Our first time to Ocracoke Island, 2016

[Greenbean]

Hello there good folks of EP.com

SO I am not by any means a professional overlander, but live sometimes in a dream world and much appreciate everyone who has helped me slowly expand my adventuring spirit and show everything and everywhere they have been exploring. The wife and I got married last year and honeymooned on the OBX. We had a wonderful beach front hotel in Nags Head and it was fantastic. Well we heard about Ocracoke from a new friend who we met on our honeymoon as you can't miss his rig. Since then we have wanted to come back this year but also I knew I could purchase an ORV permit through the NPS for 7-days at a cost of 50.00 USD. In advance as well as I printed it out the Sat evening before our departure and had it ready to go in my left lower windshield as instructed.


So the following pictures and notes are from our little week away from the WNC mountains and out at Ocracoke Island. I have many pictures all taken with my Samsung Note-4. Please keep that in mind as none of them have been adjusted or worked on. Only one to block out my vehicle tag. They were all taken at full resolution but when uploaded to PhotoBucket I use a much lower resolution to make them a little smaller for forum viewing.

We departed the Asheville area early at about 5AM. I knew I wanted to try and make the check-in time of 3PM once we got to the village which is on the southern end of Ocracoke Island.

So any trip that involves the OBX or Hiighway 12 should always have Sam & Omie's involved. My youngest sister lives in Wilmington and told us about this place before we honeymooned and it is just awesome. We ended up eating there twice on the honeymoon and made it there in time for a brunch of sorts. It's a local place with wonderful food that has been around for years. I want to add you can't beat a place that serves home made pork rinds as an appetizer! Oh my goodness.....:wings:

Turns out we made it to Sam & Omie's a little after noon, perfect!

SO you'll turn south on 12 and pretty much immediately enter the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Which your ORV permit is good for so we immediately had to get out on the beach with my Tacoma and see what it looked like. The first ORV ramp you come to is number 4. It was a cloudy day with some wind but we were excited to start this much needed beach vacation and couldn't resist. I engaged 4WD as soon as I was on the sandy road at the beginning of the ramp and kept momentum up until I could get to the hard packed sand a little closer to the shoreline. Not stopping on the soft stuff. A lesson I would actually learn a few days later.

After about another hour heading south on 12 you get to the ferry service at Hatteras. It's run by the DOT so it's free and takes an hour to get there because they can't run the ferry as the crow flies, they need to stay in slightly deeper water to arc over to the northern part of Ocracoke Island. I can recommend however remember to fill up on fuel before getting on the ferry. What's funny is we didn't realize we were at the back of the ferry and traveling backwards. Lol... The smaller ferrys like this asks you to turn off your engines however you can get out and walk around and such. Our first ferry ride made that a requirement. Depending on where you end up being parked on the ferry depends on whether or not you are overcome with exhaust from the boat engines also. The lookout deck up the stairs was a great place to take the binoculars and glass the shoreline we came from and were headed to.

Wife being funny, doing her impression of "What About Bob!"

After getting to Ocracoke your going to be on the north side. Continue down 12 until you get into Ocracoke Village. I found a cool areal shot map at the visitors station where the larger ferry is and the NPS office and such. Also a pic of the whale skull segment outside on display. It was really cool.

We stayed the week at this place. We liked it. As it was across the street from the harbor and on the second floor. It worked out great for us.
As learned a few years ago, one of my greatest travelling tools if staying in a hotel room is my single serve Keurig I received years before from my sister.
We get a box of each coffee we like in regular and decaf and my heavy cream and it beats the stuff in every hotel room for sure. Now I know this isn't fair but it's that touch of goodness we enjoy if we are staying in a hotel for some time. Nothing like a sweaty fun day on the beach, then return for a nice cool shower and cup of coffee before dinner.

 

[Greenbean]

So we unpacked and headed out to the closest beach ramp to see the sands before finding some good food for dinner. This was ramp 72 which is the southern most ramp on Ocracoke Island. We wanted to drive all the way south but the tip was off limits to ORVs due to nesting birds.

On the way back to the ramp to find a dinner place the wife spots this dead fella!

And we found out there are plenty of rabbits in the dunes.

Dinner was at Howard's Pub and Raw Bar. Neat decorations in there.

