Tag Archives: outer banks

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Yes – I’ll tell you what was (and where it was too in due course).

But starting off, I had a really good night’s sleep in the hotel last night. Didn’t feel a thing at all.

and I was up reasonably early, did a pile of paperwork, had breakfast and a good shower too. Fit for absolutely anything.

And I needed to be, too. Because today is going to be the most difficult day of the journey. I knew that, and so I cannot say that I was unprepared for the events that were to unfold.

Having picked up some fuel, because by now Strider was running on fumes, we drove north up the island.

As I said yesterday, the Outer Banks (because I suppose that these are really still the Outer Banks around here) are in a perpetual state of flux and continually moving about.

A lot of work is needed to stabilise them, and here are three bulldozers hard at work moving the sand around

Back on the mainland I took a little diversion so that I could send you all Greetings From Asbury Park NJ.

It’s a little-known fact that when Brute Stringbean left the E-Street Band, they signed up one of the singers from ABBA to replace him.

He came over to the USA specifically to take up the role, and their first single was entitled “Bjorn in the USA”. You can’t say that you aren’t learning a lot by reading this rubbish.

As for Asbury Park itself, you need to have a good imagination of how this place must have been during the boom years of the 1920s and 1950s.

In those heady days the whole New Jersey Coast was the playground of New York City, but unfortunately they are long-gone and the town is just sitting here slowly decaying.

Today, it’s just really a shadow of its former self.

That is of course not to say that there aren’t any signs of opulence around the place these days.

The north side of the town seems to be very popular with the Upper Crust and there’s still plenty of evidence of wealth about.

And I for one would live in a house like this in a heartbeat. But I reckon that the entire readership of this rubbish couldn’t afford it even if we pooled all of our resources.

My journey up the New Jersey coast took me as far as the Highlands – and you can see why it is so named.

I mentioned the moving sand dunes of the Outer Banks – they are continually moving north and over the passage of time have isolated the cliffs of the former coastline from the shore.

The view from up there is quite impressive too, but we’ve seen it all before.

And so we hit the New Jersey Turnpike at Perth-Amboy, and we pay our … gulp … $15:00.

It’s 11:00 exactly, and you’ll need to make a note of the time because it’s quite an important feature in our story.

And you’ll also need to make a note of the traffic too. I’ve been keeping away from the heavy traffic as I travel north, as you know if you have been following this rubbish. But around New Jersey and New York there is no realistic option.

The best views of New York City that it is possible to have are from the Upper Deck of the Verrazano Bridge across the mouth of the Hudson River.

Unfortunately there’s no scenic turn-off (or scenic turn-on) to stop and admire the view and so the only way to appreciate it is to take an oblique photograph from Strider’s side window in the heavy traffic.

Unfortunately Strawberry Moose is not the best at photography. He needs to work on his technique.

It’s impossible to get onto the Belt Parkway. The queue was so long that I had gone way past the end of the queue before I saw the sign for the turn-off.

That meant hat I had to come off at Hamilton Parkway and fight my way through Brooklyn, which was not part of the plan, and rejoin the Belt Parkway at Queen’s.

This part of Brooklyn is “Chinatown” as you can tell by the signs on the walls and the people in the street.

Nose-to-tail all the way through Brooklyn and Queen’s. At least I console myself in that the Belt Parkway is exactly the same and it wouldn’t have been any quicker.

It gives me plenty of opportunity to admire the scenery as we pass through the city anyway. I’ve never been here before, and I’m probably never ever going to be here again.

And pressing on, I resist the temptation to pay a visit to Coney island just down the road. I’ll be stuck for ever

Having conquered Europe a good 45 years ago, it’s good to see the Ford Transit going on to conquer North America/

Both models are available here now – the “mini” and the normal Caliburn-sized one, and you can see just how much they are infiltrating the North American market.

They are even conquering the lucrative “school bus” market, and if that’s not a sign of official acceptance I don’t know what is.

