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PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
 Welcome to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Graveyard of the Atlantic. I am enroute from New York to Florida like a lot of other people but I am not a snowbird. I live in Florida and spend the summers in Sag Harbor, and the tour is over and fall is the time to travel. As the song says, “The Coast Is Clear”. Though I have landed out here many times on flights between Florida and New York, this is the first time that I have ever driven the whole length of Route 12 from Kitty Hawk down to Ocracoke. Last year, I took delivery of my veggie burning beach cruiser, which my surf buds out at Ditch Plains christened “The Green Tomato”. She is built for surfing and riding in the sand and there is plenty of that out here and yes you can get grits with your breakfast, which is kind of a cool thing and a rarity amongst other places I go to ride waves. There are other unique things about this string of islands as well.
The Outer Banks first came upon my radar from family stories, because it was just east of Diamond Shoals and Cape Hatteras that the S.S. Chiquimula was becalmed back in 1925, put my grandfather and his family on the brink of starvation, before they were rescued. So, as with a lot of things in my life, luck has played a big part. Somewhere back in my Sea Scout days, I had read a book about Cape Hatteras with its conflicting ocean currents, shallow shoals and hurricane history and knew that one day I had to see this strange and distant American shore.
I first landed here in an airplane somewhere back in the 80’s on my annual trip between Florida and Long Island, back when I did it on pretty regular basis with the intent of attempting to fly the Eastern Seaboard from New York to Florida without ever going above five hundred feet. It wasn’t crossing the Atlantic solo, or racing around the world, but it was a modest goal that I actually accomplished more often than not. The other big deal out here, other than great waves, fishing and miles of drivable sand beaches was the monument to Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk(actually Kill Devil Hills) where Orville flew the first motor powered airplane. Thus, to me, there is no better place to start this travel log, than at that historic and meaningful sight.
 I am a creature of habit, and to me, the birthplace of aviation, is a place worth visiting more than once. In fact, I would say it is more than a photo op, a gift shop visit or buzzing the Wright Brothers Monument in your plane. It is a spiritual place to me, as powerful as Diamond Head or Machu Picchu in that regard. It is a sandy piece of land, where one can stand at the exact spot where man left the planet for the first time, and reflect in these troubled times, on what it means to soar above the earth and go traveling amongst the stars. Those kinds of thoughts are the things that separate pilots from passengers.
I took off this morning from the 23rd Street seaplane dock on the East River in New York. Landing and taking off from the water in New York is demanding flying, but still one of the great thrills for any seaplane pilot. The weather forecast was absolutely perfect and I climbed out over the Williamsburg Bridge, flew by the Statue of Liberty and then headed for the Jersey shore. As soon as I cleared the Verrazano Bridge, I descended to my planned flight level for the trip-500 feet. It is an amazing thing that a lot of people probably don’t realize, but there is a lot of unspoiled shoreline all along the east coast. Thank God for national and state parks because without them, I doubt the view would be as spectacular as it is. We cruised over the Marina and hotel on the inlet at Atlantic City, which I hope one day will be a Margaritaville, with a seaplane base, and then followed the beach south and east towards what is known locally as the DelMarVa Peninsula(see if you can figure out the states it comprises by the abbreviations). We spotted wild horses running on the beach at Assateague Island on the Virginia coast and surf casters and beach walkers in every state were taking advantage of the beautiful fall day. Two and a half hours later, we said good-bye to the tower at the Naval Air Station at Oceana and were over False Cape Bay at the northern point of the Outer Banks. We cruised the beach past Corolla and landed at our destination, First Flight airport, right on schedule for my rendezvous with Chris Dixon, my surf bud and van coordinator who had steered the Green Tomato down from Sag Harbor. Like the thousands of birds I saw along the route, I too was heading south for the winter.
 We took a few photos at the plane and talked about lunch options, praying to find one of those local seafood joints where a cup of chowder a plate of “peel and eats” and a flounder sandwich with tartar sauce waited. But first, Chris had a little surprise for me. I guess you can imagine the shock to my system when I discovered that the Wright Brothers were back at Kill Devil Hills and better yet, were taking people flying. So, me, Chris and his camera headed over to where the boys were giving rides. I know, you think I'm making this up as the Wright Brothers have been dead for a long time, but wait, I have pictures to prove this was not some major senior moment.
