Eat, sleep, beach, repeat – what a glorious week in paradise! We were looking for a good COVID friendly getaway and we picked the most perfect place – Ocracoke Island! There were some days that we literally had the beach to ourselves! We didn’t have great service, so we were forced to unplug and I’m actually really thankful for that. It also took a bit of work to get there because of windy conditions. Our ferry got cancelled twice and we had to detour to the Hatteras ferry, which meant driving all the way down the Outer Banks. After driving for about 5 hours because of the detour, we had to wait in the first come, first serve line for the ferry, which took about 2 hours and then the ferry ride took about an hour and a half – it was an adventure. Once we made it, it was so worth it though! And for the record, our ferry home got cancelled as well, but thankfully we got ahead of the line for the Hatteras ferry.

We spent our days on the beach and our evenings cozied up, cooking up some good local seafood from the Ocracoke Seafood Company, having drinks and playing board games! We had local shrimp, flounder, scallops, mackerel and pompano – our first time trying pompano and it was SO GOOD. We had to get take out too because is it even a week at the beach without getting pizza one night?!

I think my favorite part of the trip was getting to see Howie on the beach for the first time! He wasn’t super sure at first, but once he realized he didn’t have to swim (he doesn’t love water) and discovered the art of crab hunting (no, he didn’t catch any), he was begging us to go to the beach everyday! It was an amazing week and just what we needed. I’ll always look back and picture us driving down HWY 12 to the beach in the Tacoma, listening to country music on the only radio station we could find, Howie running around the beach like the happiest dog in the world and spending some good ole’ quality time with by boo! Ocracoke will always hold a bit of magic for us.