Wheelie good fun in Ocracoke

There is an island halfway between Key West and Nantucket in nature and atmosphere.

Ocracoke on the Outer Banks is still truly an island. Unlike Hatteras or the other islands, it can only be reached by ferry, and there isn't a whole lot of land to go around.

Only 14 miles long, it was mostly sandbar except for its southern point until the Park Service tried to save its beaches by constructing giant dunes. The Park Service took over most of the island when the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was created in the 1930s, though the island is in a completely different county in N. Carolina than the islands above it or below it. (In fact it is the richest town in its county, but the people are bitter because they pay the highest taxes than any other residents and get few to no services. Hey, they're an island. It's hard to get basics like trash pickup. It has to all go to or come from the mainland.)

We went at the end of the off season, which was good for us since we hadn't reserved anything. The island has only 800 year round residents, but a lot of rental houses and hotels that fill up quickly during the summer. It's best to reserve ahead of time if you plan to visit between Memorial Day and Labor Day, or you'll find yourself stuck.

They have a National Park Visitor's Center that can help you with everything (the park service workers are all locals so they know the place intimately). They also offer tours about shipwrecks, the lighthouse, pirates and more for free. The Park Service visitor's center is in the village next to the Coast Guard Station and ferry docks. The Coast Guard Station, is no longer in active use since 1996.

The locals consider the tourist draw a blessing and a curse. Many work two to three jobs during the summer and take off for the winter season. But those jobs help them keep their homes, which many have been priced out of in the recent land speculation that caused the housing bubble.

Even today many houses are listed around half a million. (But if you don't mind buying a house to fix up, the Ocracoke Conservation Association is selling two historic houses for around $200,000. Cheap by island standards.)

So what does this have to do with scooters?

Well, the streets are narrow and many aren't paved (they're sand with oyster shells), but scooters are a great way to get around. The business and residential area is 1,000 acres and not all of it can be fully developed (there isn't enough potable water).

So you don't really need a car to get around unless you are carting something. Most of the hotels rent bicycles, but there is a shop at the pier next to SMacNally's that rents scooters called "Wheelie Fun". It did look like someone had been driving them drunk. The front fenders were all bent and cracked. They use Honda Metropolitans.

I did see other people with tricked out scooters who must live or work there because they had meaty jams and were stylin some pretty fancy paint.

We didn't go for the scooters to get around on simply because they were expensive. (Nothing there is cheap because it all has to be shipped in.) They ran about $30 an hour. Yes, an hour.

When you are staying for a while (we were there about a week) I'd opt for the bicycle rentals at the Pony Island Hotel. It's one of the older hotels on the island and is on Route 12, which becomes the main street running through town to the harbor and ferry. Those rentals only cost $2 an hour and you could rent them for $30 for the week.


Cars are a pain on an island that small. There really is no place to turn around, the speed limit is 25 mph or less (there are people EVERYWHERE so you really have to be careful driving through town).

We rented the bikes for one day, after we got rained out of our tent and stayed at the Pony Island (Nice hotel, cheap rooms, owned by a local. Not all hotels on the island are.). It was great to leisurely ride around and not worry about parking. People don't care that you park your bike someplace but good luck finding someplace legal to park your car.

A lot of people use golf carts as well, but there's something so vacationy about riding your bike, and it's the preferred choice of islanders. (There was only one gas station, but they took it out to upgrade it and might be out all summer. You only can get gas after a ferry ride to either Hatteras or the mainland now. They warn you at the ferry to make sure you have a full tank before you get on for Ocracoke.)

Many may say there is little to do on the island. It was a fishing port and entrepot. Ocracoke, and it's neighboring island, Portsmouth (now a ghost town), were founded by an act of the state Legislature after they had too many shipwrecks from vessels trying to get through the inlet into Pamlico Sound. Even today you'd better know the area before you go sailing. The sandbars like to shift around.

