Hugging the Shore From Back Bay To Bodie Island And Back
by Charles McGuigan Originally published August 2006
The ocean puts me at ease no matter how restless my mind becomes. Its tireless motion, its union with the moon in the tides, and the timeless lap of water and spit of surf, the spilling up of nearly everything in the world from shells and mermaid’s purses to sea rattles and the ancient ribs of tall ships. (I have found coconuts washed ashore as far north as Delaware; the bumper of a VW down by Hatteras; once, an orange duffelbag filled with lingerie at Sandbridge.) Maybe it’s because our distant relations, those many million years ago, stepped out of it to conquer the land, that we are drawn back to it, that Old World, to be reborn, again and again. It rejuvenates, resuscitates, caresses and cures. If you have a deep puncture wound and wade in the surf the saltwater will heal it. If you have a sore throat and gargle with a palmful of seawater your throat will get better in twenty-one minutes. Every conceivable element of the earth is combined in the water of the ocean, for creeks and rivers gnawing away at mountains carry those elements down to the sea to become part of that rich mixture. Even gold and uranium. Plus this: If you settle in the surf and inhale the water with your mouth and swish it around and release it again, every aqueous bit of you, meaning all of you, is instantly linked with every molecule of saltwater in every ocean on the planet. And in turn with every organism from plankton to blue whale to any other human being who may be swimming in the ocean at that exact moment.
At six this morning I arrive at Little Island Park just below Sandbridge. The beach is shrouded in fog and mist and the temperature already well up in the eighties. It’s here I park my car for three dollars a day and remove my bike from the rack off my rear bumper. I travel light with a backpack containing two pairs of shorts, two T-shirts, snakebite kit, first aid kit, beef jerky, almonds, inner tube repair kit, bike tools, a buck knife, terminal fishing tackle, insect repellent, and plenty of drinking water.
Entering Back Bay
Water is the key. This strand of a barrier island is more like a desert than anything else. Last night I froze three quarts of water and before I begin pedaling south toward Back Bay the bottles of frozen water are already sweating in the neoprene enclosure within my backpack. I lash my fishing rod and reel to the tube frame of my bike with a single bungy cord, then head south.
On my right, beyond a hedgerow of wild roses and Virginia creeper, is Back Bay, just slightly brackish at this point. On my left are thirty-foot high sand dunes, and valleys thickly covered with lush vegetation, the remnants of a maritime forest. The bayberries and wax myrtles, the largest of the plants that dominate this stretch, have been sculpted for generations by nor’easters so the branches gracefully curve to the southwest. Beneath the canopy of these bushes, in a crater in the sand, two gray foxes cavort like lovers in the aftermath.
As I enter Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge the air is thickening with humidity and the sun quivers on the horizon, baking away layers of thin clouds. I leave my bike and take a path through the valleys of the dunes just to look at the ocean.
The sky is bruised with lurid purple streaks and the sun has become an apple of gold. A line of twelve brown pelicans navigate inches above the water, heading south. They fly beak to tail feather, gliding mainly, in a perfectly straight row just above the second line of breakers, so close that the sea foam laps their undersides. When one departs from the company, it soars to an altitude of fifty or sixty feet then drops like a rock and penetrates the veil of ocean, re-emerging with a fish from the depths.
Rebuilding Dunes
When Europeans first discovered this area—and it was the Spaniards almost a hundred years before the English—maritime forests lined the Outer Banks of Virginia and North Carolina. Right after permanent settlements grew up on this fragile strand in the 1600s, colonists couldn’t resist clear-cutting the timber—loblolly pine, white cedar, live oak, and in the maritime swamps red maple and cypress. These settlers, after all, were the first developers, and developers more than anything else want to alter an environment, leave it with a human stamp.
The destruction of the maritime forests wreaked havoc on these barrier islands. Dunes flattened, and in some places new inlets broke through. By the late 1800’s almost all dune structure was gone on the Outer Banks, except in those areas where the maritime forests still flourished.
And then in 1908 a man by the name of Nathaniel Gould began planting the seeds of new dunes. He worked down at Bodie Island, driving fence posts cut from the top of pine trees into the sand parallel to the shoreline. The needles of these pines were left intact to capture particles of sand. The posts were driven two feet into the ground and spaced four feet apart. And they worked. When the sand reached the top of the posts, Gould would simply raise them again. Through his efforts, Nathaniel Gould was building dunes thirty feet tall.
