Ocracoke: A Summary

(I wrote the bulk of this while we were gone. This is the most diary-like blog post I’ve ever written, but not because it’s deeply intimate. Mostly because it’s just an assortment of memories. But they’re good ones, and I want to keep them.)

There is no sign of the tropical storm now, except for maybe swaths of black sand strewn over the beach, and big shells cluttering the shore. The wind is no longer thrashing the sea oats that stretch up like an ocean outside our porch, taller even than me. The broken screen door isn’t flapping, the clouds are dissolved, the sky is hot and bright and blue, but the air is only mid-seventies. October is nearly here.

The house is cobbled together, heaved up at some point in its history to let the floodwaters flow underneath, stitched together with porches and decks and ramps, but not all of them connect. There is a small square rooftop deck where I like to have my quiet time, and since it is late September, I’m usually squinting at my Bible when I settle in because the sun hasn’t come up all the way yet. But when it does, I’m perfectly perched to watch the sky turn bright pink. If the wax myrtles and the coastal cedars weren’t so tall, I’d be poised to see the sound, too, just across the street. When the storm came through, though, I could hear it: beating furiously against the piers and docks that reached out into the water. The one time I ran outside to see the action for myself, the Pamlico Sound was as gray as the sky, churning, white-flecked and frantic. 

It is a just-right house: not luxurious, not large, not even well-stocked. There is a citrus juicer, a box of silverware on the countertop, a rusty can opener, and a steamer basket, but not much else. When it rains, the house leaks, and the connecting barn straight up floods. But because of the large porch—with two picnic tables, four adirondack chairs, and a hammock swing the kids fight over—we don’t need much else. We live outside. We can walk most places, but, like many people on the island, we don’t. We’ve rented a golf cart, and along with the cicadas and the occasional blaring ferry, that’s the sound I hear most often: the loud shriek of a golf cart in reverse.

Besides the few days of wind and rain, the weather has been perfect. And, since we are now on our fourth week in hurricane season, that’s incredibly impressive. Essentially no bad weather, and no sickness except for coughs that might be a result of the wet house when it leaks.

I want to remember everything. It has been almost perfect, but not just as a vacation. This is a place, and a time, when I have felt most like myself. The pace of living, the place of living, all of it. It’s glorious. We haven’t exercised at all, we’ve drunk wine on the sand each afternoon, and yet we’re sleeping deeply and waking energized. Maybe it’s the sun and bare feet in the sand, I don’t know. It’s something magical.

Ocracoke itself is a little like Stars Hollow: charming, quirky, and sort of old-fashioned. The harbor at Silver Lake looks like a scene from another century, if there aren’t any yachts in town, with its old green pilings and the assortment of weather-beaten houses and shops circling the water. We live near the water tower, close to the ferry dock but there’s no way to cut across. To reach town, we have to pass the British Cemetery and a few other smaller graveyards, but we’re withing walking distance of Zillie’s, the local wine shop. A little further away is Over the Moon, a cute store with too many things I like, and not much beyond that is Stockroom Street Food, where we like to order banh mi bowls or Thai fish cakes for lunch. There’s also a little coffee shack there, right next to the harbor, and picnic tables. Down very old Howard Street, where the tenth generation Howards still live, there are so many live oaks creating a little tunnel of trees it’s hard to believe that year after year of hurricanes and tropical storms haven’t knocked down more of the forests on the island. The Village Craftsmen, a shop I’ve gone to since I was a child, offers a great selection of jewelry and pottery, but we’re on the hunt for a good ornament to take home. We haven’t found one yet, and I’m afraid I’ll forget, and also that I’ll forget to take home a few jars of fig preserves to eat with some good brie. That’s the other thing Ocracoke boasts, besides seafood and impressive live oaks: fig trees. They are everywhere. Thriving. And though we’re here after fig season, there’s still fig cake to be found in the restaurants, and locally canned preserves in the shops.

We took the Swan Quarter ferry, which is the best one, in my opinion, when we came to the island. It was September 2, three and a half weeks ago. We drove straight to the house, unloaded as quickly as we could, and ordered Dajio, the nearest restaurant, for take-out. We ended up with a feast: blackened drum and shrimp with some sort of cajun sauce, green beans, heaps of rice, french fries. And then we drove to the beach access and hiked out onto the sand, even though it had been a long day and the sun was setting and the air was cooling. And the kids and the dog ran and frolicked and shrieked in the water, shivering and not stopping. Pure bliss.

The village is on the sound side, and ends about where Howard’s Pub and the post office sit. Beyond that, there is nothing but dunes and trees and sand. When you go out on the beach, that’s all it is: beach. Nothing behind you, and often nothing—and no one—beside you. We spent plenty of days in complete isolation. The only sound, besides the water and the gulls and the kids laughing, was the faint hum of a car driving by on the other side of the dunes. But mostly, just silence.

