Wild, Wild Horses Couldn't Keep Me Away (This is the conclusion to the story I began last week. Enjoy.)“

No, they’re horses,” I replied while watching three small horses walk up from the beach and into our camping area. Now this didn’t come as much of a shock to either of us since Shackleford Island is somewhat famous for being home to wild ponies. The ponies were left there a few hundred years ago by the Spanish and they survived on the island as wild horses, up to this point. Now I’ll have to admit that I was a little bit anxious about the horses. I didn’t want them coming up and going through our gear or food in the middle of the night. And the horses did look rather heavy, I was sure if one stepped on me while I was sleeping that it would hurt, and it would hurt a lot.

But my tent mate didn’t share my worries. In fact, it was quite the opposite, he was overcome with excitement and wonder at the sight of the wild beasts. He quickly snapped a picture of ponies and quietly slid out of the tent. He really wanted to pet them for some strange reason. Maybe he had some wild fantasy of riding a pony barebacked down the beach with only the light from the moon and the stars to guide him. Or maybe he really wanted to catch rabies from a wild animal, honestly, I just don’t know. But the horses would have none of it. They had boldly and quietly walked over towards our encampment to see who we were and what was going on. Now that Michael was trying to touch them, they simply turned around and walked off not paying us any more attention. They were acting like they were far too cool to acknowledge us any longer. Apparently we weren’t cool enough for them. It was like high school all over again.

Finally, we lay down for the night. It was then that the refried beans made themselves know, and they were absolutely horrible. The noxious gas filled our tent and almost made me pass out from a lack of oxygen. I would have gone outside to get some fresh air except for the flesh-eating zombie bugs that awaited me outside. Take my advice: do not bring Mexican food on camping trips, ever. But I had finally made it into the realm of sleep when the neighing of a nearby horse woke me up with a start. My pulse began racing as I scanned through the mesh of the tent looking for the horse that I could have sworn was standing right next to us. As it turned out, sound travels quite well on a quiet night and the beast was about thirty yards away at the time. He neighed a few more times before trotting off to bother someone else. I’m not sure if he was marking his territory or doing his best to scare us, but he definitely succeeded in the latter.

Michael and I watched for the pony who had so suddenly woken us up for a few minutes before retiring to bed once again. Of course, I had some trouble sleeping on the ground, I didn’t realize that sand made for such a horrible sleeping surface. You might be wondering why I was sleeping on the ground when I brought along an air mattress. Well, this is a good story. When we arrived at our embarkation point earlier that day and began loading up the kayaks we realized that Michael’s sleeping bag wasn’t designed to be squished into small spaces, unlike mine. So we didn’t have the room for it and we resolved to leave it behind. Now Michael was upset since he left his blanket back at his house on a last minute decision. He has a habit of making last minute decisions that don’t turn out right. So, he packed his only towel for his use as a bed sheet. Now, since he had nothing to put between himself and the ground, and I at least had a sleeping bag, I was so incredibly considerate to allow him to use my air mattress, which he said made things much more comfortable. He repaid my kindness by letting loose a series of farts that released the foul toxic smell from his refried beans nearly chocking me to death. Thanks Michael.

The next day I awoke with a sore back and sore sides from the harsh ground. But complaining is for wienies, so I left it at that. We had a very light breakfast that morning and packed up the campsite early. We made the ten minute hike back to the other side of the island and found our kayaks right in the place we left them. Now a quick note: always remember to pull your kayak up to the tree line, this way you can assure the tide doesn’t come in and whisk your kayak away leaving you stranded. I think that’s pretty important to remember. Luckily, Michael and I had remembered to do that. So we loaded our gear back into the kayaks and pushed our craft back into the water.

Since it was early Sunday morning still, we decided to paddle around the island for a while and basically just goof off until we headed back in. While paddling around the island we came across another group of horses. Michael once again, jumped out of his kayak and approached the majestic beasts. And once again, the ponies were far too cool to be seen socializing with us, and they turned and walked off slowly in the opposite direction. Well, damn.

