hurricanes it’s built to move with the wind, so it curves and is all bumpy.  By the time you get to the end of it you can really feel it shifting.  We watched a guy try to land some huge fish.  He was being coached by several other family members.  We waited about 20 minutes and he was still struggling to land it.  I hope I didn’t miss something spectacular.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another overcast day, so I think we’ll hang out at the cottage, maybe check out a few shops, go for some walks on the beach, etc.  It’s been a really relaxing vacation here on the OBX