Wild
By: Kayla Wilkinson
Tags: Travel, Beach, Summer, Nature, Outer Banks

Hi from 25 – 20

Sense of place is huge to me—what different “core” places in my life evoke, how they affect my mindset and emotions, how I perceive and interact with the place, etc.—and few places hold a greater spell over me than Hatteras Island.

My family bought a little beach bungalow in a town called Salvo on Hatteras in 2004, and I’ve ventured to the barrier island, which is essentially just a strip of sand wedged between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound off the coast of North Carolina, at least once a year (but preferably a few times a year) ever since.

It’s hidden in the Outer Banks’ lower extremities, well beyond the coastal swank of Duck and the seafood buffets of Kitty Hawk and the Brew Thrus of Nags Head. Drive 30 minutes north or south to make a grocery store run, but don’t expect an option in-town.

A precariously tucked-away community, Salvo is literally surrounded by undeveloped nature. There’s the ocean and sound, of course, but there’s also the border of 27 miles of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to the north and another 14 miles of protected land to the south. Driving in or out of Salvo is an emptiness filled only with dunes and sea grass and marshland, with the occasional peek at the Atlantic or Pimlico. The two-lane road is known for the batterings it’s taken from hurricanes, and if you’re driving 12 South while the wind is whipping, the constant waves of sand blowing across the asphalt in the middle-of-nowhere landscape makes it feel like you’re on another planet.

That wind. It’s a freaking windy place, being jut out into the ocean and all. The unyielding wind has turned the area into the kiteboarding capital of the world, and badasses much cooler than me flock to Hatteras Island to fly up and down the coast both sound-side and ocean-side, more or less manifesting the phrase “I’ll go where the wind blows me.”

Really all of nature’s details are heightened here—the wind, the stars, the currents, the colors. On a clear night you can watch the Milky Way grow vivider with each moment of your eyes adjusting, the sky transforming into a light show of shooting stars and lazily drifting satellites and planets shining in the glow of the hidden sun.

The ocean commands respect with the moon’s dramatic pull on its tides and the shifting current that can waver between being unnoticeable one day and threatening to suck you to sea the next. No two days are the same. Sometimes it’s a lake, sometimes it’s an angry pounding with so much foam the water actually appears white instead of blue. Low tide and a calm ocean gifts a massive beach. An approaching hurricane results in water spraying all the way up to the large double dunes that stand guard between the Atlantic and the first line of reasonably-distanced homes, whose constructors were smart enough to realize no, it doesn’t make sense to plop a house right on the beach right here. Commanded respect.

Beautiful days mean a neon blue sky and a turquoise ocean. Sunny late afternoons mean golden wash over the sand’s shades of brown and the sea grass’ faded greens. A dipping sun behind a spattering of clouds means an unpredictable mix of pinks and oranges and indigos over the sound and more subdued variations reaching across to the ocean. A full moon means a white spotlight on the black of the water, the black of the sands, the black of the poorly-lit town.

It’s a wilder, grittier version of a beach. It’s a barrier island untamed. It’s a beautiful example of what it looks like when Mother Nature still ultimately rules despite human interventions. It’s my place of disconnect, and I hope you never go there for yourselves. 🙂