Outer Banks, North Carolina

Felt like writing about a weekend trip I had taken with a bunch of friends last October. I wish I had written about it back then as some of the names have faded from my memory, but then there's always Google & Wikipedia for jogging it a bit ;). It was to a place called Outer Banks in northern coast of North Carolina. It was about 350 miles from Charlotte (where I used to live then; also in NC). It is famous for its lovely beaches, old lighthouses and also for the first flight of Wright brothers. We had rented a seven-seater as we were six of us and had loads of food items. We had plans of cooking there as we had booked a vacation home in Ocracoke island. The idea of spending a lot of time on cooking during vacation did not appeal much to me & my roommate initially.

We started on saturday afternoon towards our destination with Renuka as the first driver of the day. Between six of us, we had only 2 drivers. We had planned to reach Cedar Island early in the morning as the first ferry to Ocracoke left at 4 or 5 AM. We reached there well ahead of time and while waiting for the ferry to arrive, played antakshari in half-asleep state in the car. A 2.5 hr ferry ride brought us to Ocracoke island. The first thought that came to my mind on getting down there was - this place looks so much like Goa!!

The vacation home was a spacious 3-bedroom place with all amenities. After a nice breakfast and relaxing for some time at home, we headed for the beach. And not surprisingly, we were the most clothed people there (as you can see from the picture) ;). We had loads of fun playing in the water, flying kite (Rajesh's lifelong dream). We were very tired when we got home. But that didn't stop us from taking a shower and heading to the town in the evening to see Ocracoke lighthouse, have homemade icecream in a local store and then retired at home with great home-cooked food and nice wine and some old movies.

Next morning, the photographers of the group (Rajesh, Renuka, Harish & Amit) went to the beach again to shoot the sunrise. When the lazy ones (Megha & me) later saw the snaps, we really regretted not having witnessed the magnificent sunrise. Later during the day we headed to Cape Hatteras which is famous for the black & white striped lighthouse. It was another ferry ride to Hatteras along with the van. We spent a leisurely afternoon in the lawns of Hatteras lighthouse. On our way back to the ferry station, we stopped at a sound (it's a water inlet - somewhat like lagoon, but larger) and watched the sun go down. Somehow, the setting sun made all of us a little sad and we drove back home in more or less silence.

The next morning I discovered that I could ride a bicycle passably well (thanks to Renuka!). I regretted having chickened out and not having tried hard enough when we were renting the bikes .. it would have been so much more fun. We spent the late morning cleaning up the place and later had a sumptuous breakfast at a nice restaurant in the town. It seemed everyone in the town was eating in that restaurant as we had to wait for about half an hour to get a table! The return journey was more or less uneventful - except the heavy rains that caught us about 2 hours before reaching Charlotte. Kudos to Rajesh's driving for getting us back home without any mishaps.

And as always, the thought of end of a vacation and back to work next day, made us miss all the fun and leisure we had together in those 2.5 days...

Photo courtesy: Rajesh & Renuka :)