… good night last night, I was ready for anything.

Well, almost, anyway.

And when I think about it, I don’t suppose that it was a really good night either. My neighbours woke me up at about 01:30.

It’s not really fair to call them “rowdy” because they weren’t particularly – at least, any more than you might expect from a bargain-basement motel. It’s just that, as you know, I’m a light sleeper.

So having organised myself, which takes longer than it might do these days, I nipped outside to find the porridge oats for breakfast, and to take a photo of my room, and Strider.

There’s a microwave in the room, which is good news. There’s also a coffee machine with free coffee and a fridge that is reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyy cold – so much so that it froze my orange juice.

You can’t say that I’m not having my money’s worth for my $60:74

Once I’d showered and packed up Strider, I went for a little walk.

There’s a boardwalk from the motel upand over the dunes and back down again onto the beach. It’s true to say that this end of the island is the more “economy” side – by the time you reach Atlantic Beach you are going quite up-market.

There weren’t too many people around this morning – that’s because the weather has turned during the night and it’s probably 20°F colder than yesterday.

There is a Food Lion just down the road and so that seemed to be a good-enough place to stop up and pick up some groceries.

And as for this photograph, you can make up your own caption.

But returning to the supermarket, I didn’t have a discount card seeing as I’m not from around here, but the lady on the checkout told me how much she liked my accent and gave me the discount anyway.

Back on the mainland at Morehead City, I was diverted from my travels.

How long is it since we have had a “Ship of the Day”? It must be a positive Age. But here in the docks is the tanker Bow Fagus out of Bergen in Norway.

She’s a tanker with a deadweight of 37500 tonnes, and has come here from Antwerp, via Rotterdam, New York and down the road at Wilmington

I follow the road all the way along the coast.

Remember that I told you that the Outer Banks were sometimes linked by bridges? Cedar Island used to be isolated from the mainland.

These days though there’s this whacking great bridge – the Monroe Gaskill Bridge – across the Sound.

This is typical of the bridges that they are building to do away with the ferries that used to ply across between the islands, although the Monroe Gaskill Bridge here actually replaced an older, smaller bridge.

But there’s one ferry that they won’t ever do away with, and that’s the ferry between Cedar Island and Ocracoke Island.

It’s a crossing of two and a quarter hours, probably the longest ferry crossing in North Carolina, if not the USA, and they won’t be able to bridge that gap cost-eFFectively.

And while I’ve been on almost all of the North Carolina “throughway ferries” at one time or another, the Cedar Island – Ocracoke is one that I have yet to take.

And surprise, surprise. There’s a sailing going out in a couple of hours time. What a coincidence!

So I stick some fuel into Strider to keep me going, pay my … errr … $15:00 (yes, a two-and-a-quarter-hour sailing for Strider and myself for just fifteen dollars!), take my place in the queue and make my butties.

I was going to sit outside but it’s overcast, cloudy, threatening rain and there’s a howling wind blowing. Not very pleasant at all.

Much to my surprise, because this is after all the USA, we are late setting sail. A good 20 or so minutes by my calculations too.

And while 12 years ago I was complaining about the lack of coffee on board, today we have a coffee facility, with the most unusual payment system.

It’s a dollar a mug, you help yourself, and you put your dollar in the cash box screwed to the deck. What are the chances of a system like that working in the UK?

So now that we have on-board coffee, after 12 years of moaning by Yours Truly, what next?

How about a moan about the lack of internet at the North Carolina Department of Transport way-stations?

About 20 minutes late, we arrive in Ocracoke Island and the town of Ocracoke.

It’s been 12 years since I’ve been here of course, and i’m intrigued to see what it’s going to be like these days.

Mind you, the light has gone and it’s going dark. I’m not going to be able to see very much this evening, that’s for sure. I’ll have to wait until the morning.

So we tie ourselves up to the quayside – or rather, the crew did that – and we can begin to move off.

And what’s sad about this is that despite being the first on the ferry, I’m almost the last off. That fills me full of dismay.

But there’s hope yet. There’s a motel that I had my eye on – one of the cheapest on the island when I was here last.

And while the price has … errr … significantly increased, just like everything else, it’s still one of the cheapest (this is not a cheap place to be by any means as I well remember) and it does have a room free. And so I bite the bullet …

Mind you, I had to wait half an hour for the landlady to come back from running an errand.

There’s a fridge in the room, but that’s your lot, but it is quite nice and comfortable.

An early night is called for and so I’m off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.