Outer Banks
So after 10 weeks of travel and roughly 13 weeks of holiday, it was time for a real holiday! I went over to North Carolina with Julia and her family for a week in the sun and surf at the Outer Banks. Pretty much every day was spent lying either on the beach, or at the pool (with a very convenient drinks service) so I emerged from the week as black as the ace of spades with a liver probably twice the size!!
We jumped on a morning flight to Norfolk, Virginia. Expecting the worse at the airport we arrived with plenty of time to spare (2 hours before our flight). After checking in (5 minutes) and running the gauntlet of security (8 minutes) we arrived at our gate! So much for an Orange threat level! The flight was comfortable (I love Macca's and all the other fast food places over here!!! They get the American citizens so fat that airlines need to make economy seats as big as business class to fit them on!) and we arrived in Norfolk on time. A 15 minute walk to the baggage counter was all that stood between us and the beach! Long story short... no bags!!! United forgot to put them aboard our plane and they would be delivered tomorrow!! Bugger... so thats twice this trip. No one wants to catch a plane with me any more for fear of losing their luggage!
Bagless we headed down to the house a 2 hour car, sorry, minivan trip down to the Outer Banks, about an hour or so into the drive Julia's dad got a bit bored so we stopped off for some margaritas and oysters! A bit of a trend for the rest of the week?! We made it to the house and settled in - a task that took about 30 seconds considering the lack of luggage! Then a few beers watching the sunset from the comfort of a hammock! Sensational!!
Monday we headed over to the beach to see what was on offer, a short bike ride (in some borrowed gym shorts) and we made it to the beach. Nice warm day... white sand... gentle Atlantic ocean... nice! After a few rounds of body surfing (with one hand on my shorts - I must have lost weight coz these short did not fit at all!) it was time to investigate the pool. So after a few hours of beers, spirits and cocktails we stumbled back onto our bikes and back home - slightly pink, but somehow able to successfully ride back to the house (must be the practise in Amsterdam).
That was pretty close to how the rest of the week happened. Beach, pool, home for drinks. Being next to the ocean however gave us a great chance to get stuck into some seafood lobster, clam, shrimp (prawns), squid, fish, oysters... it was all there! Yum Yum!! Morgan cooked us up a bit seafood steamer on the Friday which consisted on a bunch of crabs and corn and potatoes and sausage all boiled up in a big steam pot. Yum Yum x 2!!!
So on the Friday, Kevin rented a Jeep and we took off up the 4x4 country over to the top of North Carolina to see some wild horses. After a bit of driving in the soft sand, the sea and "testing" out the machine - heaps of fun! - we found our first flock of wild horses. They were just grazing off the side of the road so with a few handfuls of carrots we made some new friends! These horses though you could tell were from the beach. They all were tanned brown and most had blonde spikey manes... just like surfers! So after chatting to them for a while we took off in the jeep again to explore the area. We had a GPS thingo that gave us a route to follow which we pertty much ignored and zoomed around... until we found a sign that said "Welcome to Virginia" so we got back on the GPS trail and headed back for that seafood steamer I mentioned earlier.
Saturday was our big fishing day! We headed out in a boat called "No Problem" with a captain who introduced himself as "Captain Kirk" - I could not stop giggling after he did that!! Only thing that made me laugh more was when Morgan was near the steering wheel when Kirk was casting some lines out and was told to direct the boat along the shore. We called hiim Captain Morgan! So we had the captain of the USS Enterprise and a bottle of rum driving for the most part! Anyway.. we did a bit of fishing for some Blue Fin "to use as bait". This took about an hour as we didn't have too much luck in one spot. But we tried another and soon had roughly 10 of these guys in the live box. Then it was full speed ahead to a little channel out near the horizon for a spot of shark fishing!!! We chucked a few lines out and within a minute got our first hit. Morgan pulled in a little white-tipped reef shark, then with an abundance of chump and fish oil in the water we started getting a few hits. (See my battle, and me hiding like a girl when Kirk gets him off the line, here!) It was funny cos when we pulled them into the boat, Kirk said, "watch the teeth, just grab em near the head and turn em over, they'll fall asleep!" and they did! I gave mine a little kiss and sent him back on his way. I think Julia hooked the largest one - roughly 3.5-4 foot long, so only babies but they were still sharks!
So a lot of fun in the sun. Ended up with a nice tan and was pretty well fully relaxed by the end of it... A few sore legs from running around with a footy on the sand (and diving into shells and rocks) but a great vacation!!
