We arrived in Manteo on Saturday from Ocracoke. Manteo is on Roanoke Island. From mainland NC, it is the way that most folks get to their vacation spots on the Outer Banks.
When we went to the National Park Docks in Ocracoke they didn’t have anyone to help with the lines. That was the morning that Lynnie hurt her back and as the wind was forcing the boat off the dock she was trying her best to get the lines on the cleats and a couple, Mike and Jane, who once owned a 44 DeFever like ours just happened by and asked if they could help with the lines. Yes indeed, please! They were just great and turns out they live in Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks so we made plans to see them in Manteo.
You may remember from your school history that Manteo is the home of the Lost Colony. We called Mike and Jane and asked if they had time to get together for dinner and they did. We had a great dinner across the street from the marina. Mike had on a tee shirt that said ‘If you are lost, don’t ask the locals…they already lost one colony’. Funny. We enjoyed meeting new friends and look forward to seeing them on the return trip.
Manteo is a cool little NC town that, unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures of. That’s because it was so hot and humid that we didn’t go out much. Lynnie did walk down to the Food-O-Rama (yes, that’s right) at 8:00 on Sunday morning and probably lost 3 lbs getting there and back.
We will try to do a better job with pictures on future blogs. Here is one of Rick cooking our first hamburgers on the grill, which we love, on Rickshaw (yum) and of the pirate ship across the way from our marina.
Coinjock is a marina on the ‘ditch’, a man-made access from the Albemarle Sound to Norfolk, that provides quick access without having to go ‘outside’ into the Atlantic. The Albemarle is much like the Pamlico Sound that we traversed to get to Ocracoke. It is a very wide body of water but relatively shallow. So, we needed to get up very early (OK, OK, for retired guys) to get across it before the sun became hot enough to kick up the waves and make for a very uncomfortable ride. When got to Coinjock the thing we needed to do was get a pack of cold beer! Coinjock Marina also has a restaurant that is famous to cruisers for a place that provides a $20 32-oz prime rib!
Tomorrow we leave for Norfolk. More later.