On Monday the forecast was for clouds all day, and a chance of rain so we decided to take the ferry back to Hatteras and check out the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum and then the ORV beach access ramp 55. We almost went north back up to a place called Bansnight's for dinner. By far the best dinner we had on our honeymoon but decided not to and wanted to get back to Ocracoke.

The museum was pretty wild, looked like it was in process of a refresh but had so much to see and learn about historically. They have a huge Fresnel lighthouse assembly inside and told an amazing story of the loss and recovery of the original. I could have spent hours in there but the wife needed some sand between her toes. Duty Called!

The ORV ramp 55 was right where the museum is so we took it south and went as far as the road would take us. Then it was on foot to the southern most tip where who knew I would find my most prized treasure that I carried back to my truck and returned home to the WNC mountains with. And it in my yard as I type!

Yup, sitting in the sand right there nest to the shore was this!!!!!! At first I couldn't believe it, then realized maybe a fisherman left it or forgot it.
I just realized it was such an eye sore and so I carried it back to the truck and it came home with us. Lol....:Wow1:

This was the ORV beach area closer to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. I need to mention all the beaches were beautiful. You basically just ride around and look for a place you like and pitch your stuff. More on that later.

Tuesday we hit another closer ramp to Ocracoke Village hat has their little airport close to it. It was an awesome quaint little place with no lights or anything. Hence the warning for no night take-offs or landings. :exclaim:

Here is where I used the parking lot to deflate to 22 PSI or so.

Backstory is this: So as the wife and I were motoring around southbound from 4WD via ramp 44 close to Hatteras the day before we saw more and more fisherman on the beach and I came to an end-pass and had to turn around. Well male vanity and pride had me so I hadn't yet deflated and figured my mighty 4cyl Tacoma was king and we would be fine. NOPE, dug and sunk a quick little hole under each stock Dunlop in about 6-seconds while trying to stop and reverse back to head the other direction. Now my window was down the fella next to me on the left was fishing with two friends and had a huge beautiful 2014 or so Tundra CrewMax. A truck I would love to own. And just said, "You aired down?" I replied, "Naw.... Figured I would be stupid and see how far I could go before I needed to. lol..." So out comes the handy ARB tool, courtesy of SouthEast Overland at Expo East in Asheville last year. Down we go and to be easy on the sand I engage low range. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! :safari-rig: Yeah I learned that the hard way and should have been more respectful of the local sands and such and been aired down from the beginning. AND of course after that motoring around was easy and no issues at all.

Our set up on Tuesday was great! Very few folks out there. I learned also there are only two places that open at 7AM for breakfast and if I recall your beach access hours are from 7AM-9PM. The Pony Island Restaurant and Gaffer's Sports Pub. We ate at each one every other morning.

That evening we drove around the village and checked a lot of stuff out. We took random pictures and laughed at the number of cats we saw.
The third pic is a cat on a roof, now the weather was good so no flood was coming but I'll bet he was enjoying the view and/or hunting something lol...

 

[Greenbean]

On Wednesday we ended up at ramp 59 and headed slightly south and planted ourselves for the day. And yes we did fly our shark kite lol...
The beach was absolutely huge...

The nest few pictures are from a half day trip we would highly recommend over to Portsmouth Island. We were boated over with another couple and our
guide and they already have the Kawasaki Mules there, and the guide rides a four wheeler. It was so stinking awesome! We have about 3-4 hours and we followed him miles and miles and learned stuff and gathered awesome shells. Also saw two pods of dolphins off shore, missed a sea turtle by maybe an hour as when we returned back north before being picked up her tracks were over our ATV tracks. It was 90.00 USD per person but it was so worth it. I had a small backpack and a small cooler with ice in it and bottles of water. Came in handy but wasn't needed. Just plenty of bug spray and light colored clothing a must. The funniest thing is what you see on the boat trip over...Yup it's a water slide set up on a sand bar in the middle out there. Our guide Mark said every once in a while someone will throw a barge party out there and people go off the slide and stuff. He reported at low tide it's easily no more then shin deep at the most. Hahaha

Only vehicles you see are those who brought the private ferry over from Atlantic, this guy had a camper set up and such. He was headed north and we later found him set up when we were leaving.

This was from a tall dune and looking West...

Looking South from the same dune peak.

Looking East,

Looking North,

Selfie at the bottom... :victory:

Wife wanted time behind and wheel and I enjoyed taking in the scenery!!!

 

[Greenbean]

Short video I took, words just don't do it justice....



