Outer Banks & Cape Hatteras

Tuesday 01.06. – Kill Devil Hills / Cape Hatteras / Nags Head (Outer Banks)

At 8 am, I am sitting in my Adirondack Chair (see above) in front of our room and first see three dolphins surfacing and diving again. They are accompanied by pelicans. G. returns from a walk on the beach.

The free coffee from the front desk tastes like colored water. So at 9:30 am we go for breakfast in a pirate pub with an unbelievably kitschy souvenir department at the entrance. Part of the restaurant is completely adorned with Christmas baubles hanging from the ceiling. The restaurant is also decorated with plastic fir garlands and blue lights in the shape of pine cones. The staff wears very imaginative pirate costumes that don't quite match the decorations.

Afterwards, we go to the supermarket in search of something for lunch. The ready-made salad bowls from Food Lion were not convincing, so I decide on honeydew melon and vanilla yogurt. We are back at the hotel at 2 pm. It is still overcast. But I stay under the porch in front of our room in my wooden chair, in front of me the trash can with ice water and my feet. So I read, look at the water, watch pelicans - do nothing. Wonderful!

At 5:30 pm, we drive towards Cape Hatteras, where a very beautiful lighthouse stands. It is almost 60 miles there. The road leads over an endless bridge to the island and then through small towns between dunes.

We reach the lighthouse in the evening light. The sunset at 8 pm initially looks promising, but then there are clouds over the Pimlico Sound and there is nothing else to see.

In addition, the beach or coastline is blocked by houses or vegetation. By the time we have a clear view, the sun is gone. The disadvantage of the East Coast of the USA is that sunsets always take place over land (in the west). Only when - as here - there is a sound between the island and the mainland, do you have a kind of sunset over the water, which is simply always more beautiful than over land.

50 minutes later, we are at Millers Restaurant in Nags Head and for the first time I manage to order grilled fish (Wahoo? Uahoo?) on this vacation. Somehow, there is always only the breaded version here, which kills all taste. But this fish tastes good and at 22 dollars (including a side salad) it is even relatively cheap. The restaurant is almost empty, but also cold and anything but cozy. The waitress annoys us with her overly friendly manner. Already 45 minutes after our arrival, we have ordered, eaten, drank, paid and left.

The evening ends on our illuminated "terrace" with a view of the invisible sea in the darkness in front of us. The hotel is almost empty now. The vacationers from Memorial Day have left. This morning, we could hardly cross the street because of the traffic. Tonight, in the darkness, many houses are dark and uninhabited again. There are many vacation apartments and houses - now temporarily empty again.

There are hardly any foreign tourists here again.