Outer Banks (OBX)

Mom was coming to town for a visit so I decided to take advantage of having family around and surprised Jim with a 3 day trip for our upcoming 10th anniversary. I had thought about a trip to Paris (which also happened to be what Jim was thinking of surprising me with) or a cruise to the Bahamas but the logistics of having a nursing newborn and conserving leave days overrode those ideas. So instead I settled on a road trip to Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. We had been to the Outer Banks before but to Bodie Island on the north end which is much more populated and touristy. We enjoyed the miles of natural landscape that have been preserved down there and not overtaken by beach homes. It was nice to have some time to enjoy the slower pace of the island and hanging out at the beach. However as typical with most of our vacations we're not content to sit still for very long so to add some adrenaline to the adventure I signed us up for surfing and kiteboarding lessons. The water was absolutely gorgeous the morning of our surf lessons. It was clear and a beautiful shade of blue. I did a group lesson first while Jim sat with Jonas and then he went out after for a private lesson.

Some random wildlife shots will watching each other surf:

We then hopped in the car to drive to the next town north to do our ground training for kiteboarding lessons. It was fun learning how to control the foil kite (think small parasail) though Jim was much better at flying it than me. I kept crashing it into the ground because I wasn't recovering it from the dives we had to send it into soon enough. The next morning we headed out to start learning how to kiteboard out on the water. I was up first but there was barely enough wind and it was blowing directly on shore. So we got the kite all rigged up and harnesses on then packed it up and headed out into the sound on the jet ski. Because the wind wasn't blowing much the only way to get the kite launch was by pulling it with the jet ski. I would drive and the instructor was hooked onto the kite. Once it finally launched up from the water he would go flying off the back of the jet ski. Once he had the kite controlled up in the air then I would take over and get harnessed in. The first thing you do is practice body drags where you work on flying the kite while it pulls you across the water. The wind started to die down at this point and it was difficult to keep the kite in the air. We got it up one more time with the jet ski but after that called it quits and they rainchecked my lesson. However we took advantage of the time and went and tried surfing on our own. I caught this shot as Jim was heading out.

Jim was scheduled to go in the afternoon but his lesson got pushed back some until the wind eventually picked up. They got out and he had the body drags down and was just about to start learning how to put the board on and ride when they saw lightening in the distance so they called it quits. So we both got about an hour on the water for free and will get to go back down another time to do the water section again. I'll have to actually get some pictures of us kiteboarding next time.

One of the other highlights of being on Hatteras Island is that there are numerous off-road ramps and trails that take you out along the beach. This gave us a chance to really use our new four wheel drive vehicle. Jim was excited to have to use all sorts of different gears and features to be able to drive out through the deep, soft sand. We spent some time exploring different trails and areas one evening then found our own section of beach to have a campfire and roast some brats for dinner. It was great to sit there watching the waves roll in as the sun was going down. We had a great trip and look forward to going again. Thanks Mom for watching the girls!