Our first week, Timothy took vacation, and we hadn’t started school yet. Most of our days looked like driving out on the beach and staying until we got hungry, then ordering take out or cleaning up to go out for dinner. I didn’t cook, except for breakfast and lunch, and our first week here was essentially our way of finding our favorite places to eat. For lunch, it was either Stockroom or Eduardo’s taco stand (the latter gave me the best tuna tacos I’ve ever had). For dinner, Flying Melon if we wanted an elegant meal, or Thai Moon if we wanted delicious takeout. Honestly, the food here is better than what we have at home, and this is an island with less than one thousand residents. The taco stand offers salsa made from the ingredients in their garden, and Thai Moon is more authentic than what we find in the restaurants in Winston.

All that to say, the food has been stellar. We’ve discovered a new favorite fish: sheepshead, crusted in Parmesan at Flying Melon, and topped with a piccata sauce and grilled shrimp at Dajio. I’m still thinking about the sheepshead, and that isn’t the only seafood we’ve consumed. We’ve had fresh oysters, shrimp, tuna, mahi, mackerel, blue, and drum. Maybe more than that, and I’ve just forgotten. But the sheepshead wins. For the record, if you ever see it anywhere, although that isn’t likely. We learned the restaurants get their sheepshead from a couple of local boys who spear the fish near a sunken shrimp boat.

We haven’t only eaten out, but the meals I’ve cooked—burgers and green beans, chicken meatballs with pesto and bowtie pasta, sweet potato and black bean tacos, buffalo chicken and quinoa—are either super simple to throw together here, or I already cooked and froze it and brought it with me. That, I must say, has been a delight. I don’t know why I spend so much time cooking at home. My family certainly doesn’t seem to need more than cheese on a burger fried in the cast iron pan I’m so glad I brought with me.

The beach isn’t the only attraction: our favorite spot actually happens to be Springer’s Point, the nature preserve where Blackbeard was beheaded ages ago. After taking trails that wind through a tangle of live oaks, the path opens up onto a curved, calm beach, shaded by the forest. The water stays shallow forever, and so still my children can wade out and splash. If you look carefully, you’ll notice a ton of shells wriggling through the water: hermit crabs, a plethora of them, especially by the jetties. A new favorite game is to collect as many as possible in a bucket, then release them all into the water before we go home. And, preferably, to find either the tiniest, cutest crab, or the largest, coolest one. When the sun falls, it slips down right in front of Springer’s Point, and then the whole beach is pink and gold and glowing and glittering. It is magical. It might be one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to.

I wondered if we’d grow bored here. We don’t have many toys, and I don’t spend more than an hour homeschooling each day. But we’re over three weeks into a month long trip, and we’ve only left the island once, to visit Portsmouth. I thought we’d take the passenger ferry to Hatteras, at least, but we haven’t needed to. The slow, peaceful rhythms we’ve found here aren’t boring. They’re just rejuvenating.

You can see Portsmouth from Ocracoke. The ride over takes maybe twenty minutes, if that, and then you can either head to the beach, which is riddled with shells and driftwood, or the village, which is deserted and creepy. Both are wonderful and different. But the bugs are insane. I don’t know what they feed on, since decades have passed since anyone has lived on Portsmouth. But they are starving and they’re brutal. They’ll make you bleed. They are from hell, whatever those bugs are. And while the village has the kind of vibes you get from M Night Shyamalan’s Village, I don’t think his was quite as infested with this kind of horror. But it was fun. I’m glad we went.

We’ve been alone, but we haven’t been lonely. We see the same people everywhere: our hostess at Flying Melon is our barista the next morning. Our bartender from last night’s dinner offers to drive us across a flooded road when we’re out for a walk. One of the girls at the wine shop helps us at the museum, and the other at Over the Moon. My brother jokes that we’re in the Truman show and they’re reusing extras.

My parents came for a week, and while they were here, Timothy and I squeezed in all the dates we couldn’t take the rest of our trip. On our favorite outing, we kayaked into the sunset. I packed a bottle of German sheurebe and we sipped until we splashed too much saltwater into our glasses. 

And that, basically, has been our life. Beach or Springer’s Point, simple dinner in or delicious dinner out, occasional trips to Zillie’s for a wine tasting, a good bottle, or a sit on their front porch with a cold glass of sauvignon blanc. It’s a good life. We’ve soaked up all the vitamin D (to the point that I can’t actually burn anymore; I don’t use sunblock and I’m staying the same color), we’ve been earthing with bare feet in sand for hours at a time. And, miraculously, my rashes are gone. I don’t actually believe in magic, but the power of sun, salt, and a quiet life is not one to be trifled with. I could live here, like this. And I won’t, but I’m glad I had a month to try this life out. I’ve got sand perpetually in my scalp and I probably haven’t consumed nearly enough vegetables, but I’m happy, and my children are happy, and I can sit outside on the porch and hear my husband in the barn, working. And in a few hours, we’ll be back by the water, reading and resting and examining hermit crabs and listening to children squealing.

Yes. This is magic.