Dream Vacation
By Gareth Morgan
One of my most memorable trips to Hatteras was not long after I graduated from college. I had just taken a short break before starting my first real job, and had been working for a consulting firm in Baltimore. I had only been working at the place for a couple months, when all of a sudden I got laid off because of employee downsizing. Afterwards, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t find work, and my life was a mess.
Well, several weeks went by, and out of nowhere my best friend called me up and said he would be in town for a few weeks. The first week he was in town, we went out to a bar one night for a drink. I told him what had been going on since college—he soon realized what a wreck I was in. I hadn’t been able to pay the bills and I had no idea of what I was doing from one day to the next. My life was going nowhere. We got to talking about other things, one of them being college. He started reminding me about all the surfing we had done back in school, and how when the going got tough, surfing was our best medicine. If hadn’t been for surfing, the sheer stress of school would have driven us crazy. Surfing was our outlet for all the tension we got at school. Then we realized that not only had we both stopped surfing, but we had stopped doing any sport at all. We had no way to relieve the stresses that a job brings. Well, Jeff was off work for three weeks, and I was out of a job—so why weren’t we surfing? As you probably guessed, it wasn’t long before we got the idea in our heads to plan a trip to Hatteras.
The next day, we woke up and started packing. I pulled my board out of the attic and it was then that I surprised myself as to how long it had been since I had last been surfing. A layer of dust about a quarter of an inch thick covered the deck. My wetsuit gear was packed away in a plastic bag under a bunch of boxes somewhere, and it took me about an hour to find it. My leash was nowhere to be found, and there was no way I was going to start searching for the ding repair kit.
Jeff picked me up at about noon and we loaded up the van. After a quick lunch, we were on the road, headed for the pristine beaches of the Outer Banks. On the drive down it was sunny and beautiful—like a dream come true. However, that wouldn’t be the case that night…
The drive down was as exhilarating as I remembered from college days. As you get closer and closer to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the air becomes so fresh that your nose can’t get enough of it. Tidal creeks and salt marshes on the side of the road only make it more apparent that you’re nearing the beach. Crossing over river mouths, with small swells slapping the shore, you can’t help but dream of what kind of waves you’ll find when you get to Hatteras.
We drove until nightfall, stopped for a relaxing seafood dinner, and set out again only about an hour and a half from Buxton. By the time the lighthouse was in sight, neither Jeff or I could wait much longer before running up to the top of the dunes to take a peak at the surf. We hadn’t stopped the whole drive except for dinner, and anticipating great surf for seven hours and never being able to see it will make a man nuts! Well, it was all worthwhile in the end, when we ran up the dunes like school children booking it home after class gets out. This was a dream come true! As the beam of the lighthouse flashed a glimpse of the surf before our eyes, we knew we were in heaven. Clean, overhead swells, with no drift, a slight onshore breeze, and a perfectly clear sky. This was, without a doubt, the best day we had seen (and were about to experience) anywhere on the East Coast.
The next morning, we were up about a half an hour before the sun would be out. We got our camping gear together, packed it in the car, and set off for the south side of the lighthouse. As we were suiting up, the sun just peaking up over the horizon. We didn’t even check the surf because we were so confident from the night before. And as we headed up the steep slope of the dune, we still had our doubts. Could a swell that big die overnight?
The answer this time was no. This story did have a happy ending after all. The Hatteras lighthouse looked like another country. Neither Jeff nor I had ever seen anything like it before. It was a miracle. The water was so green and so transparent that it looked like a tropical island. Perfect overhead, feathery barrels—the kind that make that sound when they break that’s music to your ears. Almost every wave was at least a six to seven second tube ride, which after tubing up for the first half of the ride would build up as one giant green wall, held up by the wind. You could ride up and down the face all day long on those walls, and they would never close out on you.
Yeah, that day was the best I’ve ever ridden, but that’s not even the best part. After that amazing vacation, and Jeff and I got back home, my life turned completely around. I started surfing regularly again, and still surf to this day (now sixty-five). I got another job, and it was even better than my consulting job in Baltimore. Now I’m designing surf clothing in California, which is not only fun, but it pays the bills. Best of all I’m happy, and that’s all I’ve really wanted in life. Surfing is an amazing sport, and although I don’t believe that one vacation turned my whole life around, I do think that surfing is magical in that it can take away all your worries. So, remember, if things aren’t going your way, and you need a break to get some focus back in your life, plan a surf trip. Maybe you too, will get more than you bargained for—a dream vacation.