Ocracoke is O.K.

We got up early this morning to catch the ferry to Ocracoke Island.  The only way you can get to Ocracoke is by boat.  They do have a small airstrip on the island but since we don't have a plane, we took the ferry.  :)

We arrived at the ferry parking area about 7:30 and by a little after 8 am, they began loading the ferry boat.

After about 10 minutes of loading the boat, we were on our way to Ocracoke.

The seas were smooth and it was a nice day for a ferry ride.

The ferry runs every 30 minutes during the day in the summer time.  We passed a couple of ferry boats as we crossed over.

As we got closer to Ocracoke, we could see these tall stickups in the Pamlico Sound.  We're guessing they were surrounding sandbars to keep boats off of them.

We saw several fishing boats.  The guy on this boat appeared to have caught a big fish but he didn't get it reeled in before the ferry floated by.  :(

The north end of Ocracoke Island is pretty much deserted.

All that is there is the ferry landing.

In fact, most of the north end of the island is deserted except for a road and a few beach accesses all the way to the village of Ocracoke.

We did stop by the horse pens where the National Park Service has a large pasture of wild horses.  According to the NPS, legend has it that the horses were left here in the 16th or 17th century by shipwrecked explorers.  The horses formerly ran free but had to be fenced in to safeguard them from traffic after the Ocracoke highway was built in 1957.

After driving about 12 miles, we arrived in the village of Ocracoke.

In less than 2 miles, we had reached the other side of the village of Ocracoke.  We parked in the visitor center parking lot where we found this fifth wheel that had seen better days. :)

Looks like someone installed a back door. :)

We walked over to the visitor center and read about some of the history of Ocracoke.  The village of Ocracoke was established as a "Pilot Town" in 1715 because licensed boat pilots assisted vessels across the dangerous inlet sandbars and through the Pamlico Sound.  By 1850, the village had over 500 residents.

There was a picture of the Hatteras Ferry landing on Ocracoke in 1955.  I don't think I would have liked using the ferry then.

Outside the visitor center, there was this odd-looking display.  Can you guess what it is?

It is part of the skull of a 60 foot Northern Right Whale that washed ashore on Ocracoke in 1988.

After leaving the visitor center, we rode out to look at something else.  Can you guess what this is?

No, it is not a sand dune.  It's the Ocracoke Lighthouse (a view from the bottom looking up).

This is the second Orcacoke lighthouse and has been in operation since 1823.  It is the Nation's second oldest continuous operating lighthouse.

The old lighthouse keeper's residence to the right is now a private residence.

And the lighthouse keeper is now a cat.  :)

Well, we had gone to the Ocracoke horse pens, driven to the end of the island, drove around Ocracoke, gone to the visitor center, and visited the Ocracoke Lighthouse and it was just 10:15.  We had planned on eating lunch here so we decided to go to the beach for a little while.

The beach is nice and wide but the water is not as clear and blue as it is up at Hatteras.  But there were still a lot of people enjoying the water.

As we walked along the beach, we found more of the beautiful shell pieces like what we have seen at Hatteras.

We really liked the black, brown, grey and gold striped shell pieces...

and collected several of these.

We stayed on the beach for about an hour and then headed to another location to look for more shells.  Only these were much tastier!  :)

As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the Oysters Rockefeller we had for lunch until after we had eaten them all but they were delicious!  :)

After lunch, we headed back north to the ferry and arrived just in time to catch the 12:30 ferry back to Hatteras.  It didn't seem like we did much; but we sure were pooped!  :)

I propped my feet up and had a nice (but hot) nap on the way back home.

Later that evening after we were back at Hatteras, we decided to finish up the day with a walk on the beach.

We just had salads for supper since we had a big lunch.  And then about 8 pm, we discovered the electricity was out.  Hopefully, they get that fixed soon!  :)