I finally burst out of New York City onto the Belt Parkway at 13:30 – and that was the longest two and a half hours of my life, I’ll tell you that (or so I thought to myself at the time).

One of the suburban State parks looms up on the right and so that’s a convenient place to stop for lunch. Not only have there been difficulties with the traffic, it’s been piping hot too under the hot sun and i’m ready for a break.

Back on the road, first thing that happens is that we hit a “fender-bender”. And then the road works. And more road works.

I have to stop for fuel by now – (that means that I’ve travelled just 210 kilometres since I set off this morning). And then back in a long, depressing traffic jam that never ends.

I finally pull into Port Jefferson at 17:20.

At my lunch stop, The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that we were just 46 minutes away from here. And so Ihad timed it.

It had taken us almost three hours to drive this final leg of the distance, what with all of the difficulties that we had encountered. And I was thoroughly, completely and absolutely fed up.

I had even begun to wonder whether or not it might have been quicker to have stayed on Interstate 95 and fought my way through New York City after all.

No prizes for guessing why I’ve come to Port Jefferson, is there?

By pure coincidence and totally by accident … “of course” – ed … there’s a ferry that goes from here across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport in Connecticut.

This is going to be my lest ferry crossing of my voyage (Bar Harbor to Yarmouth is pushing the boat out a little too far, I reckon) and so I need to make the most of it.

And at about 18:15 we set off on the P T Barnum for Bridgeport in Connecticut.

And the name of the ship is certainly appropriate, considering the circus that we have been through in order to arrive here.

I was hoping to have been on the other side and halfway up the road to Boston by now instead of being on the ferry in the doom and gloom.

But doom and gloom is completely inappropriate considering the glorious sunset.

I mentioned earlier that it had been a hot day, and you probably noticed from the earlier photos just how clear and blue the skies had been

We were now being treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets that I reckon that I have ever seen. It was totally magnificent out here on Long Island Sound

There are two ships that ply this particular route across Long Island Sound.

The P T Barnum has a sister ship, whose name I had forgotten to note, and we encountered her in the middle of Long Island Sound doing the trip in the reverse direction.

Silhouetted in the splendid sunset like this, she looks quite spellbinding too. We were having our money’s worth out here.

And so we battened down the hatches for silent running and sailed off into the sunset.

Red Sky At Night might mean Shepherd’s Delight in the UK, but here on Long Island Sound, Red Sky At Night means that there are riots in New York City and they are burning the place down to the ground.

But tat’s not to say that we can’t admire the view as the sun disappears down below the horizon, can we?

And so Bridgeport, our destination, looms up out of the gloom. I’ve never set foot in Connecticut before now, and so that’s about to be put right.

The crossing itself was like a millpond. I’ve never been over such a tranquil sea in my whole life. There wasn’t a single wave to talk about.

But it was an expensive crossing, make no mistake. 90 or so minutes, and 19 miles, I believe. Just like the English Channel. And it cost me (and Strider) a walk-on fare of a massive and astonishing … errr … $57:00.

The P T Barnum is obliged to do a U-turn in her own length here in the river so that we can dock and drive off forwards,

And much to my surprise, I’m the second vehicle off the ferry. I’m not used to that!

Just at the back of the harbour is a big bridge over which Interstate 95 passes. And that’s the road that will take me all the way home as far as the USA border and it’s a drive of about seven and a half hours.

But I’m not doing that tonight – I’ll tell you. I’m thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly fed up (but then I was expecting this today. There was no other solution).

A sign looms up at the side of the Interstate – “Motel 6 next exit”. They’ve gone upmarket and expensive this last few years but I’m tired and fed up and want to stop.

They have a room too – for just $90:00 including taxes which is not too unreasonable either. I’ve had worse. But what is unreasonable is that their computer is down, everything is being done by hand and I have to pay cash.

