Gales on the Outer Banks

PREFACE:  You know when you look at bikers going by on the highway, you think "wow, that must be so much fun!  bet they just smile all the time...."  WELLL, let me be a little truthful....it can be damn right scarey at times....and still you have to smile and that is hard.

So we set of from our motel in Nags Head in the Outer Banks amidst bright sunshine and high high winds (30m/50km).  Although windy we were doing reasonable well until we crossed over a high bridge onto Pea Island. There are no houses on the island, only the dunes separate the highway from the Ocean. OMG  the wind was so strong that our faces were being blasted with sand and the dunes were stretching across the road....now let me say, on a fully loaded bike riding on sand is not fun. When really bad we pulled over to a visitors' centre and the staff person informed us that the ferry sometimes doesn't run during such high wind as the water moves enough via the wind to make it too shallow for the crossing.  Well what a relief we had a reasonable excuse to backtrack and take a very long way around to Wilmington (of course we had to pass the dunes again).  Before going back Dave chanced climbing over the dunes to check out the surf....hmmm, he got a free exfoliation curtesy of the gale force driven sand and sand was still falling from his hair at lunch.