“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” – Anne Lamott
The first thing Rebekah and I wanted to do Monday morning was to take a hike on the beach. To occupy that magical, liminal space, walking where the vast seas lap against the shoreline, splashing around that place where we are in the ocean yet still on the land.
The beach has always held special meaning for us – both romance and deep meaning, representing the sometimes indistinct interface between what is known and what is unknown, time and eternity, the present and the future, the sacred and the mundane, what is and what is possible, the ordinary and the sublime.
Falling into each other on the beach at New Smyrna, beauty and possibility at Bedruthan Steps in Cornwall, sand dunes and Hermit Crab races at Fort Pickens, Tongue on the north coast of Scotland, the expansive sands at Saint David’s Head, Mexico Beach, idyllic Saint John’s Island, the remote beach at Saint Andrews Sate Park, Camber Sands on the English Channel, walking the shoreline at Galilee… I could fill a book with examples that stirred our souls and more.
Outer Banks:
The beach here is beautiful. The beach in the sunshine, better. The beach in the sunshine at 71-degrees, perfection.
Max enjoyed being allowed to walk with us, but he was totally surprised at how cool the water is when the first wave caught him off guard.
After lunch we went to see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. We were both disappointed and fascinated to find it in the middle of a massive renovation, obscured by scaffolding.
But this the only moment in history anybody gets to see the original color under all that paint. And the story is fascinating, especially how it was first constructed (in 1870) on a “floating” wooden foundation in water just four feet below the sand and 1999’s dramatic 2,900 ft. move as the shifting coastline brought the sea too close for safety.
From base to tip Cape Hatteras is the tallest lighthouse in the US, standing at 210 feet.
So we explored the site, read everything in the museum, and hiked down to the lighthouse’s original location on the beach.
This must have been a wild and lonely place before any roads and bridges, especially in a storm. Check on the map (below) and you can see that this narrow series of “barrier islands” called The Outer Banks is little more than a vulnerable sand-spit in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
And yet there is a part of me that would love to live out here – or at least be on the edge of the ocean for an extended stay. It would be the perfect place to finish my book.
Anyway. Today is – if the ferry cooperates – Ocracoke Island. Adventures await – DEREK
