The travel to Ocracoke island in the outer banks of North Carolina requires both car and ferry. Heading out from New Bern, we first take highway 70 east towards Havelock. Havelock is a hideous, pop up kind of place. It is saturated with discount furniture stores, pawnshops, and rusted buildings. It is like a plastic you want to throw away. It is unkempt, transient, almost tragic. The structural misery in this landscape is rust belt resonant. But this drive rewards patience.
We dodge tourist eyeballs and their arteries which nudge towards the commercial beach areas. Instead we hit the back roads of Carteret county. There are country roads with overgrown tree canopies and modest homes. Further patience reveals more gems: bird spangled estuaries, old growth forests, and small coastal villages. This slice of Eastern North Carolina flows like a steady stream of a river tributary towards the Outer Banks.
Along the way there are many bodies of water with alluring tapestries of shimmering light, as if radiant diamonds could be skimmed right off the surface. The aquatic abundance here is majestic and showcases the crystal coast. The drive zigs and zags along routes where telephone poles straddle narrow causeways, connecting the little nodes of miniature sea towns. The occasional Dollar General store ruptures out of the landscape like a zit. We drive onwards to the Cedar Island Ferry where many passengers drive their cars onboard and travel to Ocracoke island on a gradual, two hour charter.
I need to take a hearty piss. The air is desperately muggy walking towards the interior of the ferry. On the exterior of the boat the sun beats relentlessly on doubled lines of parked cars and trucks. I walk along the rocking hull towards the restrooms, pulling open a heavy metal door. The interior of the Ferry is air conditioned. The dark wood paneling of the walls clashes with my khaki deck shoes.
I enter the bathroom stall where my feet must do a crude dance to stay balanced amidst the mercurial tilting of the hull. I then wash my hands with the murky, non potable boat water. This vessel is no luxury yacht, I realize, standing in the corroded intestinal innards of this floating metal machine. But she’s an old reliable workhorse and in some metal plated kind of way, she trucks the persistent swarm of public crowds and the boat crew back and forth from mainland to island with a subtle nobility.
On the way back to the car I see a silver Chevy pick up truck parked in front of us. A little kid is laying in the truck bed with a Mountain Dew. He looks up at his phone, oblivious to his surroundings. A few fishing poles are poking out of the truck bed too, but no fishing occurs. It all manages to look like a familiar, American commercial. That imposing, gas guzzling, automotive presence; high art for the recliner class.
I return to the car where my wife and I spark a quiet rebellion, idling our car to keep cool dodging the occasional directive from the boat authorities to keep the car turned off. We are defiant and as a result; we are comfortable. When the Cedar Island ferry eventually approaches Ocracoke island, curious passengers exit their cars and observe the emerging landscape from the bow of the ship. The lighthouse, the boats, the docks, all come into clean view. The boat moves briefly through the Silver Lake Sound where we ultimately drive out onto the Irvin Garrish Highway; slicing its way through the pleasant island community and then boldly north.