By Sea and Land on Shackleford Banks

We do sail a Yawl. She is green with tan bark sails, and her name is Grit, but we would never steal a pony off Shackleford Banks. This lovely little drawing was sent to us by our friend Laura Turgeon

What a trip it's been. A true experience doesn't come without the harder moments as well as the highs. We've been blessed with very few other people on the island, mostly none and no flies. We have also ridden out one lee shore gale with gusts right at 40 knots, which blew its heart out for 24 hours. We ran into Beaufort to escape a second one.

Tomorrow, we will head back out to Shackleford to keep studying the pony bands we find. We left our beautiful anchorage a quarter of a mile east of the west end to go see what the far east end of the island looked like. It was a windy place while we were there, and quite a paddle to the shore.

The ponies we did see on our trip to the east end shore seemed more vigilant than the ones on the west side. They would quietly tuck in to the treeline when they saw us even though we were quite far away from them. We did not have much time to explore this part of the island or to sit and watch the ponies, as we needed to get to Beaufort before the next north-east gale came in.

Our trip has been amazing so far, full of insights the ponies have shown us. Thanks to Bernie, the cook and captain, the meals have been delicious, and the boats, Grit and the kayaks, have stayed afloat. This, though, has not been an easy task. There have been some hairball moments of dread, including a motor that died on a tide wanting to sweep us into the Graveyard of the Atlantic, a ramming by another boat, an anchor that would not come up, and two sunken kayaks that almost could not be pulled aboard. To read these stories, go to Bernie's site riverearth.com . 

My last post about observing a two stallion-band on the western part of Shackleford Banks can be read here at  twostepway.com.

Below are some photos from the trip so far.

Two stallion band on the west end of Shackleford Banks

Lovely view of the west end of Shackleford Banks in the evening light taken off the boat

The tent land base with Grit in the distance

Grit with the kayaks floating behind her

The lieutenant stallion looks back at some of the mares from his band that have stayed behind

Bernie watches the same two mares that the stallion was watching

Shackleford's ocean side has long beaches with lots of shells and dolphins that swim just off the shoreline

A small collection of treasures off the Shackleford beach

A stud pile marks the territory of the two stallion band we were observing on the west end

Bernie paddles off the eastern end of Shackleford Banks

Grit in the distance of a salt cordgrass plane on the eastern side off Shackleford Banks

The sunsets on Shackleford Banks are extraordinary