A Bounty Of Sea Oats
But for the dunes to remain intact, Gould needed to find some form of vegetation to keep the sand in place, a kind of vegetation that could withstand the severe weather of the Outer Banks. He had read that Boston botanists were using a species of grass called Uniola paniculata for sand dune erosion control and so he ordered burlap sacks filled with the seed. He simply scattered the saw-tooth seeds on the dunes and the wind-blown sand quickly covered them. The grasses took hold, stabilizing the dunes.
The dunes just behind me are covered with the same species of coastal grass that Gould planted on the Outer Banks a century ago. They’re called sea oats and are as ubiquitous along these southern shorelines as ghost crabs. In the mid-1930s, FDR, as part of his Civilian Conservation Corps, sent 200 young men to the Outer Banks. Their mission was to rebuild the sand dunes using the same method Gould had created. When the CCC left Virginia and North Carolina in 1942, 142 million square feet of dunes planted with sea oats and other native grasses had been reclaimed. What’s more, the men and women of the CCC planted 2.5 million seedlings and shrubs behind the dunes to help restore maritime forests.
Wild Pigs & Coquinas
After returning to my bike, I proceed down the one of the dike roads. On either side of me are deep ponds laden with aquatic vegetation that will feed tens of thousands of migratory birds in the fall and winter, a smorgasbord for the weary, winged travelers who take up residence here every year. Further along this gravel road a tunnel appears in a wall of greenery. It leads me into the heart of a maritime forest. For the next couple miles, I periodically hear noises in the underbrush, heavy scuttling and can see the wake of what is traveling below the greenery as the leaves tremble. I spy one feral pig, which squeals and grunts just like its domesticated cousin, but the boar seems more afraid of me than I am of him. These wild pigs were left behind by farmers who had settled the area two centuries ago, and the pigs are now abundant here, moving out onto the beaches at night to forage for food.
As I reach False Cape State Park, I cut over to the beach at Barbour Hill. The surf is laid down. It’s still an hour or so before low tide and the sand at water’s edge is firm, hard enough to support the bike. Resistance is minimal at this point. I clip along at a steady pace southward riding with the wind at my back and the temperature has already reached ninety.
Three miles down the beach I stop for a swim, shedding my clothes, which are already sweat drenched. My feet feel through the slurry of sand at the shoreline, my toes tickled by small burrowing clams, coquinas, no larger than human teeth and lustrous white with streaks of various colors—purple, orange, blue, yellow, the hues of sunrises and sunsets. There are millions, billions, of these small creatures living in this very narrow strip of beach, colliding with the sand fleas, which also burrow near my feet.
I run back for my fishing rod, tie on a snap swivel and clip on a top-and-bottom rig then reach down for a pair of fat sand fleas that softly scratch at my clenched palm. I bait the hooks, wade out past the first line of breakers to the sand bar and move out to the edge then cast into deep water. Within ten minutes I’ve got two large croakers, better than two pounds each. I eviscerate them, behead them, flick away their armor of scale with my filet knife, then toss head and entrails to a group of seagulls waiting patiently on the shore. I let the ocean clean the fish and let them soak in it for awhile to absorb the salt, then place them next to the cold water in my backpack.
Wash Woods, VA
Toward the southern tip of False Cape, I move back over the dunes and out of the sun. Beneath a canopy of trees there is a small graveyard and next to it a church steeple. They are all that is left of Wash Woods, Virginia.
Up until 1920, Wash Woods was the most southeasterly town in Virginia. It was home to about 300 people, and included a grocery store, two churches, a school and a U.S. Coast Guard Lifesaving Station.
It is said that the community was started by a number of survivors from a shipwreck back in the early 17th century, which is not hard to believe. False Cape was so named because mariners often mistook it for Cape Henry to the north at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Mariners unfortunate enough to make this mistake often ran aground on the treacherous shoals here. This is, after all, the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Since 1526, more 2,000 ships have sunk along this stretch of shallow waters from Cape Henry in Virginia to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina.
