We made the right choice in coming to one of the National Seashore campgrounds.   We are at Frisco, one of four campgrounds maintained by the National Park Service.   The sites are well spaced and separated by dunes and natural vegetation.   The views from the upper sites are magnificent, and the lower sites are just a short boardwalk from the beach.   There is endless open beach to walk on, collect shells, surf, and even drive if you have 4WD.

Of course, this all comes at a price, and I don’t mean dollars.   The “price” is some slight inconvenience.   There are no hookups, and no dump station.     This means we have to be very careful with our water usage if we want to stay a while.   We have not had access to a dump station or electricity since we left Santee State Park three nights ago.

So we are using the campground showers, which feature only cold water.   I tried them today and found that pulling the shower rope over my head resulted in a powerful inundation.   It’s refreshing to say the least.   Looking on the bright side, it gets the job done, and the cold water motivates you not to waste any.

The key to survival is to time the shower for the hottest part of the day.   Since it’s currently not exceeding mid-70s here at any time of day, that means a limited window of cleansing opportunity. But this sort of inconvenience has kept the crowds away from our campground.   They are at the many RV resorts in the area, where they can get full hookups, a game room, mini golf, a pool, laundry, etc.   While those things are useful when you need them, we came here prepared to go without, specifically so we can stay here.

Electricity is no problem this time of year. The sites at Frisco have no overhanging shade trees, the days are long, and we don’t need the power-hungry furnace at night.   Our two solar panels are producing much more power than we need.   This morning we were fully re-charged before noon.   Of course, if some weather moves in we would have much lower power generation, but we have enough battery capacity to ride out a couple of cloudy days.

Anyone who wanted to stay here in an RV could do as well as us even without a gray water holding tank or solar panels.   A simple “blue boy” external wastewater holding tank, and a quiet Yamaha generator would do the trick.

The first stop of our travels today was the iconic Hatteras Lighthouse.   Everyone takes the same picture of the thing, and most of them are awful.   It’s hard to photograph a really tall object (lighthouse, redwood tree, skyscraper) and end up with a photo that makes visual sense and looks interesting.   I played around with it a little, but there wasn’t much satisfaction in it. I’d rather shoot photos that are more evocative, and a big stack of painted bricks just doesn’t do it for me.

We were surprised to find that the National Seashore has a Junior Ranger program, which of course Emma had to do. It’s a pretty easy one, so she snagged her badge before lunchtime.

Everything is expensive on the islands, especially fuel.   Now I regret passing up those gas stations in mainland North Carolina selling unleaded at $3.69.   Here it is running as high as $4.07.   But I was particularly offended by the local campground that refilled my 30# propane tank last night and presented me with a bill for a whopping $43.20!   That’s six bucks a gallon, plus tax.   When I commented on the outrageous price, I was told, “Gas is expensive. Everything costs.”   For comparison, the current price in Richmond VA is $4.50 per gallon.

One of the activities on the island is to go to Hatteras Harbor when the fishing charters come back, around 4:00-5:00 pm, and see the catch.   It’s a small show, watching the proud fishermen posing with their yellow fin tuna, king mackeral, wahoo and dolphin (not the porpoise type, but a fish).   The fish sometimes cleaned right on the boat, and others are cleaned & frozen at a nearby hut.

I took a lot of photos today from all over Cape Hatteras, more than I can fit into the blog, so there’s a new Flickr photoset online if you want to peruse that.

Our final activity of the day was to hit the beach.   Yesterday it was too windy, but today things are much calmer.   Two boardwalks stretch from campground to beach, so access is easy.   The surf is still much too high for swimming, but there’s some shelling, some birding, and lots of space to just walk and breathe in the salty air.   If you look closely, there are a lot of little things to occupy one’s attention.

We bought two nights   at Frisco when we arrived, but clearly we are going to need more time to explore the area.   Other than the water limitations, we have no reason to leave.   There aren’t any mosquitoes at all, I’m able to work conveniently from the Airstream, and we are in a nice spot at a cheap price.   Tomorrow morning I’ll pay for a couple of more nights, and then we may move up the coast.