I now have $5:00 to last me to the US border and Canada but I’m beyond caring. It’s 20:00 and well past my bedtime.

And so I bite the bullet, pay up, find my room and crash out.

ZZZZZZZZ.

Sunday 1st October 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about last night’s sleep.

Still wide awake at 02:00 not being able to sleep

But I must have gone off to sleep at some point because the alarms did go off to awaken me at 05:00 – and again at 05:15.

Nevertheless I did manage to bring the paperwork up to date (well, sort of) and do a few other things before leaving the motel. But there was no coffee, which was rather disappointing, to say the least.

It was a cloudy day when I sat off, but I didn’t go far because there was a Food Lion just down the road. That called for some bread and some orange juice (although I forgot the orange juice).

And once more, when I said that I didn’t have a fidelity card, the girl at the checkout said that she loved my accent and gave me the discount anyway, which was nice.

After about half an hour of life on the road I came to to the Virginia – Maryland State Line.

I’d blinked and missed it on the way down as you might remember, and so I made sure that I stopped here on the way back up just to take a photograph.

And they had no coffee in the welcome centre either, which was even more of a disappointment. They are missing out on loads of commercial opportunities here in the Capitalist USA.

I must have missed the Delaware State Line somewhere, and I’m not sure how. But when I hit this enormous traffic queue somewhere near Laurel I noticed that all of the number plates were Delaware plates.

But never mind the licence plates, just look at the queue. And I’ve no idea why there would be a queue here either because there’s nothing particular to hold up the traffic.

A sudden downpour of rain didn’t help matters much either.

But there were a few cars here that caught my attention.

It looks as if there had been some kind of hotrod contention and there were dozens of cars in the queue that looked as if they had been heavily modified.

This VW on the trailer was one example – and looking at how the suspension has been arranged, it’s no surprise that they had to trailer it away.

All of the others that I saw were however running on the road (although I’m not sure how, given how they were all set up).

But had I not been in a hurry, I could have stayed around here for a while. I saw a kids football match – only the second one that I would have seen in North America, and on several occasions there were old vehicles at the side of the road that I would ordinarily stopped to photograph.

Nevertheless, I did stop for two minutes at the local bank to withdraw some cash. My supply of American cash has started to dwindle down almost to nothing.

But having missed the entry sign for Delaware, I take the opportunity to photograph a suitable convenient sign just to prove that I did make it here.

It’s the second-smallest State in the USA, with only Rhode Island being smaller. Quite easy to blink and miss in fact, at about 2,500 square miles.

But I bet that you are wondering why I’m actually in Lewes, and what this sign is all about.

The answer to that is quite simple. They have long-distance thru-way ferries in Delaware too.

And so I turned up at the ferry terminal, which was pretty crowded. No room on the 13:45 ferry but there was a place on the 14:45 so I took that.

It saves a long, winding trip through all of the traffic around Wilmington, Philadelphia and Camden

There were clearly a few people who didn’t turn up for their booking on the 13:45 because a few of us early arrivals were passed forward. And that’s good news.

An 18-mile crossing, taking 95 minutes, and all for $37:00 too. And in the Capitalist USA too.

Does anyone get the feeling that someone is taking the Mickey out of the British Cross-Channel ferry passengers? How much would you you have to pay for a crossing like this across the English Channel?

The mouth of the Delaware River is an absolute Paradise for ship-spotters too. Well worth the price of admission just for that alone.

I counted about a dozen out here either heading upriver or downriver and while I couldn’t read their names, I could still photograph them with the telephoto lens.

Here’s a couple of them to be going on with

I didn’t have time to take a photograph of my ferry – the “New Jersey” – but instead I can show you a photo of her sister travelling the other way.

There are three of them apparently and run every hour during the day at this time of year.

It’s a comparatively modern service too. Despite having been first proposed a long, long, time ago, it was only set up about 50 years ago, which is a surprise, seeing how many miles and how much time it saves.