The early residents of Wash Woods simply waited for a shipwreck and then collected cedar and cypress from the holds of the ship, lumber which had been cut from the maritime forests and was destined for Europe. Of cypress and cedar these early settlers built their village by the sea. And ironically, it was the cutting of trees that washed Wash Woods from the map. When the maritime forests disappeared, and the dunes dwindled, there was no buffer against the fury of the Atlantic. By degrees the village was inundated by sand, which gradually covered every structure. In the early 1930s even the heartiest citizen of Wash Woods had left the village for the mainland.
Wild Horses & Carova
When I return to the beach, a group of horses have gathered, four of them, an entire family—a stud, a mare, two foals. Their coats are chocolate brown, manes almost black. These are the direct descendants of Barb horses bred in the then-Spanish colony of Puerto Rico and brought to the Outer Banks by conquistadors in the early 16th century. When the Spaniards forsook the colony in North Carolina they left many of the horses behind. Recent genetic testing has confirmed that many of these wild herds that call the Outer Banks home are descended from the Spanish mustangs.
As I walk my bike toward the surf, the stud approaches me, moves back, moves forward, his family to his rear. He snorts, neighs, stomps the sand, shakes his, and I slowly pedal to the south. When I look behind me I see all four horses galloping north along the beach, their hoofs barely touching the incoming surf.
Just across the North Carolina line, above the dunes I can make out a number of summer houses. It’s the village of Carova. And just below Carova I encounter another wash woods. But this wash woods is made up of old tree stumps standing right in the surf, remnants of a maritime forest. It is eerie to behold and I ride my bike right into the surf and ride in among the tree stumps and roots.
After several miles I encounter another village. This one is called Swan Beach and it is even smaller than Carova. From here to Corolla the beach is a virgin strand, innocent of development. I find a large steel buoy, twelve feet tall, washed up on the beach, still upright.
Making Corolla
The riding is becoming more and more difficult with the rising tide and by the time I reach Corolla I am out of water. I take a quick tour of the Currituck Beach Light Station at Corolla. The exterior walls are unpainted brown brick to distinguish it from the other lighthouses that dot the Outer Banks, each one painted with distinctive markings in black and white. This lighthouse, a very Victorian structure, was commissioned in 1875, filling the dark void on the Outer Banks between the Cape Henry Light to the north and the Bodie Island Light to the south. It stands at a height of 158 feet and its beacon can be seen 20 miles offshore. I climb the 214 steps and get a bird’s eye view of the Outer Banks. To the south I can see a continuous line of development and to the east and west water. I start south again for Duck where I'll stay the night in the home of a friend.
Even after replenishing my water supply two times I am dry as a bone by the time I make it to Pine Island. I rest for a while in the shade of a live oak at the entrance to Pine Point, a subdivision of large beachfront homes. These houses rise high above the dune line obscuring any view of the ocean and seem as out of place here as skyscrapers might be built on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
There’s a breeze coming off the sound, shattering the monotony of the heat, fracturing, if just for a moment, the dense humidity, and offering a shield against the dull hammer of the sun. I’m sweating out the water out as fast as I can drink it in. I eat almonds, chew some beef jerky, drink down another quart of water.
Re-invigorated, I pedal the last eight miles quickly and settle in the small house in Duck. The house on Plover Drive is modest, tucked in among pine trees and wax myrtles. As I open the front door, icy air embraces me and lures me inside. I remove the croaker fillets from my backpack and broil them with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice, and head over to the Sunset Grille for a gin and tonic, and then to bed.
To Bodie Island
I get an early start the next morning and again make my way south.
I pedal through Duck and into Southern Shores and as I do the houses become more and more modest and people down here are actually outdoors, riding bikes and walking. I pick up Virginia Dare Trail at Kitty Hawk and head south toward Bodie Island.
Most of this section through Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nagshead, at least along the beach road, is unchanged. There are restaurants and small shops, and motels with names like the Buccaneer, the Tar Heel, Pirate’s Cove, Blackbeard’s and so on. The homes, in the main, are modest and therefore unobtrusive. I make it to Bodie Island a little after noon. The lighthouse here is architecturally identical to its sister at Corolla, only this one is painted with broad bands of black and white. You are not allowed to climb the tower, but nearby there is a lookout that presents excellent views of the salt marshes where I see a number of snowy egrets stabbing their bills into the shallows as they wade through the muck on their impossibly slender stilt-like legs.
