Romance at the Cape Hatteras Light Station

Sunday May 12 cont'd

We had continued on down the Outer Banks to Ocracoke, where you have to take a 40 minute ferry ride to the next Island. So we're going to turn around there.  The dunes have been built up along the road, so you can't see the water. Sand is drifting over the road, and there are inlets cut through the island to the sound, traversed by temporary bridges until the sand fills back in.  You quickly realize how constantly the landscape changes along here.  

 Ocracoke was where Blackbeard met his fate.  And it is the home of the museum, Graveyard of the Atlantic, which documents some of the 600 shipwrecks that have occured along here.  There are tributes to the life saving stations, where men in row boats pulled shipwrecked sailors and passengers from the wreckage and waves.  These life saving stations are the stuff of many a folklore along here.   But we were about to make our own folklore!

We stopped at the Cape Hatteras Light Souse on our way back north.  Built in 1870, it is one of the landmarks along this coast.  Cedric had stopped at this sign and asked a young couple if she could take a picture of them, to which they eagerly agreed.   

As we came to the lighthouse,  Cedric took our picture.  And then along came another couple, strolling hand in hand.  Cedric did what she always does -- offered to take their picture.  

Suddenly, the man says, "Now is as good a time as any," and he reaches in his pocket for a ring box, gets down on his knee and proposes!  Cedric is happily snapping away, but my camera is in her pocket and I didn't get a picture of the actual moment !

However, with my zoom lens, I did get a picture of the ring, after I grabbed my camera out of Cedric's jeans pocket.  This was a little hard, because Cedric was down on her knees, snapping pictures like crazy on the guy's camera!

 The girl was so surprised.  They had been to a wedding the night before where he had been the Best Man.  He had tried to get her to come out here and go up in the lighthouse with him earlier in the day, but she had been reluctant to climb those narrow stairs.  So, they had just come out to look before going to dinner.  But, having a camera person suddenly available, he decided to propose right then.

 The bride- to- be was so happy and crying.  She was surprised and had never seen the ring. She had me crying, and hugging them both.  After we wished them lifelong happiness, we left them to their privacy as they enjoyed the moment -- and with pictures they never expected to have.

 We went on down the coast and explored an area where the lighthouse had previously stood, until erosion forced its removal and relocation. The story of how they moved it is interesting in itself!

 This stone marks the spot of a burial near the old lighthouse in 1896.

We went home reveling in a beautiful sunset, a surprise engagement and all in all a wonderful day! Both of my sons had called me for Mother's Day and given me such thoughtful gifts.  I am so lucky!