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| 7.1 FEATURES |
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The Wild Island
of Wind, Water, and Sand
Cape Hatteras Island
By Diane Buccheri
Part 2
Photo: Glenn Dubock
something touched me so deep –
past my heart, into my aching soul –
made it wail, made it more than sore,
made it weep
fathoms of joy.
Many, since the 1980’s infiltration of windsurfing to the island have come, and gone. Most have loved the island for its unique qualities and have been taken over the edge with windsurfing pleasure. Most have long talked about their particular Cape Hatteras windsurfing experiences and still do. All can say, "ahh . . . Hatteras" with a far away, dreamy look in their eye. Just the thought of the island takes them to a distant time and place . . .
Two who migrate here twice every year are Margaret Nold and Olaf Podehl. If you windsurf, you must know them. Have you seen the big white van with colorful paraphernalia of all sorts – stickers, windsurfing boards, a sailbox, kayaks, you-name-it – hung up on the top and sides of the van making its way to the hottest, excuse me, windiest, windsurfing destinations of the day in Cape Hatteras, the Gorge, and Baja? You must have! These two true Wind Gypsies travel with their Baja-found dog, Dita, several times annually from the east coast to the west coast searching wind. Recently, they have "made Hatteras their home" as much as they can make any particular place their home except their van and that day’s windy water. In 1999 they built and opened a sail repair shop on the island of shifting sand and committed to spend their springs and falls here. When hurricanes arrive and they are sailing other seas or rivers, I have vowed to sit in their shop and hold it down, anchored to the sandy ground.
Originally from Colorado (Margaret) and Germany (Olaf), these two wind-lubbers came to Cape Hatteras via Canada. They were both avid skiers in a previous decade and have become wind and water addicted. They even like warm air now! To the island they bring their warm friendliness and devotion to their life’s passions, serving as a reminder to those who come in contact with them that you don’t have to join the rat race crowd. Follow your heart . . . This recently married couple has been true to their hearts’ desires and they sure are happy. When I first met Margaret I told her someday I would like to stay on the island, like, uh, maybe live (?), here. Instantly and without hesitation, she said, then stay. Uh, well, uh, I have to work. She had a job for me. What? She opened the way to my heart’s desire . . .
A few other Canadians know how to follow their hearts’ desires. They are Rita and Guy. Also long time skiers from past decades, they now seek warm waters and strong winds and live most of their present day lives in Cape Hatteras. This couple met in high school and married each other by the age of nineteen (an age when most of the rest of us were running crazy). Soon after they had a daughter and jobs to which they dedicated some thirty something years to. Their home in Canada is white with snow a great portion of the year and the lakes are freezing cold. However, those hearty Canadians just can’t stop windsurfing no matter how frigid the conditions and this island with its much warmer waters is a pure treat to the frosty Canadians. Rita and Guy have treated themselves to the wind-frothed waters of Cape Hatteras and made it their primary home now for the last several years. Last winter they took a break from this place and hibernated in the snow covered mountains of their Canadian home and consequently decided they wanted to be warmly windsurfing so back they have come! (Do I mention they will be spending several weeks in Hawaii this year, not bundling up in the north?)
A longer time inhabitant and a permanent one is Mark Skelton (he is piece by piece building his perfect-in-his-eyes, artistically crafted dream home overlooking the Sound, stretched way up into the sky). Some of you may know him by his ingenuous video series, Kooks of Hazard, which aptly and accurately portray the kooks who regularly windsurf the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Originally from Richmond, Virginia, he’s another one who couldn’t stop coming to the windy island and in his tenth year of inhabiting this wild place, he certainly knows the maniacs who wrestle and play with the wind and waves.
Most windsurfing visitors don’t get an intimate view of the regular Hatteras kooks doing their thing because they are too busy sailing the Sound and getting their fill of their own thing. The "regulars" gather at that day’s carefully chosen location and go full speed ahead, ripping up the watery terrain and getting ripped up themselves. Mark shows them during their brightest and darkest moments, all as it happens, raw and wild.
Mark and his videos can be found at Windsurfing Hatteras, a long thriving and well known shop. If he’s at the beach, then look for a white bronco with a large set of horns abreast its roof and flames painted on its hood. Uniquely individualistic, like Mark, so is everything else about this avid and well skilled windsurfer who has found his own niche here on the island and is appreciated for his uniqueness by his comrades. For instance, Mark’s couch is not a couch but a cowch that resembles a cow. His eye for style and remark is always active so look out for more videos!