Back in the kayaks we paddled around the island watching the seagulls sweep into the water and pluck out their breakfast. The sea life in those shallow waters was actually quite active. There were small fish, conks, hermit crabs, fiddler crabs, sand dollars, and many other living creatures whose names I am not familiar with. Hey, what did you expect, I’m a camper, not a zoologist (definition zoologist: person who knows the names of lots of different forms of life with no applicable skills to serve society).

On the way back we once again tried to cut through the wetlands, but this time we wanted to zigzag our way through the middle of them. Part of the way through my kayak got stuck. I quickly realized that a squid was holding me in place and would not let me go. The only things I had to combat the menacing squid were my oar and my wit. Luckily my wit is as sharp as a razor and it stings with the ferocity of the deadliest hornet. I quickly pointed behind the squid and asked “What is that?” When the squid looked behind him, I smashed him in the head with my oar and quickly paddled away and back out of the marshes. Once again I proved that Darwinism has a way of selecting against lesser and more gullible intelligences.

Well, either I was attacked by a squid, or it was low tide and my kayak got stuck on the silt bottom of the wetlands. I’ll let you decide how I got stuck. Either way, Michael and I retraced our path and left the wetlands. At one point we even had to get out of the boats and walk across some seaweed to get to deeper waters. But it was worth it, because once on the other side we spotted some dolphins not 300 yards away. We quickly paddled out to greet them. But the dolphins were moving away from us, much in the same way the horses had avoided us. Apparently we weren’t cool enough for the dolphins either. But still, it was a sight to see the dolphins swimming among the shallow waters within the sound.

Finally we turned our boats to our destination and went back home. All in all, we were gone for about 24 hours. Not exactly a grand adventure, but it was a great trip nonetheless. Although, all we had to show for it were a handful of pictures, about 100 bug bites each, and for me a not so pleasant sun burn. Hey, I’m white; the sun isn’t exactly my best friend. But the memories will last a lifetime for me, and I can’t wait to do it again. And as always we followed the camper’s adage to take only pictures and to leave only footprints. Good stuff.

So, what did we learn from this weekend? Number one: chicks who own kayaks are awesome. Number two: do not, under any circumstances, feed your tent mate refried beans, or any beans for that matter. Number three: always remember to bring a knife of some sort while camping, even a Swiss Army Knife can prove invaluable in many situations. Number four: do not leave your tent door open, you only invite in the most bloodthirsty creatures of the night, mosquitoes. Number 5: ponies are way too cool to hang out with me. And number 6: I don’t care about the indigenous animals or other dangers of the trip; wild horses couldn’t keep me away from having adventures in the great outdoors.

Wild Horses Couldn’t Keep Me Away

So I had big plans this past weekend. A couple of friends and I were supposed to head up into the mountains, pitch a tent, and spend a few days with nature. We were even planning on doing some white water rafting on Saturday. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Everyone decided to back out on me and that left only me and my friend Michael left.

Now don’t get me wrong, Michael is a good guy, but I don’t really think spending that much time alone with him, away from civilization, is a good idea. It’s just not my thing. But since I had the whole weekend blocked off with no plans anyway, I decided to go visit Michael at the beach, where he is spending his summer. Now the one thing to know about Michael is that whenever I’m around him, girls always seem to be much more interested in him than they are of me. And this is a good thing. I went down to the beach to drink, not to meet girls. Girls just distract you from the booze.

But, as luck would have it, Michael had another idea in mind. He figured out that we could borrow some kayaks from some of his friends, paddle out to an island nearby, and camp out there for a night. Now that’s the kind of adventure I was looking forward to for the weekend! So we resolved to get an early start on Saturday so we could get everything together and head out.

Of course, being the lazy bums that we tend to be, we didn’t quite make it out of bed until almost noon. And we still weren’t prepared for the trip. So we set out to collect the gear we needed. I already had a sleeping bag, a camping air mattress, a tent, and some food. Really, all we needed was to requisition some kayaks. As it turned out, both kayaks we borrowed were owned by girls. I don’t know about you, but it seems a bit odd to me that two rough and competent woodsmen would be begging girls to borrow some gear. But hey, the girls were cool and loaded us up with everything we needed (apparently we needed life jackets to protect us and oars to actually make the kayaks move, go figure).

