Hatteras Ferry and Island

Wednesday, August 28 – The next stop on OBX was Hattaras Island, and guess what… we get to take another ferry!  This one is only 30 minutes.  We’ve been using Google Maps as our primary navigation throughout the road trip (a couple of tries using the Apple Maps app proved that it is indeed very inferiors, even outside NYC), so we liked the visual on the app for taking the ferry:

On the way to the ferry, we headed into the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where there is absolutely no commercial development.  Just a road through the dunes.

The Ocracoke-Hatteras ferry is a finely-tuned machine.  At least 3 boats going at once shuttling people back and forth.  Since Sandy is a lover of transportation infrastructure, this was also a fun event!  She thoroughly enjoyed every detail, from driving onto the boat, the bustle of all the boats coming into the dock, and even the seagull on the top of the flagpole.  As we approached the other side, everyone jumped back into their cars and turned on their engines - without even any cue from the crew.  Clearly they were a bunch of regulars.  In the excitement of driving off, Sandy started moving immediately as the car in front of us moved, but she then got a quick reprimand from one of the crew members:  "Stop ma'am!  You need to wait!"  Clearly, we are not regulars.  He made us back up and wait our turn until he let cars off from the other side, we're assuming so that the boat is unloaded evenly.  Lesson learned!