Nine months ago, I wrote about a road trip Liam and I took to North Carolina. Our original plan was to travel from Massachusetts to NC, eventually setting up camp on Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Because of hurricane Dorian, police shut down the entrance to the island to non-locals, forcing us to change our plans. This past weekend, we decided to finally finish the trip to our original destination and kite board on the beach of Cape Hatteras. The 7-hour drive from our Chincoteague Island trip was especially long without a working radio, but eventually worth it to watch Liam’s dream come true.
We drove down on a Saturday morning, arriving around 3 p.m. before Liam launched his kite off the tip of the island. I brought a new murder-mystery book to read while he surfed for a couple hours. Eventually, he came back in a bad mood because the winds weren’t strong enough and he was struggling to stay up. To try to change his mood, he asked if we could try to surf with me riding on his back. I thought this was a horrible idea – but it could be fun, potentially dangerous, and would definitely create some memorable moments for the two of us to look back on.
We tried for about 15 minutes before giving up, filming the entire experience on my GoPro. We made it up for about three seconds each time before crashing down into the lukewarm water ocean. Had the ocean been freezing that day, or even mildly cold, I probably would’ve said no. In fact, 15 minutes is the longest time I’ve ever spent in the ocean. But luckily for Liam, the waters of Cape Hatteras were uncomfortably warm – much like a lukewarm bathtub. I have to admit I had A lot more fun than I expected, and neither of us injured ourselves. I genuinely thought one of us would get hurt, but we both managed to crash multiple times without bruising or drowning. He accidentally broke one of the fins off of his board, so I walked back to the shore while Liam continued to solo kiteboard for a while.
This quickly turned into a scare, as Liam’s kite went down for about 20 minutes, maybe a mile offshore. I honestly thought he was drowning, I couldn’t see his head bobbing above water, and the kite was laying flat on the ocean. When I ran over two other surfers on the beach, they brushed me off, saying I was probably overreacting. In hindsight, I was absolutely overreacting – Liam knew what he was doing and would have probably swam to the closest shore had he been in trouble. When he eventually came back, we left covered in salt and sand, hungry and ready to find camp for the night.
Finding dinner was difficult, as Covid-19 new safety regulations are being experimented with among local restaurants. Though it was a Saturday night, it took Liam and I around two hours to find a place that would serve us. We opted for margarita pizza and gas station Pinot Grigio in the makeshift car-bed while we watched an Adam Sandler movie. After the sun went down, we walked to the beach to find as many crabs as we could. Eventually we fell asleep, only to have a Park Rangers wake us up at 1 a.m. – kicking us out of the beach.
The next morning we woke up, still tired, and drove to a small coffee shop called Morning View Coffee in Nagshead, NC that we loved on our previous trip nine months ago. After grabbing some overpriced coffee and breakfast sandwiches, we made our way back to Boston.
Finally, we got some closure on the original Cape Hatteras road trip. Now it’s time to find a new destination to obsess about over for our next adventure!
If you have any follow up questions about Cape Hatteras, please email me at hello@alostblonde.com
♡ Abigail Reagan
Save for Later!