And then there is Karen Fleming. This island woman first lived here because the natural beauty of the beaches and the spectacular surf temptingly appealed to her senses. Having grown up in Fort Lauderdale surfing, born from a Boston-Irish background, this green-eyed, blonde haired woman has proven her free spirit and made an enviable lifestyle for herself on Cape Hatteras. Somewhere along the line, Karen added windsurfing to her surf enjoyment repertoire and can handle the often devastating surf break here as well as any man double her size. A little woman, her strength and fearlessness are a gift when it comes to wavesailing. And, guys, don’t try to follow her out unless you really know how to get past the Graveyard of the Atlantic shorebreak. You can’t do it. She’ll leave you tumbling in the whitewater. Another one biting the dust . . .
Private and self-sufficient, she sparkles in company but has her lovely home tucked away along the Sound’s shore in the old village of Kinnakeet to retreat to for soulful quiet. Her garden flowers, not meant to flourish in the sand, thrive smilingly in front of her typically gray island home. She is singular and unique and her life reflects those qualities. A surf board as well as a windsurf board grace her front porch, ready to go at a moment’s notice, whichever is better suited to that day’s weather conditions. She has seen many friends come eagerly to the island to make their new lifestyles at the beach. Most have passed on – back to regular life on the mainland. It can be hard to make a living on the beach. If you find the right niche in the limited opportunities, and you like it enough to stick with it, you’ve got it made.
What are the main employment opportunities? They are mostly related to the tourist industry, of course. They include working at the windsurfing, surf, or tackle shops, restaurants, carpentry (mostly building vacation rental homes), working for the realtors, or some type of computer work involving travel to complete the job. Most islanders make the majority of their income during the tourist months and then have leisure time during winter when they may stay on these sands or seek other sands of sun and water.
And the big question – do the windsurfers who live on the island get to windsurf enough? NO! And it is not due to lack of wind. It is due to the quest, always, for more and the never-ending thirst, hunger for watery, wind-filled thrills.
I can’t get no satisfaction,
but I try,
and I try,
and I try,
and I try
The more you get, the more you want.
It’s never enough!
Several Cape Hatteras windsurfers are taking up a new sport. They are not traders to the cult of windsurfing nor have they turned their back on the wind and water. Indeed, they are finding more ways to sail and can enjoy the moderately windy days in a breathtaking way, both for the partaker and the onlooker. That sport, one of flowing motion on the water powered by wind, is kite sailing. If Ty Luckett happens to be out on the blue horizon of the Pamlico Sound, surely, he is noticed. The sight of him flying, curving, turning, across the sparkling clean saltwater, with a kite attached to his board soaring through the skies, is an eye-catching spectacle. His ease of movement, smooth and aggressive, is not matched here and possibly not anywhere. Another island transport, Ty formerly ripped up the waters of Long Island Sound off the coast of southern Connecticut and sold gear at Sailways in Fairfield, Connecticut. He made his way to the Gorge during the early 1990’s, desiring heavy winds and a long steady season. Working at Big Winds, he found out the river and its life was not enough either so eastward he returned to the wild Atlantic but this time to the storms further south along the coast. Once living on Cape Hatteras Island, he has realized he really doesn’t want to live anywhere else. Now he can be found, when working and not mesmerizing observers with his wavesailing or kite sailing abilities, at Fox Watersports.
Life here is raw, rough, wild, gentle, and mighty fine. Fine, fine, fine. The sun shines, the wind blows, rain pours down, waterspouts twist in the Sound, dolphins play joyfully in the ocean waves, stars sparkle a-plenty in the black velvet sky, comets shoot by.
The island looks out far into the wide blue Atlantic and its Sound spans a distance to the mainland. This dot surrounded by water has ancient history as well as present day happenings. No matter how much time anyone has spent on this island, there is a knowledge of something in its being that is untouchable, not quite knowable. One reaches out for it and it is just beyond reach. But we can get a taste of it, and in savoring, want to know more. Something very big inhabits this small island.
A small world unto itself, it reaches far into the past and far into the distance. Always, an adventure, wild, mysterious, real and true, is offered on this land of wind, water, and sand.
the sands move, the water hosts the moon’s glow –
reaching – – reaching – –
to where?
Come, throw your body in the clear, clean waters here. Live and laugh in the sun.
Fly with the wind . . .
When not sitting on the sand facing the blue water writing and editing articles, Diane Buccheri can be found teaching windsurfing. Her 0leisure time is spent swimming or windsurfing along the Cape Hatteras shore. Her personal motto is love, peace, liberty and respect for all.
more about Diane Buccheri
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