Washington, NC redux

Ocracoke was pretty nice and, as Eileen mentioned in her comment, pretty much a tourist mecca.  The local population is about 800, with generally that many or more visitors.  There are a couple of small general stores, some gift shops, and lots of restaurants.  The locals take a couple of free ferry boats to go up to Nags Head for real shopping.  It ends up being about a two hour drive.  The ferries from the mainland take about two and a half hours for $15, and then you still have to drive an hour or so to get to a larger town.  We maybe should have spent the weekend on Ocracoke for the music festival they were having but the anchorage was filling up with not much room to swing.  We got tired of watching the boats try to anchor right on top of us - one boat even put out fenders - and we wanted to meet up with Karl and Treva and their kids for the weekend.  We had a nice sail across Pamlico Sound Friday with 15 to 20 knot winds which diminished in the afternoon.

Karl asked if we could take the family for a sail so we stopped in Bath, NC because it is right off Pamlico Sound so it is closer to go back out sailing.  Saturday afternoon Karl and company drove to Bath and we had a nice sail, followed by dinner at a local waterfront pizza place.  Sunday we motored the rest of the way to Washington, the last 3 or 4 miles being in a narrow channel where you can't sail unless the wind is just right.  We will spend at least another day here, though if we spend the week here there is a music festival next weekend.  We want to visit my sister-in-law and her kids in Virginia Beach but the first weekend they have free is the 17th, 18th and 19th so we're traveling a bit slow right now.  Thankfully the weather has cooled slightly so that it is not quite so hot during the day, only in the mid to high 80's.