Sea turtle tracks,

This item didn't come home with us but was extraordinary to see, it's the bone segment from under a sea turtles shell. We found it on Portsmouth Island
but i didn't want the risk and/or fine of being charged with presumably killing the sea turtle if caught with it.
Size 14 Croc for size reference.

We got picked up and taken to the life saving station that has been kept up by the park service. He has the key and it was neat being the only ones to walk through it and get the information and knowledge our guide Mark knew. Really wild piece of the coastlines history and such.

Ended up with some good stuff to bring home. They provided some shell bags for us when we started. We had a great time on the half day trip!
Some of the items in the lower left pic anrechunks of sand after it's been struck by lightning. I now have one as a paper weight in my office. They are pretty gnarly looking. Almost resemble coral.

This was our spot on Thursday....
Really secluded section, I apologize I can't remember what ramp we were off of.

Last early morning visit before heading home.

We took the larger ferry for 15.00 USD from Ocracoke to Swan Quarter, It's two hours and forty minutes but was so chill and relaxing I loved it.
My wife sat on the upper level deck and tanned again for over an hour and a half, lol...
The interior seating area was very well air conditioned with booths and outlets if you needed to work from a laptop or the likes.
Take change for a beverage if needed.

SO....

That's it for the most part.

I can't wait to go back as I have a few ideas to make my time there just a little more comfortable.

The next post will be my notes from little things I jotted down for next time that might help or assist anyone else who comes out here with their own four wheel drive vehicle.

 

[Greenbean]

Reserved for notes:

Some things I learned:


Right off the bat I want to mention this, There are a couple bait shops on highway 12 in the village that have free air, however the speed limit from one end to another is 55mph, Now the speed limit in Ocracoke Village is 25MPH. So you see lots of bicycles and golf carts. As long as you didn't ant to head north to the other ramps. You could air down and leave your tires down but your going to be limited to ORV ramps 72 and 70. You could slowly make your way to 68 and 67 where the Ocracoke campgrounds are also. There are two there I believe. The Ocracoke Campground and the National Park Service Ocracoke Campground.

1-I would have taken an actual awning instead of an umbrella, The ability to leave shade and chairs and go run around the beach would have been great.

2-I need a better cooler, not like an electrical unit but one like a YETI, RTIC whatever, we had free ice so I used a smaller cooler with about 8 water bottles in it through the day for both of us.

3-I need either cheap sand stakes or cheap sand weights for the awning.

4-A larger kite next time, it's cool to attach it to your rig.

5-Use older sunglasses, thankfully my beat up RayBans were in the truck and not my new Oakleys, the sands and water spray seem pretty abrasive at times.

6-Better beach chairs, or a type of Zero-Gravity chair.

7-If bringing binoculars which are a wonderful little tool, be sure they have a center focus wheel to allow for close focus, my Steiners are wonderful BUT if the bird comes closer than about 40 feet he is blurry... they are Police models and have the "Sports Auto Focus" which I guess is just their fancy way of saying your eyes do all the focusing you need. They are great for tracking and using for surveillance at night as they are always focused. But the birds would come so close I wish I had had my center focus Vortex binos with me.

8-A sand brush is great as you pretty much will just run barefoot on the beach in and around your vehicle.

9-One walking stick I broke, turns out a cheap set of walking sticks that telescope come in beautifully at the beach, especially when walking through the edge of the surf and sorting shells. A pair of them is even better!

10-I really wished I would have thought to bring a bird book of the birds of either the Carolinas or the Eastern shore. We saw some awesome birds and I hadn't a clue what they were.

11-Better swimming trunks, lol... You end up wearing them a lot because you know your not going to shower until you return before dinner. Mine were old and looked it. Oh well. On that note, light color shirts are a must. I always get stupid and pack my darker shirts for some reason and never wear them. Anything with SPF built in or a type of semi-synthetic fabric would be great also.

12-We were bouncing around so much crossing sand tracks I decided next time to bring a single key to my truck like on a neck lanyard or wrist type lanyard as my whole set made an obnoxious amount of noise being thrown about as we were driving.

13-Maybe an air compressor instead of my CO2 tank. My CO2 tank worked like a charm but it's heavy as a beast. I wonder if a portable unit that hooks to the battery would suit my needs better.