An entrepot is a harbor where large vessels dock and transfer their cargo to smaller ships to get it through shallow waters to mainland towns. Portsmouth was a popular, populated seaport in the 1700s and 1800s until new inlets farther up the Outer Banks opened up after hurricanes in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The shipping traffic went north, leaving the island towns with only fishing opportunities, but those soon died out as new, faster ways to catch fish and get it to market cheaper took over. Ocracoke first started as Pilot Town, which was located around Teach's Hole, a small sound east of the current village.


(A view of Teach's Hole, though it would have looked much different in the early 1700s when Teach put in there to party with his crew.)

The area once occupied by Pilot Town is now called Springer's Point and it is a preserved area for birds. There is a footpath you can take down to the "hole." and it gets pretty creepy. Some of the island's oldest trees are there and there are still graves, old graves, hidden in the underbrush off the path (don't go looking for them, it's discouraged) and there are old rain cisterns from the houses that used to be there still in the area. The townsfolk believe it to be one of the oldest, most haunted places on the island.


Many of the families that lived on the Point were called pointers and the other half of the islanders were called Creekers. It wasn't until the Coast Guard came and filled in the tidal creeks that separated the islanders and built a road that everyone began living near the harbor. (If the bugs on Portsmouth were any explanation, I know why they stayed away from the marshy harbor. Painful biting flies.)

Our walk to the point was quite cool yet eerie. There is a nature tour with little plaques along the way explaining the local flora, and it's a sandy trail until you get to the highest point of the island which has a large, old oak tree on it, and then you see a grave site. It's the grave of Sam Jones, who had two wives and owned the point, but was buried with his favorite horse Ike. Sam was a transplant who built two of the biggest houses on the island at the time. One is still called the mansion. But he lived on the point.

We took a ghost tour and the guide, the last of the Howard family, directly related to the first owner of the island, William Howard, who is thought to be the same William Howard who served as Blackbeard's Quartermaster before Blackbeard was killed on the island, told us that one of Sam's friends saw quite a frightening sight when he went to visit Sam's grave and clean up the area one night. Apparently it was his habit to go and keep the point in shape before it became a protected area. Kids used to go out there and drink. So this friend, Roy, took his boat around to Teach's Hole and came in on the path from the beach. (Seen in the picture above.)

As he came down the shadowy path, he saw a man sitting on the old cistern opposite Sam's grave. This man seemed funny to Roy and was dressed in old-fashioned clothing. Roy stopped and felt odd, so he decided to head back to the beach. As he started walking he heard someone behind him. When he turned around he saw the man on the cistern was coming up the path after him.

Roy began to run at this point, and when he got out to the beach, he jumped in his boat and started paddling. When he turned around he saw the man come out on the beach and walk into the water, and then he dissipated into mist.
The ghost tour really was worth staying for and we did, spending our last night in a campground at the very first store in town, where the gas pumps were. We would've stayed again at the Pony Island but they were booked up for a wedding. Odd thing is the next morning, we decided to go out to the beach one last time, and as Ed flew his kite, what happens but a wedding party comes on to the beach and got married.

Then, when Ed and I went into the water and were getting ridiculously tumbled around by the rough waves, they decided to move down to where we were and take pictures. I guarantee there is a shot with Ed and I being dragged down by the waves with weird looks on our faces in those wedding photos.

There are several places and activities I highly recommend to anyone interested in going to Ocracoke. You can, of course, go surfing, parasailing, or kayaking, renting equipment or buying lessons at one of the surf shops downtown. But you can also head out to Portsmouth Island, which we did. We took the boat tour on the dock next to Kitty Hawk Kites. There are several of these stores the length of the Outer Banks, and they have some pretty cool stuff.

They really want you to reserve for these boat rides and they need at least 3 people to go to the island because of the cost of the fuel. It runs $20 a person, but the captain will also take you past any site in the area you want to see. He took us around to Beacon Island, which once house a fort and a lighthouse before it was consumed by the waves. Oddly the sandbar that is left was visible and above water when we drove by, which Capt. Ron said was really unusual. He'd never seen it.

