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We caught up with them Thursday morning, as the crews were preparing for what looked to be a rainy trip up the Neuse to New Bern. They were especially particular about strapping down their gear. It was borne of experience: the first year they tried to reach Ocracoke, the ‘Rebecca Ann’ got rolled in the waters about a mile off of Cape Lookout Lighthouse. All their gear went over, and a radio and tiller never came back up.

The people watching on the beach Doug says, seemed to be in two camps. Those who thought the Coast Guard should be called to rescue them, and those who had heard the crew say earlier they were on an adventure and so, “‘let them be.’” The last camp won out. Their friends in Sara eventually dragged them to shore and they “crawled up the beach.” They had a new tiller made in Harker’s Island, but it didn’t quite work, and the trip to Ocracoke that year was scuttled.

The crew of ‘Sara’ secures its gear. Bonnie supervises.

Last weekend, they set out on another – their third — quest to reach Ocracoke.

They trailered their boats to Cedar Island, where they camped Saturday night. The plan was to sail to Portsmouth Island, which is just across the Ocracoke Inlet from Ocracoke. But on Sunday, gale winds were blowing, a little too much for their open boats and crew.

So they took the ferry to Ocracoke on Sunday and stayed just a bit to savor the place they’d been trying to reach for three years. The next day, Doug says, they got the last ferry from Ocracoke to Swanquarter, with the wind coming right out of the west. They trailered the boats to Belhaven, put them in the water there and set out Tuesday with north winds blowing hard, four foot waves. They got to Little Bear Creek east of Vandemere Tuesday night and then came down the ICW Wednesday to Oriental. They were taking a jaunt up to New Bern on Thursday and thinking about how they would get back to their cars.

The ‘Rebecca Ann’ departs.

They drew a small crowd — this being Oriental — for their departure Thursday. A man from an adjacent boat called out that they had “the smallest carbon footprint”. (Doug Stark responded that that the man was only saying that because he hadn’t seen their cooking.)

Bonnie flies over the ocean. Or at least a foot or two of Oriental harbor water to get in to John Fairfield’s boat, ‘Sara’. The dog has been known to lean in to the rower on every stroke.

The ‘Rebecca Ann’ left first, then the ‘Sara’ took off — twice — because Bonnie had leapt to shore at the last minute and had to be retrieved.

Rowing out. The ‘Sara’ and ‘Rebecca Ann’ in Oriental Harbor as the four friends set out, in the rain, for New Bern. They hoisted sails outside the breakwater.

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Posted Friday May 16, 2008 by Melinda Penkava

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