Those Wright Brothers were serious pilots and there was no just sitting around waiting for a ride. You had to first become part of the launch team ground crew. Remember, these guys started it all long before the days you could hurl an F-18 from the deck of a carrier with a steam catapult. So, I jumped in alongside Wilbur and did my part in holding the wingtips off the ground till Orville could gain a little airspeed. I guess I did a pretty good job, because the next thing you know, Orville asked me to climb on board with him. Dixon fired on the photos in quick succession. In these days of instant stardom and photo verification of daily life, one must have proof of tall tales. I know that this kind of flying gives my partners, managers, insurance people and certain family members pause to think that I might have a screw or two loose up there, but if you love to fly and there is no adult supervision around, then you too can pull off these kinds of stunts.
Well, it was a glorious day at Kill Devil Hills and I climbed on board and we did a few imaginary turns around the monument. Orville told me that he had heard I was a pretty fair pilot, but since it was the first plane to ever fly, it had a few quirky things about it, so he really couldn’t let me take the stick, but he told me it was perfectly fine if I wanted to do a little wing walking. Hey with Orville Wright at the stick, what could go wrong?
Wilbur was a great sport, and even gave Dixon a ride, but by now, it was obvious that people had seen us fooling around and the text messages and phone camera shots were now out there on the world wide web, so we thanked the Wright Brothers for the ride and wished them well with their new flying machine, but it was November, the days were getting shorter, and we still had our real job to do-meet up with Andy Zimmerman and test out the prototype of the new Osceola fishing kayak. Okay, I know that Orville was really a bronze statue and the plane was resting on poles stuck in the sand, but daydreaming is what used to get me in so much trouble back in school, it is also the thing that got me where I am today.
 Next Stop-The Beach.
Lunch was long overdue after my unscheduled flight with the Wright Brothers and I entered “seafood joints Kill Devil Hills” in my Google phone and up came a list topped by “Awful Arthurs”. I have a little restaurant experience and know that if you are going to call your joint “Awful Arthurs”, then it better be damn good, and it was. We feasted on just what I had wanted and the food was great and after coming so far and doing so much and eating like marooned sailors, I was kind of ready for a nap, but NOOO! We had work to do.
In plotting my trip South, I had found an out of the way old cottage rental at Nag’s Head up on the web, and we bid farewell to our waitress at Awful Arthur’s and cruised back down south along highway 12 following the arrow on the GPS to our resting place for the night. Our “work” was more of a mission, which was to pick up, and test paddle the SUF(stand up fishing) board that Jimbo Meador and I had convinced Andy Zimmerman to build. Andy, had never surfed, but was an expert white water man and very successful kayak and canoe builder who was driving over from Greensboro, North Carolina to the beach and deliver the latest prototype hull to me for testing on my trip. The idea of the board was simple-to combine the uniqueness of two sports-stand up paddling and fly fishing on the flats. I had ridden Jimbo’s down on the Alabama Gulf Coast but now was getting my own. I already had two long boards and an 11 foot Takiama SUP (stand up paddle board) strapped to the sides of the Green Tomato and my trail bike lashed to the back. This was the kind of trip I had built the Green Tomato to do and then there was all the beach driving that is part of the culture of the Outer Banks. Part of our mission was not only to take the SUF board for a paddle out in the treacherous waters of the Outer Banks, but to see if we could pile yet another board onto the van in order to get it to Florida without having to pay a huge UPS freight bill.
 Andy was already there when we pulled in. The cabins were just what I wanted, throwbacks to simple beach houses with real dark wood paneled rooms and rocking chairs on the porch, and just a quick hike up over the dunes to the beach where we could launch the SUF board and catch a few waves, but remember, this is the Graveyard of the Atlantic and danger can be found in the least expected places. Being North Carolina, there was also a basketball goal in the drive way of our rental cottage, and who could have known that the great hoop tradition in the land of Sir Walter Raleigh would become such a problem to a couple of surfers looking to have some fun.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Outer Banks Odyssey and yes, I think there could be a new song or two that comes out of this trip.
-JB
“I enjoy my life as a jester. It seems to keep me moving around” - from Stranded on A Sandbar
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3
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