The island is interesting. The houses are kept in good shape by the Park Service and there are displays in some of them. I don't advise walking off the main path. We made the mistake of going to the school house and were subsequently attacked by swarms of yellow and black biting flies. (I'm still suffering from itchy bites a week later. We had bug spray and it did nothing. But they don't follow you into the houses. We don't know why.)

We ended up running down a forested path thinking we could get away from them. (The other paths through the village are flooded by the tides and you will see little holes in the sand made by little ghost crabs. I saw one scurrying away from me into the marsh. The marsh is also full of baby fish.)


Unfortunately the flies followed us all the way to the old grass airstrip, and we were beating ourselves senseless with our hats trying to get them all off. The only park ranger on the island came riding by on an ATV and waved as we went running past screaming. Some help he was.

The life saving station is quite neat, and you can climb up to the tower and look out to Ocracoke.

We headed for the beach after leaving it hoping to get rid of the flies. Eventually we reached a wide, flat sandy area with strong ocean winds that swept the flies away. But it was a long walk around to the pickup point for our boat.


If you want to find some really awesome shells, I highly recommend heading straight for Portsmouth's beach. It's known for what washes up on it's shore: large, complete shells. Don't waste your money buying them in tourist shops. Go to Portsmouth. You can find some beautiful shells to make jewelry out of with naturally bored holes in them. Some looked like gold.

The first thing I found on the beach, which is about two miles from dunes to the sea, was half a sand dollar. Then I found a perfect one next to it. It had purple spots on the back and looked awesome, but it broke in my hand when I picked up another shell.

I wanted to look for more, but Ed was so worried about missing the boat we rushed down the beach to the pick up spot.

The beach is a real lesson in tidal islands. There are tidal pools where the birds hovered around to eat the small fish that had recently hatched. When the beach floods again the fish will be swept out to sea where they will grow larger.

The sand was carved into strange patterns by the winds and waves, and there were shell "pools" all up and down the beach.

I also recommend hanging out at SMacNally's marina on Silver Lake, which is the name of the harbor in the middle of town. You can get great burgers or seafood there and watch the boats come and cut up their fish. It's not fancy, but it's good.


I also recommend Diajio, which is down the street and has a great bar opening onto a courtyard with trees and tropical plants overshadowing it.

Then there is Zillie's, which is the local wine bar on Back Road which offers a 5 for $15 wine tasting Wednesday's at 6 p.m. They ask you reserve. We showed up but just bought a bottle of wine and hung out on their balcony. The building is three stories and has porches on the second and third floors with brushed metal tables that are great to hang out at. We met a nice couple from Chicago who'd been going to Ocracoke every spring for 10 years. They recommended the ghost tour that leaves from the Village Craftsman shop on Howard Street.

We also loved the coffee shop on Back Road, but there is also a great pastry shop on the main street as well.

The park service campground is the cheapest, but there are two others on the island, one off Back Road and the one off the main street. I'm not sure either has a real name, and one of them was for sale. They mostly accomodate campers who hang around for quite a while or leave their rigs there.

The only thing I regret is not finding some flotsam. Our ghost tour guide said the locals really like to skim the beaches. Considering most of the wood for their houses came from shipwrecks I can understand why.

Our first day in Ocracoke, we went to the beach and looked around for anything that might be interesting. Ed found a piece of what must've been a ship. But we left it on the beach. You can find some really interesting things out there I'm sure, and it was a rough sea. I was hoping to find doubloons, but our ghost tour guide said that the area near the campground was the site of the wreck of the steam ship Home in which 90 people died. She said she didn't like to go to that beach because they buried the dead in the sand, and sometimes people found pieces of human bone there.

I don't know if any beach on the island could be considered ghost, or shipwreck free. It is one of the worst for them. But I think that's one of the things that make it worth visiting.

If you are heading north on your way home, don't forget to stop at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. I wanted to but we didn't have time.


Next time, when we return. And I won't wait another 10 years. The island might be under water by then, or so they say, but for a sandbar, it's been around a long time. Maybe next time it will just be farther in to Pamlico Sound. Hopefully the old Pilot Town and Teach's Hole will still exist.

May is Motorcycle Awareness Month in Pa.