While you admire the New Jersey Shore and Cape May in particular, I can tell yuo somethign exciting about the ferry.

Having missed out on my coffee so far this morning, it seems that on board, you pay $1:95 and you can have as many mugs of coffee as you like.

And as I’m sure that you might have guessed, I took full advantage of this opportunity – even taking one with me in Strider.

So here we are, just pulling in to the ferry terminal at Cape May, New Jersey. From here, it involves heading north-eastward sup the New Jersey coast.

I was planning to stop for the night at Atlantic City with the casinos and the glitter, but with me running an hour early, I was quite well ahead of myself;

It’s my policy not to stop until 18:00 hours unless an irresistible opportunity presents itself or I’m feeling ths strain, so I pushed on.

One thing that I did want to do was to visit Long Beach Island – scene of my triumphs back in 1999.

I was looking for the motel where I stayed back then and although I found the site, it’s not there now – the ground’s all flat.

That’s a shame, for I had had a really good time there. And there are many other motels that merit” removal” well before this one did.

I ended up at Seaside Heights as 18:00 ticked over. Full of motels but for some unknown reason, no-one was about at all.

In the end, I managed to persuade the proprietor of the Sea Palace Inn to open his doors, having agreed on a very reasonable $68:00.

No complaints with that – seeing as there’s a fridge and a microwave. A few potatoes and a tin of chili beans went down well for tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE – and back in 1999 too – on one of my very early forays into North America.

However I didn’t remember all that much about it. I wasn’t as sophisticated and prepared in those days, with a dictaphone and a digital camera, and so I was keen to have a look around, even though it was dark.

That was one of the reasons why I had come here this evening. Another reason being, of course, that my motel from 1999 had been demolished.

My notes in those days were non-existent and relying on my memory is a pretty pointless exercise these days, so I have to say that I didn’t recognise anywhere at all

The dark didn’t help very much in stimulating a visual trigger, but it had its compensations because everywhere always looks so much nicer in the dark when the lighting can bring out some spectacular effects

And the big ferris wheel in the background – that was one of the things that I’d noticed on a photograph that I’d taken back in those days

But anyway, I continued on with my stroll along the boardwalk.

One thing about the Atlantic coast of the USA (I’ve never visited the Pacific) is the beaches. The sand is really nice and looks so good, even in the pitch-black.

Anyway, after a good while and a good wander, I ended up back at my motel. In the words of Maréchal Macmahon, j’y suis, j’y reste – at least until tomorrow morning when I shall be hitting the road.

There’s still a long way to go.

Saturday 30th September 2017 – AS I MIGHT HAVE SAID …

… the other day, North Carolina is a ferry-spotter’s paradise.

We haven’t finished with them yet by any means, because now that we are on Ocracoke Island, we still have to get off.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and one of the ways is to take the ferry over to Cape Hatteras. We’ve done that before, but so what?

While you admire the photo of my little home-from-home, let me tell you about my night.

I was dead to the world, that’s for sure, and our first nocturnal visitor was Michel from the football club – telling me everything that had gone wrong at the football club – just like he had done once in te Auchan in Montlucon.

As for our next visitor, it was either Nerina, Laurence or Cécile.And we were in my house, or whatever house that it was where I was living. It was up forsale although you would never have thought so with the mess – and someone came to see it. It was Christiane (what is she doing here?). My partner showed her round the ground floor and abandoned me to leave me to show her around the cluttered upstairs, even though I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I took her outside and showed her the jungle that was the grounds. She said that the car parking didn’t correspond to what she needed, so I showed her my idea which would have suited her – except that I kept on getting it wrong when I was trying to explain. After she had left I was sitting in the garden when my Inuit guide from Mulligan came in. He had a chain saw and began to cut up logs lengthways ready to sut them “across”. I was thinking to myself that I could do that, and there were plenty of other things that he would have been more profitably employed in doing.

