21.2 mi / 11.4 mph / 212 ft. climbing
Home: Cedar Island Ranch Campground

We were up at 7am, early enough to have the sound of the sea be replaced by the sight of the sunrise. It was a beautiful place to witness the new day, with our isolated spot making it feel like we were the only ones camping here. The warmth continued, requiring no bundling up while making breakfast. The main area of the site was well-soaked in condensation, but our little tent-hole was remarkably drier, presumably thanks to the partial-roof of tree cover.

We had 6.5 miles to ride to our day’s first ferry, and last night we agreed that targeting the 10:30am departure should get us to the 1718 Brewery by lunch. At the rate Rett was pushing into the slight headwind, we’d get to the dock way early, and that’s how I learned she was now shooting for the 10am boat. I felt that we’d be cutting it too close, and then she’d just be disappointed that she got all tired and sweaty for no benefit. When I told her (with 3 miles to go) that Google Maps estimated our arrival at 10:02am, she backed off.

We pulled up to the ferry terminal entrance, and a guy sitting at the booth up front started giving instructions before we even reached him: “Head for that building up there with the blue roof, and if they…NO, DON’T SLOW DOWN!! If they see you before they raise the ramp, they might let you on! Go!!” Oh, awesome, thank you! We quickly pedaled up to the head of the line (in front of a handful of cars stuck waiting for the next boat), and the crew did see us (aided by a bellowing shout from the helpful attendant), but did not seem nearly as interested in helping us out as their coworker. But finally one yelled, “come on!”, so we stomped on it, rode directly onto the boat and screeched to a halt in the only remaining space between the cars that just barely fit our bikes, and within literally three seconds there was a growing span of water between us and the dock. Thanks guys for enabling our second perfect-timing ferry-ride in the last month! It’s nice that it’s a free ferry, not only because we don’t need to pay, but because we didn’t need to spend time making a transaction before boarding.

The ends of Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands are separated by only about three miles, but the ferry traces a very non-direct horseshoe path far into Pamlico Sound before looping back out. The very shallow waters we observed from the bridges a couple days ago leads me to believe that it needs the roundabout route to find a navigable channel. And maybe the tides have altered the channel recently, because it took us around 80 minutes rather than the 60 reported on the website. That made our timing to hit the 10am ferry even more valuable!

Ocracoke Island is completely uninhabited until the village at the opposite end, so once the cars spewed forth from the boat ahead of us, we were left completely alone with the road, sand, sea, and sky. The remote, wild feel is exactly what I remembered from 14 years ago.

Rett has “Denham Bars”, flat handlebars with bullhorn grips built-in, but in three years of riding she’s almost never used them, partly because the unfamiliar hand/body position (understandably) feels uncomfortable. Practice can make it more-comfortable, and this steady-headwind empty-road was a good place to practice, and to Rett’s credit she gave it some good time and effort with little more than a suggestion from me. She’s gotten so much better at every other aspect of bike riding over the last year, I correctly guessed she’d be capable of at least working on this. Though the road wasn’t entirely quiet, since with the wind, there was time in our 12-mile ride for the output of two more ferry loads to pass us!

Perhaps some of Rett’s motivation to endure the chore of practice was because she knew she’d be rewarded with good beers at 1718 Brewery, something we’d arranged our whole day around. So she was understandably crushed when we rolled up and a signboard out front said they were closed today. Jerks! The disappointment led to indecision, so we just defaulted to the pub next door, hoping (futilely) that they might serve some of the beers she’d been hoping to sample.

The Pub is closing for the season in a few days, we saw a closed food truck, and a bakery and a boutique shop both of which Rett wanted to visit were also closed. It felt like we were back in New England when everything there was closing/closed for the season six weeks ago; it recently had felt like we’d made it far enough south that everything was year-round open, but apparently that doesn’t include Ocracoke!

She was able to pick up a selection of friendship/ankle bracelets at a tourist/gift/surf shop, so at least one of her Outer Banks goals (inspired by the Netflix series of the same name) was achieved here today. To kill our remaining time before the next ferry we settled into a harborside outdoor bar. They did have a 1718 beer, but just their pilsner, so nothing Rett had been excited about. But we got a pitcher anyway, and tried to figure out why the place was filled with unusually-well-dressed (many in suit-and-tie) patrons who all seemed to know each other.

The ferry back to the mainland at Cedar Island is the first of three North Carolina ferries that we’ve had to pay for, but at $6 for both of us and our bikes, it’s nearly free too. While we waited in the staging area, a guy riding a bike festooned with hand-made political signs came over to chat. Usually that describes someone you’d prefer to steer clear of, unless you’re interested in conspiratorial mentally-unhinged rants, but Gary embarrassed my prejudice. He was a 100% “normal” guy, who had simply summoned courage that we wished we possessed, in order to put himself out there to make a difference in this battleground state. “Veteran for Harris” was his main branding, and he said barely anyone in town knew that he had served, but this was a time to strategically leverage that part of his identity. Another part of his identity was “bike tourer”, which was the main reason he came to chat with us. But his main reason for being at the ferry terminal was to catch persuadable people when they got off the boat, which he admirably left our enjoyable conversation to go do, in exchange for uncomfortable yet far more valuable conversations.

Our late-afternoon departure felt like our departure from Block Island last month, and this ferry was even more empty. Maybe 10% of the vehicle space was used, and we had the passenger deck almost entirely to ourselves. We tend to stay indoors on ferries, figuring we get enough wind and sun throughout the day, but sitting out on the front deck was absolutely magical, with the light breeze perfectly balancing the warmth of the lowering sun as the boat cut gently through the calm waters of the shallow but endless Pamlico Sound.

Taking a 2.5 hour ferry that doesn’t arrive until well after sunset would normally be a terrible idea for bike tourers, but the terminal is literally surrounded by the campground of Cedar Island Ranch (and basically nothing else). Luckily they had called earlier when we were at the bar to give instructions about how to manage after-hours check-in, otherwise we would have been completely lost in the dark.