Motorcycles are everywhere, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wants drivers of other vehicles to realize that. Today they issued a press release encouraging drivers to pay attention to motorcyclists, check their blind spots for them and give motorcycles enough space on the road and not try to invade their space in a lane. PennDOT didn't mention scooters in this press release, but obviously it meant any two-wheeled, motorized, road-worthy vehicle.
The reason for the release is that the weather (supposedly) is getting warmer, and that means motorcyclists are returning to the roads in force. Well, after getting back from a warm vacation I'm disputing the "getting warmer" reason, but it's true, motorcycles are going to be on the roads more often. And because many of those motorcyclists haven't been riding all winter, they're likely to be rusty and not as responsive and practiced in maneuvering their vehicles, at least until they get their initial practice in.
PennDOT is also concerned because there are more and more people signing up for motorcycle licenses. But to get a license all you have to do is pass a written test and a road course, and as all drivers can attest, it's really not that hard, or an accurate test of what could endanger you and the road and whether you can handle it.
PennDOT said there were 12,000 more people licensed to ride motorcycles, but only 3,000 more registered motorcycles. Does that mean the rest are riding unregistered motorcycles or have they been riding without a license all this time? (You can renew your learner's permit repeatedly in Pa., which means many riders may have some experience but never been properly taught how to handle their bike.)
Problem is, and I think PennDOT recognizes this but hasn't pushed for better licensing laws like Europe's graduated permits, there are thousands of people killed while riding motorcycles in the state each year. Just this week a former volunteer firefighter was killed on a highway near me while riding his motorcycle. Police said he crashed because he was going too fast, and though he was wearing a helmet, the force of him crashing into the guide rail threw it off his head. That's pretty fast.
I don't know what his riding experience was or if something caused him to crash, but he's one of several area motorcyclists who have been killed in this area this past weekend. Half the time it seems, at least to me as I write about these accidents, the fault is the cyclist, who couldn't handle their speed going around a curve, but the other half of the time a driver is to blame for not paying attention and cutting in front of the motorcyclist. It's one of the reasons I was so nervous, and still am, about riding on the roads around here. I realize I'm a novice, but the bigger fear is other drivers.
After I posted the brief on the Web site I work on, immediately drivers complained that PennDOT wasn't saying anything about the motorcyclists needing to be more attentive. But if drivers were more attentive to what they were doing overall, instead of goofing around, talking on their cell phones, texting, or even zoning out, then at least half the people who currently lose their lives when riding motorcycles (more if you consider how this would prevent accidents between cars and cars and cars and trucks) could be saved.
Motorcycles and scooters are always going to be dangerous for inexperienced riders, and you can't prevent every accident. Sometimes the elements just work against you, but training and awareness would reduce the danger for both motorcyclists and scooter riders. That isn't going to reduce the danger. Isn't that what everyone likes about motorcycle riding the danger. It's what makes it "bad." But that is turning out to bad for a lot of people who don't know what they are getting into.

Photo by Marc C. Psoras of the Lansdale Reporter

Are Asian scooters a dangerous thing?

According to a Sunday story in the Chicago Tribune
there is growing concern that the cheaply made scooters being shipped from China and elsewhere to satisfy consumer demand may be creating a safety issue.

Why? Because people see them as easy to ride when in fact they require the same knowledge and experience to properly operate as a motorcycle or full-sized scooter. Honestly, as someone who knows what it is like to be on a tiny vehicle on a major road next to a monstrous vehicle, there is nothing easy about it. According to the Tribune article, the problem is people think it is as easy to ride as a bicycle or car.

Nope! You move your body differently and have to understand how the vehicle's weight shifts affect its manueverability and management.

According to the article by Jon Hilkevitch, "But novice scooter drivers tend to have trouble keeping pace with traffic, making sure they are seen by other motorists, negotiating turns and handling emergency situations, safety experts say."

Cars don't see you, and unless you are conscious of this and know how to react because of the poor driving of others, you're screwed.