My porridge didn’t take long to cook in the slow cooker, and I was away pretty smartish by 09:15, complete with free coffee from the motel.

A leisurely drive took me down to the far end of the island where I didn’t have to wait too long for a ferry.

You don’t here, by the way. There’s a regular shuttle service and there’s quite a rapid service, especially at this time of the year.

Had I come by here tomorrow, it would have been a different matter because they are going over to the winter timetable.

One thing that takes some getting used to is the route that the ferry takes.

This distance between Hatteras and Ocracoke island doesn’t look very much, but it takes 40 minutes to do the route, because you have to go in a rather exaggerated “S” route between the islands.

The channels across Pamlico Sound are quite shallow and despite the low draught of these boats, they can still easily run aground if they get it wrong.

The channel is marked for the entire length with marker buoys and signs, like these just here.

You can’t see for the sun unfortunately, but the buoys are marked red and green, for “port” and “starboard” just like a ship’s lights, but I was convinced that on occasion the ferry was passing to the wrong side.

But the channel and the sandbanks change after each storm so that’s not a surprise.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

and what does a pelican have in common with an Income-Tax Collector?
Well, they can bot shove their bills up their @r$e$

Only seven or so cars on the ferry so it didn’t take long to unload. And we were soon belting off northwards up Hatteras Island.

The village of Hatteras itself is quite pretty and probably well-worth a poke around on another occasion, but i don’t have that much time.

I want to be north of Chesapeake Bay by tonight and it’s a long way to go.

We do have to stop at some point because even though we’ve seen it before, we have to go to look at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

It’s the most famous construction on the whole of the Outer Banks.

Mind you, the Outer Banks just here are quite famous if you are a mariner. Not for nothing is Cape Hatteras known as “The Graveyard Of The Atlantic” with the amount of ships that have come to grief here.

The lighthouse didn’t used to be back there. Until 1999 it was just in front of where this sign is.

You can see from the sign how the sea level has risen over the last 140 years, which prompted the romoval of the lighthouse to a safer spot.

But even though it’s so graphically laid out here, the USA Government still denies the existence of global warming and rising sea levels.

Yes, the official position of the US President is to deny clmate change, global warming and rising sea levels. Yet here on Hatteras Island the evidence is impossible to ignore.

Everywhere are signs “water on highway” and despite the absence of rain and strong winds, you can see that the sea is slowly encroaching onto the roadway.

This will all be under water in 10 years or so.

We’ve been here before of course, and I reckoned that I would show you a photo once more of Rodanthe.

It’s significant because a couple of years after I had been here in 2005, they made a film set in Rodanthe.

And much to my surprise it really was filmed here too.

And the film seems to have brought unlimited tourists to visit the area, and with it the tourist attractions.

My memory of Rodanthe was that it was a quiet, sleepy place with a few tumbledown cabins and houses.

Not any more though. The tourists are out in force and have brought wads of cash with them. So the developers have cashed in.

Here’s something else that is changing so dramatically too.

The Herbert C Bonner bridge was a quiet, sleepy bridge when we came by here in 2005.

Today, as the sea levels are rising, the bridge approaches are slowly being submerged and so they are constructing this huge mega-bridge right across Oregon Sound with its several miles of raised causeway approaches.

Not that it will do them much good because the rest of the Outer Banks will shortly be under water as we have seen.

From here, I don’t hang about. We miss out the Wright Brothers site at Kill Devil Hills (not Kittyhawk) just up the road because we have been there before, and eventually come off onto the mainland where I stop for lunch and fuel at, coincidentally,the same petrol station where I stopped in 2005.

But out haste doesn’t prevent us from yet another photo opportunity, does it?

This area is well-known for its pirate and privateer activity, and so Strawberry Moose decides to get in on the action.

Finding a suitable boat, he now tries to find a suitable crew, or else he will be all at sea.

We cross into Virginia just after here, and enter the city of Norfolk. And Norfolk is a nightmare to navigate.

