Sit right back and you'll hear a tale........

  It was a pretty nice trip that we took to the Outer Banks.  But it wasn't perfect.

The Rodanthe Pier

On the way down my sister Laura and my BIL got pulled over for speeding.

We had absolutely no luck fishing off the pier.

The kids and my sister got eaten ALIVE by bugs while playing mini-golf.......





Laura, also took the kids for a three hour nature drive in the Alligator River Nature Preserve.  They saw nothing except for an egret and a dead bear.  It does beg the question of what is better seeing only a dead bear or seeing nothing at all?

However our most exciting adventure came on the last day.  My BIL owned a sailboat for several years and was an accomplished sailor,  so he took out a boat for me and our two most intrepid (and youngest) adventurers Mack and Mora in the sailboat pictured at left.

Four passengers set sail that day for a two hour tour.

A two hour tour.......







The weather wasn't all that rough nor was the tiny ship tossed, but the wind was pretty much blowing out straight from where we wanted to go in.  It probably didn't help that this was a new boat for Augustus and he couldn't seem to get us to tack the way he wanted.  After three tacks to get back in things looked a little desperate.  We started for land, and land and hoped for the best.

Captain Scooter (really)

Fortunately this guy came to our rescue.  this is Captain Scooter (I kid you not).  After a few pieces of advice on what we were doing wrong, (which seemed to help not at all) Scooter towed us in.  We were humbled, and a bit windswept.

Krissy thought I looked like Tom Hanks at the end of castaway.  She didn't actually say that, but I'm pretty sure she was thinking it.

 But despite all of the craziness, it was a lot of fun.  I was especially proud of how Mack and Mora kept calm and didn't get too nervous.  they really are great kids.

The funny thing about all of this, is that probably long after all of the excitement fades from this trip and memories become dim,  this crazy boat trip will be the one thing I remember more than anything else.