What does this all have to do with Asian scooters? Apparently because they are cheap and flooding the market, many more people who wouldn't normally buy one (because they are expensive and most people only shell out for one if they really want a scooter in particular) are doing so, and not realizing the importance of knowing what they are doing on it.

Now, I'm all for people riding scooters more often than cars. They use less gas, take up less space and reduce our consumption of oil. (Need to know why it is bad to consume lots of oil? Look at what that greed has done to the Gulf of Mexico.) I hate seeing people barreling down the road in a vehicle that they drive too fast (because they don't realize how fast they are going in those cush mobiles) and there is no one in the car and no reason for its massiveness other than status or ego.

Get on a scooter and you have to look at other people. You can hide behind tinted glass. In fact, you WANT them to see you. You want them to acknowledge you so they don't accidentally run you off the road.

Riding a scooter makes you friendlier. You wave to other scooter riders and motorcyclists because that is the norm. It also makes life seem a little better, and sweeter and less stressful. But that won't happen if you don't know what you are doing.

Want to get on a scooter? Lured by the cheapness? Take a free motorcycle riders class please. No one wants to hear of a scooter rider getting flattened.

Open face ain't so great

After a couple weeks of use I have to say the open face scooter helmet isn't the greatest. I don't have a windscreen on my Vino so I get everything blowing in my face.

My open face helmet has a visor that is shaded for the sun, but the air can fly right up underneath carrying bugs and dirt with it. And forget about riding at night. It don't help at all to have a shaded helmet.

I tried using the pilot goggles I got my boyfriend, but you have to pull them over the helmet since putting them on first will compromise the helmet's fit, which reduces its ability to stay on your head and protect your noggin.

So I've resorted to sunglasses, but once again night is a problem. I'm trying to figure out a solution. But I think the only one I have is shelling out a hundred bucks for a windscreen.

Until then I'm back to using the full face helmet. I must say it made riding long distances easier this week. I don't understand how people can ride without a helmet or face protection. It's annoying.

Wishing for a free fountain

After our disappointing ride to Swiss Pines in Charlestown, Pa., yesterday, Evil Ed and I stopped in Phoenixville to get a bit to eat. On our way into town, stuck in backed up traffic on Bridge Street, Ed noticed a fountain shop raffling off a free fountain. Ed loves fountains the way I love flowers, though it is not practical to put one in our current garden, especially since we don't own the property.

But these fountains are small, and when we went in to browse we found out an awful lot from the very friendly and non pushy owner, Charles Kern, who makes the fountains himself by hand. He'd been making fountains for almost 20 years before he opened Natural Creations, which is at 110 Bridge St., Phoenixville.

Kern told us all his fountains are made from pumice, a lava stone, which is a natural filter, so these fountains don't have problems with gunk collecting on them. (A big issue I have with my current petmate water fountain for my cats.)

He hand carves all the crevices in the stone and even adds real or silk flowers to create a sort of sculpture fountain. These fountains weren't big. The largest was probably about a foot tall and two feet around. They plug into the wall, so they are best used inside.

Kern even had fish in two of the fountains. He said the water only has to be changed every four months and you don't have to scrub off the stone. Just reacclimate the fish. Amazing! But I can't have fish in an open fountain since they will be sushi for the cats.

I asked about using his fountains as a water dish for pets and he said it is perfectly safe and even better for the cats since there would be no bacterial buildup thanks to the natural purifying qualities of the pumice.

Kern said the fountain pumps, which are aquarium pumps, last about 19 years. He just replaced a fountain pump for one of his first customers the week before, which is how he knew.

He even rents the fountains out for weddings, and also sells "cave candles." What these are are pumic stones carved out to look like caves with a holder for a candle in them, so they give a great ambient light. (Makes me really wish I had a green house for a home.)

I looked up pumic stone, and while I don't like it particularly as a source, Wikipedia confirmed that pumice is a natural lava rock formed when lava and water mix.

Pumice is soft and lightweight. Ground up pumice was used by the romans to make a type of concrete that made their buildings last for such a long time. It was used in the roof of the Parthenon, according to wikipedia.