There are two ways to go north – one is the I-95 and sit in traffic queues in Washington DC and Baltimore all day, or else cross Chesapeake Bay and cross the Delaware River and follow the New Jersey Coast.

But the Bay crossing in Norfolk, despite being one of the most famous in the whole of North America, is so badly signposted it’s unbelievable.

You drive around for hours down a succession of small street and eventually you see a small one-foot square blue-and-white sign.

Blink and you miss it.

Unfortunately, you can’t see it very well because there is nowhere to stop and photograph it.

For a start, it’s 23 miles long, 17 miles of which is across water, and if that’s not something of a record I’m not sure what is.

And not only that, it shortens my route by 153 kms, so the toll fee of $13:00 is a bargain when you take the cost of Strider’s fuel into consideration.

It’s not just a bridge either.

It crosses a busy shipping lane up to Baltimore and so in a couple of places it dives into tunnels. And these are quite long enough on their own.

And that was quite a shame because there were three or four mammoth container ships sailing up the Hampton Roads and I missed them.

On the other side of the river I put my foot down and move north towards the Maryland border.

But 18:00 looms up, I’m tired and I’m still in Virgnia. And at 18:10 the Shore Lodge Motel in Olney looms up out of the gloom.

The room is clean and comfortable and after much negotiating we agree on $70:00, incuding taxes, which is not unreasonable.

I do without tea yet again and crash out more-or-less straight away, but I’m awoken by a group of people chatting by the ice machine just outside the door.

After about a couple of hours of this, I’m beyond fed up, so I ask them if they wouldn’t mind going somewhere else to chat. Well, that wasn’t actually what I said, but it meant that.

But my sleep has gone now, and this is going to be a bad night.

Friday 29th September 2017 – AFTER A REALLY …

… 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.

Thursday 28th September 2017 – WHAT WITH …

… having crashed out so completely and for so long yesterday afternoon, it was well into the small hours this morning and I was still awake.

But I heard the alarms go off at 05:00 and 05:15 respectively but somehow it was gone 08:00 when I was up and about.

My first thought was that I can’t go anywhere in the state that I was in, so I staggered off down to the office to see about staying for an extra day. But we couldn’t thrash out a suitable deal and so I took that as my cue to be moving on.

After breakfast we hit the road, and back through familiar territory from 2005.

When we were up here back then, I pointed out to you that most of the houses along the seafront are up on stilts.

We’re smack in the hurricane belt here and while they might not be as devastating as elsewhere, the fact that it’s so low-lying around here means that there can be some impressive tidal surges.

Just inland from the coast is what they call the “Atlantic Coastal Waterway”.

It’s like a canal that’s made up of rivers, lagoons behind the sandbanks and canalised sections to join everything up, and its purpose is to allow the “snowbirds” to sail their yachts and cabin cruisers down to Florida from Washington DC and Manhattan without having to do anything dangerous like going out into the open sea.

They aren’t really “salt-water mariners” here.

I mentioned yesterday that North Myrtle Beach is probably one of the most exclusive places in the USA.

Here, the “second homes” of the rich and famous are built around little marinas branching off the Atlantic Coastal Waterway so that they can sail down here and drop anchor in their own back gardens

You can’t do that at Rhyl or New Brighton.

I’m never in a very good mood when I see a car ferry. As you know, it always makes me cross.

And so being in the vicinity of the ferry across Cape Fear River, I decide to head that way instead of taking Highway 17 North-Eastwards.

And just by way of a change, I don’t have to wait too long as they don’t go on to winter hours until Saturday. That’s not something that happens to me every day.

There’s another ferry from here that goes out to Bald Head Island.

Bald Head Island is really nothing more than an endless succession of sandbanks, a couple of which have been stabilised by a healthy plant growth, and is the home to a mainly-seasonal population.