14-Keep an extra little pack of q-tips in the vehicle, sometimes you don't mean to get hit by a rouge wave and if your me and get hit by it. You get water in the ears for the whole trip back to wherever you stashed the q-tips, lol...

15-A pair of Crocs works wonders at the beach...Best if camo!

16-Don't waste your time with aerosol sun screen, ours caused some bad burns and we should have just applied the regular sun screen cream thoroughly and went with that. Now bug repellent: all I can say is use what works for you. The wife and I love the Avon Skin-So-Soft.

17-Want to have some fun, bring along some loaves of cheap white bread, or buns and you could spend hours feeding flocks of all sizes of birds.

18-Toilet paper, toilet paper, toilet paper......!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a newly wed and didn't understand the need for it in my truck and now I do.

19-Maybe some swim goggles, I would have loved to have gotten out into the deeper water and see what was actually on the sea floor.

20-I need a hat with a sun shade built into the rear for my neck, or something like that. My cotton ball cap was just to hot and heavy.

21-This may sound cheesy but a Universal Remote, I had the darnedest time getting the remote to work the hotel TV, we were trying to catch some local weather and turns out after switching out new batteries which I had because I am a flashlight guy and always carry spares I figured out the remote wants a long press? Really...
I have an extra universal remote from back in my older TV days and I could have programmed it quick and be done with it.

22-I use water additives a lot, I've been a Type-1 diabetic for almost 25 years now I guess and though I enjoy diet soda I hate the prices you pay in restaurants for it. So I carry little Mio additives or something of the like. I usually buy what's on sale. Be sure you know exactly which ones you like. Not all are equal, I had some from ALDI and they are nowhere near as tasty as the name brand Mios are. Also one with electrolytes can be very useful if your sweating a lot. I can't drink Gatorade and there is a low carb sports drink but I don't like using all those plastic bottles. I carry a 32oz KydroFlask that is amazing. I got it over a year ago and it fits my larger cup holder in the Tacoma perfect. I found if I filled it completely with ice and just kept adding water through the day I still had ice by the time we were headed to bed.

23-Don't forget your Go-pro, I have a mount on my Birddawg mirror bracket and I removed the camera to be sure it was fully charged and realized it was sitting on the counter in the kitchen still charging as we were an hour into our trip. Proving your own humanity stinks sometimes.


Maybe by next year the wife and I will be in a DC Tacoma and not my AC. Heck maybe even a 4runner! I would love to have an awning bolted to either a roof rack or a bed rack. She really wants me to take her to Portsmouth Island next year and us camp out for 4-5 days. So some needed changes to gear are in order. I am thinking a RTT and a batwing...But time will tell.


Thank for taking the time to read and look at the pictures, It's my beginning and my story. I was telling my wife how great it felt to have my own vehicle out here and her by my side. I know I'll probably never get to do what Kurt, Scott and Clay and them all do but I felt like I was about 2% on the way. Yes my truck had a stock suspension and stock Dunlops but I had my CO2 tank, tires aired down and a set of Maxtrax in my toolbox. I had a shovel and a first aid kit. Civilization was not far away but we had a small adventure together and I am so thankful we did. I got to met Clay, Kurt and Paul back in Asheville during Expo East and I believe they are stand up guys. I want to get to Alaska so bad but realized I also love the beach and so does my wife. We don't need to do a whole lot, we just want to be on the shore chilling out.

So maybe next year we will get to Portsmouth Island and I'll have some more pictures and better videos of an Island that is begging to be explored.

 

[4x4x4doors]

Cool. I absolutely love that area. Although it varies a bit with time, I usually decide the southern point of Ocracoke (imaginatively named South Point) as my favorite. We have contemplated the tour of Portsmought but haven't bit the bullet yet. Do you happen to remember which of the guide services you used?

 

[Greenbean]

Yup, give me one second and I'll let you know.



Ocracoke Outdoors Inc. 252-928-4484 is what's on my receipt.

Remember light colors if you go, mosquitoes like darker colors!

The bugs weren't bad on the beach but in and around the dunes yes.

I had pants with zip on legs and should have had on a long sleeve shirt but wasn't to bad. One of those PFG Columbia shirts with the roll upsleeves would have been the cats meow.

 

[huachuca]

Nice write up and photos; It looks and sounds like you guys had a great trip. Hope to see you on Portsmouth sometime.

 

[skrillah]

Awesome right up, thanks for all the tips. I'm looking to get down there in the next year or two.