So, after getting everything together, and listening to Michael moan and groan as he tried to decide what to bring with him (I was more or less already packed when I left home) we finally got both kayaks loaded up and we were ready to leave. We could have just taken one kayak that fitted both of us, but that would have required teamwork and cooperation, two skills that we have a tendency to lack. It was almost 3pm by the time took off from the public boat ramp in Beaufort, North Carolina. Better late than never, I guess.

I must have made the comment about a hundred times on Saturday, but the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I could not have asked for a better day. 84 degrees, beautiful blue sky, very little cloud cover, almost no humidity, and a nice gentle breeze keeping things cool. It was just perfect weather for our little expedition. And there were plenty of other people out enjoying the day as well.

Now neither Michael nor I have ever done anything like this before. Sure I’ve been camping plenty of times and have hiked on many, many mountain trails. But this was the first time I ever used water transportation to reach my campsite. But hey, I’ve always said experience was for wienies, or at least that’s what I was telling myself when we embarked on this trip. Luckily, this was a great first trip to take. The outer islands shield the inner waterways that we were paddling over from most of the oceans waves and currents. The only thing we had to worry about were the wakes from speed boats zipping by. So we favored somewhat more shallow waters where the boats with outboard motors couldn’t tread.

So we took our time paddling along until we reached the wetlands area about halfway to our destination. We cut through the edge of the wetlands, taking some time out to watch the diverse birdlife that inhabited the area and enjoying the extremely calm waters the wetlands provided. Then we pressed onward. It does take a lot of work to paddle your way through the ocean, and sometimes it seems like we weren’t making any progress at all, but in all honesty, it didn’t take too long for us to reach our destination: Shackleford Island. In all, our water journey took less than two hours.

After a short hike to the ocean side of the island, which was far less populated by the boaters, we found a suitable site and set up camp. After pitching the tent and wandering around taking in the natural wonder of the ocean and the island, we decided it was time for dinner. For our evening meal, I brought along some MRE’s. That stands for “Meal Ready to Eat.” Yes, yes I know, “Ready to Eat Meal” makes much more sense but then the abbreviation would be REM and there’s already a band called REM. And you know the military, they have a thing for acronyms.

Say what you want about the US military, but when it comes to food, they know what they’re doing with the MRE. The entire meal comes enclosed in heavy waterproof packaging, so there was no need for us to waste waterproof bags to hold the food. Each packet contains one main course, a side dish, some form of crackers and spread, a high calorie dessert (M&M’s, Snickers, etc), a spoon, and a small bag of napkins, wet naps, matches, and other useful things. And on top of it all, they cook themselves, so there was no need to bring a camping stove and propane on the trip. Just add water, and watch your food cook. No seriously, you add water, and it cooks. It’s like dehydrated heat. And yes, I know that sounds stupid.

While eating dinner, I realized I made mistakes number one and two for the trip. Number one, I forgot to bring along a knife. You should always, ALWAYS bring a knife when camping. Opening up a heavily sealed waterproof MRE without the aid of a sharp implement is not an easy thing to do, trust me. A knife is a basic tool that can be useful under many situations, so always bring one into the wilderness with you. The second mistake was when I gave my refried beans to Michael to eat. I probably should not have brought the Beef Enchilada MRE on the trip to begin with, but giving your tent mate beans is a bad, extremely bad idea.

So after a healthy dinner meant to sustain a warrior in combat, we cleaned up and got inside the tent. It wasn’t because we were tired or anything, we just wanted to get away from the bugs. And these weren’t just any bugs, they were mutant, bloodthirsty, communist bugs. The things were basically eating us alive. And of course, I made another mistake. I left the tent door open after we set it up. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that allowed all manner of bugs and mosquitoes and other vampiric creatures of the night to inhabit our sleeping area. So we spent the first twenty minutes inside the tent killing off every bug we could. Unfortunately we could not get them all, and I’m sure the bugs had more than their fill for the night. I have the welts all over my arms and legs that still itch today thanks to them. And believe me, the itching never, ever goes away no matter how much I scratch, or how little I scratch it.

We had just finished our little attempt at bug genocide when Michael noticed something through the screen door of the tent. “Hey look, people,” he said. I turned to look and through the dim light of the setting sun slipping through the horizon, I noticed that those weren’t people.(To be continued next week.)