I couldn't find why pumice is a purifier, but it may be due to the numerous pores in the stone that allow oxygen to mix with the water. Not sure. Still have to look into it.

But with the cost of another petmate being $60 or more, and then nuisance of cleaning it driving me up the wall, I might just shell out the $100 it would cost for one of these fountains and rate its use and pleasure here on this blog.

If you would like one of these fountains and don't want to shell out so much money (it is a tight economy), then you can sign up for Kern's raffle. He's giving all the money he collects from the tickets to a program in his church called Love Works, part of Hope Community Church in King of Prussia, which Kern attends. Love Works, Kern told me, helps people in the community (church members or not) who go through terrible circumstances. The organization recently helped a family who lost everything in a fire and raised funds for surgery for a child who suffered from a brain tumor. So if you are nonreligious, you don't have to fret about that cash going to evangelical activities. Kern said he was raffling off fountains every two weeks, but I'm not sure how long he will keep doing so, so you might want to check him out and put in your $2 to win one of these great little pieces.

You can check the Regis & Kelly Web site to also see a video of Regis receiving one of Kern's fountains on their show.

Whatever happened to Swiss Pines?

(The picture at right is from 1976).
A private gardens open to the public and managed by a little old lady doesn't sound like something that would last, but I wish it had. When I was about 6, I recall visiting Swiss Pines near Phoenixville. I remember a winding road with trees on both sides. Then a pulloff and a Japanese gate across the road.
There were paths lined by bamboo that led to little private gardens with koi and or rocks and tea houses.
I also remember a mansion on a hill with azaleas and rhododendrons all around it. There was only one lone gardener in the midst of it all.
The last time I visited Swiss Pines, I was about 14, and it seemed a little run down, but still there. Still open to the public, and by the looks of the clientele, still loved by the upper classes.
Today my boyfriend and I decided to find Swiss Pines. I didn't really know where it was when I was younger, but when I asked my father, he pulled an old, yellowing pamphlet out of the drawer that had a crude map from a time when the Phoenixville area was less developed.
It gave me a general idea of where it was and after googleing it I found a few references. The most recent was this entry on an unofficial Charlestown Web site.
It was last updated in 2003, but I believe the picture may be much older. There are too many trees, even in spring, throwing shadows on the gate for it to be new.
Swiss Pines is on Charlestown Road, known as Route 113. You drive past Valley Forge Christian College and Cat-Pickering, the Chester County/Phoenixville area technical school where I learned how to ride a motorcycle. We drove (I on my scooter, Ed on his motobike) and the road became more rural and windy, but the traffic certainly didn't slow down. After some harrowing turns at the tops of hills I saw the old pull off to the right of me (heading south) but didn't have time to stop for fear of a truck slamming into the back of me. (That section of 113 REALLY shouldn't have trucks on it).
After a quick, and rather deadly, turnaround and an attempt to go back, I realized it was shut down. The gate was locked up and there was a rope across the old parking lot. I didn't have a chance to stop, but my boyfriend saw it in time to pull off and said there were signs everywhere saying "No Trespassing" and "Area under surveillance."
From what I could see through the fence as I drove by was an overgrown area with smashed pots and toppled statues. It was sad.
The bamboo was still growing profusely along the fence, shielding any more of a view. I stopped at the Charlestown General Store (an old empty, but well-kept building a short ways down the road) and wondered what would become of it.
Ed said there was a row of mailboxes outside, as if the place now housed tenants. Is that what has become of the old mansion? Has it been broken up into apartments with the gardens left to become overgrown? It was very sad. What will happen to Swiss Pines?

It was originally created and developed by Arnold Bartschi, who is credited with saving Charlestown Township and working with the French and Pickering Creek Conservation Trust to preserve the natural area. Swiss Pines was built upon the old Llewelyn Estates.
Bartschi also preserved that still beautiful general store as well as a 55-acre farm on the same road.
With all that still in good shape, it would be a shame to see a gem such as Swiss Pines be lost.
I began looking for anything else about this garden and found pictures on a flickr account from 2008. So I'm not sure what to make of it.