From what I saw and heard in the time I spent on Ocracoke, the residents weren’t short on opinions either. In a country politically corrected into caution and frightened silence, O’cockers speak out with abandon and flourish. Environmentally incorrect bumper stickers ride on rusted bumpers (“The only good turtle is a turtle in the pot, with potatoes and onions.”), and an enormous sign on the side of Albert Styron’s General Store urges customers to “Get Your Ass in Here.” Letters to the editor in the Ocracoke Observer tell politicians to kiss off, and complain loudly about everything from ferry fees to church bells. Even death can’t quiet the song of the Ocracoke soul. “You Ain’t Heart Nothing Yet!” crows the tombstone epithet of Edgar H. Howard. Why go quietly into the day or night? It’s as if Hunter S. Thompson had founded a School of Tact and Concession, and O’cockers were his magna cum laude class. I loved it.

   There’s no telling from where such a firm sense of self arises, but O’cockers may feel it because they’ve been beholden to themselves for a long, long time. “Hell, this village was here before the United States was here,” said Buffy Warner, a local restaurant owner. “The people are descendants of people who were here before this country became a country.”

   One story does not an island make, but on my second night on Ocracoke I heard one that comes close. The story involves Cleveland Gaskins. Cle, who died in 1963, once took a fancy to some toilet paper he saw advertised in a friend’s Sears, Roebuck catalog. Cle couldn’t read or write, but he had a daughter who could, so he had her pen a short missive. “Dear Sears, Roebuck. I would like to buy a dozen rolls of toilet paper. Please send the toilet paper to my home on Ocracoke. Sincerely, Cleveland Gaskins.” Cle put the note and the money on the mail boat. The days spilled along, and no package came. Finally a letter arrived from Sears, Roebuck. “Dear Mr. Gaskins. We don’t sell toilet paper by the dozen. Please consult our catalog for the quantities we offer.” Cle wasted no time crafting his response. “Dear Sears, Roebuck. I recently ordered a dozen rolls of toilet paper. Instead I got a letter telling me to order directly from the catalog. Gentlemen, I can assure you, if I had one of your catalogs, I wouldn’t need your damn toilet paper.”                 

   Before leaving Ocracoke, I paddled the waters once split by the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Historians believe Blackbeard operated from the southern end of the island, anchoring in a shallow channel on the Pamlico Sound side near Ocracoke Inlet. From there Blackbeard could see passing boat traffic before it saw him. “Teach’s Hole” is clearly marked on modern nautical charts.

   Teach’s Hole is also where Blackbeard met his end. Few historians debate the violence of the November 21, 1718 battle that saw Blackbeard absorb some six gunshot wounds and twenty cutlass slices before someone finally thought to lop off his head.

   I eased my kayak into Silver Lake Harbor one blustery afternoon; the blue sky hung with fast-moving gray clouds running with the chill northerly wind.

   It takes only a few minutes to paddle the length of Ocracoke’s tiny harbor to where it opens up to Pamlico Sound. Paddling toward the harbor mouth I could see an uncountable army of whitecaps frothing into the distance until they disappeared from sight.

   Another kayaker bobbed in the harbor mouth. I saw him before he saw me. His head was down. I could see the waterproof chart, likely a nautical chart, spread across the deck of his red kayak. He had a compass too, and was nattily covered in various bits of waterproof gear.

   I suddenly felt as naked and embarrassed as Blackbeard’s hostages marching along the quays of Charleston. It was true, I had thought to wear a wetsuit, but I still felt like a child leaving home with matches and a bag of licorice in his backpack. I have never been much for equipment or planning. Ours is a wondrous age of technological doodads: thumbnail-size camping stoves and global positioning systems that pinpoint the animal droppings you’re standing on. But I lose equipment, and I usually don’t know how to work the equipment I manage to hang on to. I realize it is unwise to head into a wild place without even a compass, but I would surely get lost wandering around trying to find where I put it. As for planning, it smothers spontaneity; or to be honest, it requires too much work.

   My fellow kayaker was bristling with equipage, and, judging from the focused look on his face, he knew how to use it. I considered paddling quietly past – perhaps he wouldn’t look up – but this seemed both cowardly and alarmingly antisocial. Plus, you never know what you’ll learn if you speak to people.

   “Beautiful out here, isn’t it?”I said.

   His head came up slowly, as if reluctant to leave the chart. He appeared to be in his fifties, though it was hard to tell, as only a small portion of his face emerged from the bubble-wrap of protective gear.

   “It sure is,” he said, absorbing my bare skin and minimalist equipage with a practiced glance.

   Being short – roughly eight feet – my kayak is maneuverable, but it is also easily buffeted by wind. In the exposed harbor mouth, the wind had assumed new velocity. I had to dig my paddle into the water to keep my bow from swinging around and the winds from shoving me unceremoniously back into the harbor.

   My companion’s kayak was the traditional model made for long oceangoing paddles, nearly twenty feet and annoyingly stable. His paddle rested beneath the chart, and his bow remained precisely pointed into the wind.

   “Where are you heading?” he asked.

   It was a polite inquiry, though I thought I detected a trace of professional concern. Few things rankle me, but one of them is people who assume a superiority of competence, even if it does exist.

   “I don’t know,” I said.

   This was largely true. I knew I was turning left once I exited the harbor, though now this didn’t seem like much of a navigational plan. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I was thinking about paddling to Teach’s Hole. If it was a nautical chart spread on his deck, he would quickly calculate the distance and my idiocy.

   We floated in the water, the wind beating between us, and exchanged pleasantries. His name was David. He was from Cary, North Carolina. He’d come to Ocracoke for the long Thanksgiving weekend.

   He didn’t smile as we talked, but his tone was amiable. I had drifted close enough to see that he had a small plastic orb affixed to the shoulder of his jacket. Technologically speaking, it resembled one of those Christmas snow globes, only instead of swirling snowflakes, it contained a winking light.

   His eyes followed mine. “I’m one of those people who like to plan,” he said. The statement was unapologetic and his face remained expressionless, but it seemed to me a humorous nod to his own personal quirk.

   I appreciated his honesty.

   David asked where I was from, and when I told him California, he said his wife’s family lived in California. “My wife died about a year and a half ago,” he said. “Of cancer.”

   The water slapped at the sides of my kayak, and the wind blew in from a horizon without color.

   It is impossible to find the right words for sorrow like this, so I said what I felt, and the words sounded pointless and trite. “I’m so sorry.”

   Then I realized David was finishing his voyage, not beginning it.

   “I was just paddling in a sluice back there,” he said, almost absently. “There were herons and egrets. It probably goes back two miles. You know, I was paddling back there and I’m thinking, ‘This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.’”

   The wind had gathered strength. A quarter-mile of paddling in the open sound was enough to convince me to discard my search for Teach’s Hole and duck into David’s sluice instead. Sheltered from the wind, the sluice, little wider than my paddle in most places, meandered toward the interior of the island, through straw-colored marsh grass and a few guano-stained trees. The water was less than a foot deep in some places, the tide was running out, and beneath the water’s marble-clear and smooth surface I could see tiny bird tracks in the mud bottom, fine, graceful etchings that sang of flight.

   Out of the wind it was warm. Birds sang, and egrets, snow-white and silent, swooped low, dropping below the brown grass line to their own secrets. The bow of my kayak created ripples that made their reluctant way to the mud bank, where they were absorbed forever.

   When I finally turned around, I stopped paddling and closed my eyes, and the tide’s delicate tug drew me slowly back to the sound.

   It was lovely, but it was hung with sadness too, this beautiful place given to me by a man who couldn’t plan for everything.

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