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The Launch
Leaving Ride the Wind surf shop, we headed down to the NPS boat
launch facility. I've never been in favor of launching a kayak from a concrete
ramp, but the guys at the surf shop said there were no other public launches, so
we accepted that there was no other alternative. While loading up our boats, a
fisherman standing on the shore said simply, "It's rough out there." In
fisherman talk I think that means, "Don't go out there, ya damn
fools!" I replied with, "Yep, looks like it!" as we
continued to get everything into the boats. We loaded enough gear for two
days, including a tent, in case anything went wrong on the island and we
had to spend the night.
 Launching
from the ramp did prove to be challenging. While the surf wasn't particularly
bad, it was rough enough to make getting skirted up without getting battered
into the dock pilings tough. Once we finally got skirted up, off we went. We
have paddled much rougher water than what we encountered. But we'd been told
that the inlet was tricky, so we didn't know what may lie ahead. Our course
would lead us straight from our launch to Portsmouth, with the first couple
miles being inside what's known as Teach's Hole. This is the area once used by
Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, as a hideout for his ships while terrorizing the
Carolina coast. It's the lower spit of sand that juts out beyond Ocracoke
Village and Silver Lake (which isn't really a lake, but a harbor where the
marinas are located). Once out of Teach's Hole, we'd be in the inlet, where
currents can sweep you either out to sea or into the sound.
Once underway, paddling wasn't too bad. There was indeed a 15
mph headwind, which made forward progress slower than desired. Our GPS units
were showing our average speed around 2-2.5 mph. For about the first mile,  waters
were rough, but certainly not treacherous. Waves occasionally broke over the
bow, but didn't
present any real challenges for us. Then the water smoothed out quite a bit and
we only had the wind to contend with.
The inlet proved to be very calm. There was a bit of an outgoing
current to deal with, but it proved no stronger than the river currents I'm used
to here in Pennsylvania. With an air temperature around 90 degrees, we made lots
of water stops (or in Kim's case, Diet Dew stops) along the way. Around the
halfway point Kim spotted a large sea turtle poking his head up to check her
out. She swore he winked at her. Whatever the case, we agreed it was a sign of
good luck.
As we got closer to Portsmouth Island, more and more birds began
to appear. "Land ho!" As we approached the island, we were greeted by
a large flock of pelicans. We figured it was the welcoming committee. As we got
closer we could make out the outlines of some of the buildings we'd seen in  photos.
We really
had no idea where might be a good landing spot, so we had to do a
little on-the-water scouting. One concern we had was that the vicious skeeters
we'd heard about would swarm us as soon as we landed. We had our change of
clothes handy, but the
question remained: could we get changed quickly enough, once landing?
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