I’m feeling restless. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to return to Sandbridge by which time I will have logged about 130 miles. Instead of taking the beach road I make my way north along the By Pass. I feel that I’ve missed something and the hours in the day are drifting away. I have a platter of real North Carolina barbecue at Pigman’s—no rolls, just shredded barbecue and a large glass of iced tea. I ask the cashier about other places worth seeing in the area. He names off a few spots: Jockey’s Ridge, the North Carolina Aquarium, Wright Brothers Memorial, the Elizabethan Gardens. I’m shaking my head. A waitress appears at the register and hands the cashier a check.
“Have you ever been to Nags Head Woods?” she asks me.
I shake my head.
“You ought to see it. It’s not like any other place around here.”
The road into the Nags Head Woods is a stone’s throw from Pigman’s Barbecue. This is a maritime forest in all its splendor—1,400 acres protected in perpetuity thanks to the Nature Conservancy.
As soon as I enter the woods, I feel a weight lift. This forest is as thick as any in the Piedmont and the variety of species that inhabit it are staggering. There are more than 300 plant species alone. Because of the habitat, these woods can support northern and southern varieties of vegetation. There are only four known places in the world quite like it, making it extremely rare. It’s ringed and protected from the harsh ocean elements by a ridge of ancient sand dunes, some of which are 90 feet tall. The dunes absorb rainwater and slowly release it to the aquifer, and the swamps and the dozen or so freshwater ponds in the Woods.
Pine Warblers & Spartina
I spend the next six hours on foot wandering through the Nags Head Woods. I spot swift fence lizards and anoles, green tree frogs and spotted salamanders. I see white-tailed deer, and river otters down by the shoreline. Not to mention the snakes and a wide variety of birds, including this small yellow variety that I mistake for an American goldfinch, only to learn later that it is a pine warbler.
And there are so many different kinds of trees here—loblolly pines and live oaks, of course, but there are also red maples, gums and a kind of willow that grows tall and straight and is devoid of branches and leaves except for the part that rises above the canopy of surrounding trees. I walk among sweet grass and along a ridge covered with wild blueberries.
As daylight drains out of the world, I make my way over to the sandy shore of Currituck Sound. To my right is a salt marsh blanketed in spartina.
Oyster on the Half Shell
The Sound changes color from silver to deep rose, and then I run back to my bike and return with my backpack and start wading into the water. To the north a thunderhead is moving across the Sound, but in front of me the sky to the west is crystal clear as the sun begins to set. A thumbnail clipping of a moon rises.
Through the thin soles of my boat shoes I can feel what I’m looking for. Even now, a hundred yards off shore, the water barely covers my calves. When the water reaches my knees I feel clumps of oysters and reach my hand into the darkening water and carefully pluck a small cluster and put it in the mesh pockets on the face of my backpack. I gather a few more clusters, but still I walk toward the mainland, away from the Outer Banks.
At a mile and half out the water is still shallow, just up to my hips. Behind me, I can barely make out the shoreline of the Nags Head Wood, and in front of me the shore of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge where the red wolves live is becoming more pronounced. The crescent moon casts a sliver of light on the surface of the Sound.
To my right I look at the bank of storm clouds well to the north and then I see round flashes of light coming from the center of those clouds. There are no streaks of lightning, there is no clap of thunder, just bursts of yellowish-green light that bloom like flowers and dissipate in the wink of an eye. I am still walking west and then I take another step and do not touch bottom and am suddenly afloat in the Sound. I manage to find the shallows and then make my way back to the shore of the Nags Head Woods.
Sitting on the sand beach, I peel back the blade of my buck knife and begin shucking the oysters, one at a time, slurping them out of their shells, enjoying the burst of seawater as my teeth come together. I am mesmerized by the display in the clouds, a constant explosion of light, but still no noise. Suddenly there is noise, like a thousand slaps, like the applause of small creatures. The rain comes across the Sound and it falls in torrents and I am soaking from toe to head before I make cover under a five hundred year old live oak where I sleep till first light.