Its chief claim to fame, if it was one, is that it’s an important turtle-breeding and nesting area. And that I’ve yet to find the time to visit it.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it was the Union Army that won the Civil War. When things were on an even basis, the South could hold its own quite comfortably.

What did for the South was the naval blockade that stopped supplies of arms and munitions reaching the fighting armies and preventing the South from exporting its produce to gain foreign exchange.

Wilmington was just about the last open port remaining, protected by Fort Fisher which was just over there to the left of the crane and which we visited in 2005.

When Fort Fisher fell to the Union forces in January 1865, the Union Army controlled the entrance to the port.

They took Wilmington a couple of weeks later and in the absence of any supplies at all, the Confederacy collapsed in a matter of days.

By now though, the heat was ridiculous. 98°F, whatever that is in real money.

Luckily a Home Depot loomed up so I could take refuge in there and see if they had Terry’s batteries, but no joy – although the aircon was welcome.

Back on the road again, I stopped for some fuel and some of that iced slush as the heat really was oppressive, and then round about Jacksonville, found the first of the “Outer Banks Islands” – the sandbanks that protect the North Carolina Shore.

Some of them are inhabited, some connected by bridges, and some of them even have roads.

Emerald Isle is one such, and that’s my destination for tonight. There’s bound to be a motel or two along here and I eventually come across the Oak Grove Motel in Salter Path.

I’ve stayed in better places than this, but not many for $60 with kitchen and air conditioning.

First thing is to sit on my bed and … errr … relax.

Second thing is to notice the time – 21:00. Was I that relaxed?

So no tea again tonight. I just curl up down the bed and make the most of it.

And quite right too.

Wednesday 1st February 2017 – UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN …

… which has happened once, believe it or not, I might have been tentatively offered a job just now.

How bizarre is that?

The landlord came into the building to stock up the supplies for the building (and I’ve had my bedding changed at last!) and we got to talking, like you do … "well, like one of us does" – ed. I told him about the hospital and my plans (such as they are) to leave after my next hospital visit at the end of the month. He started to talk about how long I’ve been there, and how well I know the place, and all of this. I mentioned that I would be looking for a new place to live when I go back to France, and he finished his chat by saying “perhaps I should hire you on”.

Well, it’s been a long time since someone has offered me a job. My immediate response was “why not?”. After all, I need to keep my options open and this might be some kind of solution – you never know.

A bad night last night – it took ages to go off properly to sleep and then we had the 06:00 wake-up. I was alone at breakfast and then I came back down here for a little work on the laptop – and a doze too of course.

I went up to the Delhaize to buy lunch stuff, and of course I forgot everything that was important. I’m going to have to start to make a list, I reckon.

But I did have some more luck in my researches. I’ve tracked down a book entitled Voyages of the Northmen to America. This book, edited by the Reverend Edmund Slafter, dates from 1877 and is very pro-Norse, in contrast to the book Wineland the Good by Reeves, that we discussed last night.

In addition, “Voyages of the Northmen” contains a synopsis of Carl Rafn’s proposition, so derisively dismissed by Reeves.

I’ve not read much of it yet, but it seems from a map on the opening pages that Slafter favours Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts USA as being the site of Vinland. However, Slafter’s proposition seems at first glance from the map (although we’ll see when I read it) to overlook the fact that all of the Outer Banks off the coast have changed dramatically even in our lifetimes, due to storms and currents and the like. It’s very probable that back 1000 years ago Cape Cod Bay was nothing like it is today.

Slafter also acknowledged his sources, and tells us the name of the book written by Rafn. But it’s apparently written in Latin and it’s 45 years since I last seriously spoke any Latin. I shall have to go to Latin America for a crash course.

Puer amat mensam, hey?

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: outer banks

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Sunday 1st October 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

Saturday 30th September 2017 – AS I MIGHT HAVE SAID …

Friday 29th September 2017 – AFTER A REALLY …

Thursday 28th September 2017 – WHAT WITH …

Wednesday 1st February 2017 – UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN …

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