Off to the OBX part 2

Off to the OBX     Part 2

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

The grand lighthouse in its new location.
The lighthouse has been moved nearly a quarter mile from its original place to protect it from the surf.
 

Our first day in the OBX broke clear and so we headed south to see what we had  prepared for months to see. For we had been practicing. We ran up the stairs in our home again and again. It has only ten steps but, if you run them twenty times you have reached a sizable number. For we intended to climb the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Eleven years ago we walked the grounds of the park, too early in the season to be allowed to climb. Jackie and I would remedy that situation. We had after all climbed many lighthouses, and now we prepared to climb the tallest masonry lighthouse in North America.

There are 257 steps we were told, but like I said we came prepared. The view was spectacular! But more we had accomplished a goal we had set for ourselves. But Hatteras was just the first, a few hours later we stood on the catwalk at the top of Bodie (pronounced Body) Lighthouse. The wind had picked up a bit, but together we enjoyed the view across the marshes of Bodie Island and the Atlantic in the distance and the shining waters of the bay beyond the other side of the island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bodie Island Lighhouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up the stairs we go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later we walked out on that pier.

 

 

The next day sent us north through Duck, an interesting name for a town don’t you think, which had grown substantially in our absence, up to Currituck Beach and its lighthouse. We were told to prepare, for the winds at the catwalk were over thirty-five miles-per-hour. The blustery breeze added to the thrill of standing more than one hundred fifty feet up on a sunny morning. What a gem.

Currituck Beach Lighthouse

 

 

Most people have heard of the wild horses of Currituck. Abandoned by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, they are truly wild creatures, to be given a proper berth. But we shared the back of a pickup truck with another family while our guide, Gattor, told us all about the horses and countryside. In the sixteenth century the Spanish cast their horses overboard to lighten their ship that had run aground. The mustangs capable swimmers it seems. Now the wild horses of the OBX are the last descendants of those Spanish Mustangs. They are not the cute ponies they appear but wild beasts that roam over thousands of acres of dune land.  We saw more than thirty of the magnificent animals on the shore. The wind, the sand, and the horses,

made another adventure we will never forget.

We closed out the day walking the beach, watching the sea birds, a chain of pelicans flying single file out of the north passing us by and going on and out of sight far to the south. A hawk like bird, a kite I believe, hovered overhead for some moments. Those winged creatures mixed with a few gulls gave life to world we walked, a world of wind and waves, as the tide came in yet again following its age old cycle of rising and falling twice each day. It brought the perfect close to what was so near a perfect day.