Waves on Hatteras Island.
Recently, we were talking about celebrating our fifth year anniversary with the adventures in Hatteras Island with the storms of Ida and the Nor’eastern. We had taken the accessible van we had rented a few miles north, supposedly to higher ground. When we realized we would be evacuating by ferry, we knew we would have to retrieve the van. I called the Island Taxi, who called just less than a mile from our van saying the flooding was too bad. She turned around and headed back.
We knew we needed to get the van so we could get on the next ferry evacuating off of the island, so immediately, I changed clothes and dug out Barton’s water shoes- thank God we brought them! Barton made me take my cell phone and watched me from the balcony as I began the hike through the water-covered streets to pick up the van.
Overwash on the roads.
At that moment, the rain had stopped, but the wind was still pretty fierce. Several times I stopped, thinking there were sirens going off, but then realized it was only the wind. I climbed the washed banks of the dunes, navigating a path along the side of the road.
Every so often Barton would call me on the cell- how are you doing? He would tell me about cars or obstacles I needed to navigate through. I got focused very quickly- the faster I walked, the sooner I would get there.
Several days before, we walked the same path, and I would calculate how much further I had to go by landmarks we had passed the previous day. We had also picked out small little round briers from Bear’s feet. Twice I walked through these patches, and picked the briers off of the water shoes and my ankles.
Man O'War littered the beach after the storm.
Also, jellyfish were blown in onto the beach from the storms. Not realizing why my ankle was stinging, I later found I had been stung by a Man O’War, nasty little buggers.
As I got closer to our van, I get somewhat concerned because I was walking what I was going to be driving back through. On the other side of the street, a wooden cross bridge was not floating in the road. Yet, I knew I couldn’t stop.
Why am I including this fun little escapade in our blog? There were so many lessons we took from this. We knew what we needed to do and wasted no time getting ready and were focused on doing what needed to be done. We didn’t pay attention to what other people said or thought, we just got on the path and did what we needed to do. We are both still learning how to apply this lesson in other areas of our lives. Barton had my back- he watched me the entire way and called to check in and to give a head’s up on what I needed to watch out for.
Crashing Waves in the Wind
Was my life in eminent danger? Maybe not. But who knows what was around the corner. The metaphor of the storm is one we are still processing. We were full of awe at the power of nature, every time a wave would crash, we couldn’t help but just feel so humbled.
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