Headed out tomorrow morning from OCMD, headed south to Key West over the next two months. I plan to hug the coastline as much as possible, including VA -> Ocracoke along the banks. Stealth camping, swimming, and beach running, basically winter training for lifeguard season next year. I'm pretty stoked for this. Been planning it all year. Looking for recommendations on islands or island heads that are worth the visit and the stay. So far, after Ocracoke I have: Cape Lookout Emerald Isle/Topsail Wrightsville Carolina Beach/KureBeach Sunset Island Stayover in Surfside Beach, SC with a friend for a while Charleston/Folly Beach --- are Kiawah or Edisto worth he detour? Hunting Island Hilton Head Tybee Island Savannah --- anywhere else in GA worth it? That I can get to? Fernandina Beach Little Talbot Island St Augustine Ormond Cocoa Beach Ft Pierce... After that it's kind of unplanned from there. I'm following the East Coast Greenway route to Key West. My goal is Key West for NYE. Any insight into Florida or anything you guys can help me out with would be great i.e. places to stay, couches to sleep on, places to camp along the beach, piers to swim around, sparse beaches, etc. Thanks.
I have no advise to give really, other than have a good knife, but I wish you Godspeed on this righteous endeavor.
Hunting Island is also infested with Raccoons. The f@ckers will come out at night and rifle through all your sh!t like howler monkeys. I had to shoot one that was trying to claw it's way into my tent. They are not afraid of humans.
FYI Charleston area is no bueno for bicycles. You need a death wish to ride a bike to Edisto or Kiawah. Goode luck.
Try to find a pack of cycleidiots when you come down thru here. Safety in numbers and all that. True story: a guy was riding his bike down from up north to propose to his girlfriend down south of here. He stopped at a McDonalds in Vero Beach, and a homeless guy jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him to death. The wacko though he heard voices. Also another useful factoid: Florida leads the nation in bike deaths due to getting hit by a motorist (usually an ancient motorist). The next state is a distant second. Have fun.
This^^^ Sullivan's Island is probably the safest ride from the mainland, but even that is questionable. I run/bike the IOP connector, but only during times when it isn't very busy. Folly Rd is focked.
Aboot ten yrs. ago I was headed to FB for a DP sessiion and saw a caddy swerving down the road in front of me. Long story short he clipped a bicyclists front tire with his rear bumper and sent the dude flying into the air. Don't think the car even knew what happened. I pull up and the guy is laying in the road right around a curve. He was concious but pretty banged up. We got to the side of the road and I was doing my best to keep him calm and lying down when a dude comes screeching up and hops out his car and says "I'm a medic". I was very relived to say the least. Turns out he had no major injuries. The cops never found the caddy.
I think the message here is to camp in a caddy to avoid being maimed or killed on the highway. Forget the stealth camping, pimp camping is where it's at. That bike will fit in the trunk along w/ other gear. ECspongey it gets cold and rainy even in FL in the winter my friend. Life is to short to be miserable all the time. Caddy=base camp.
Searching for my lost shaker of salt I used to have a 69 red Coupe de Ville with a white rag top. Once I pulled up on the beach, and some girl saw me and started singing, "Hey, hey, it's the Monkeys". Screw the bike bro, and caddy up! When you arrive alive pimp daddy style in Key West, you can thank us. Now that I think aboot it, I took that baby down there towing a jet skii on a company weekend adventure. We were smoking a fatty cruising down Duval Street, and my boss was at Sloppy Joe's and saw me and my bud (it was El Jeffe's jet ski we were towing) driving with a thick cloud of smoke above us, and I had on a shark hat where the fin is velcroed to the top of the hat, and he said it looked like the circus was in town. It's hard to stand out down there, so the cops didn't even notice us. We had a blast that weekend. Definitely take a caddy! Gas is cheap right now.
OBX - check the current rules\state of the island, b\c it changes over time what rules are applied where. Or go ninja camp, but don't beetch if you get snapped by a Ranger. And don't f with them, if it's on Federal turf, those guys have as much authority as the FBI and the court you go to is federal. Cape Lookout - you can camp, take the ferry from Harkers Island. Walk over to the ocean side and if there are waves there should be something breaking on either side of the point. Mind your fingers and toes, can be very sharky sometimes. EI - can be good on the right swell\wind, but more iffy due to the way it faces. Topsail is nice, dunno about camping. CB - you can camp on the N end and this time of year should be wide open, but you'll have to reserve a spot and pay. WB - no camp, and mind your Ps and Qs. Cops are predatory there. South of CB the surf gets much less likely, although if the swell is right you can get out of the devil wind (NE). Good luck, a friend of mine I grew up with was a very avid biker in Atlanta and got plowed into and killed last year. I only bike on dirt these days, if a tree kills me it's my own fault.
What's the backstory ? How are you able to travel for months and not work? Your trip sounds so cool This week for the first time I drove from JAX Beach south down A1A through Vilano Beach. What a beautiful drive once you're out of the city. Nature preserves and miles of empty beach. I hope you get to see that. The ocean is still warm up in JAX.
This is deep counsel, kidz.....you millennials (Towelie, Hawkfart, Toofun) should be grateful. Wisdom of the ages right here on SI from TLO.
I wish I still had it. It would be a hoot to paddle out sporting it on a crowded day at 1st peak anywhere USA. "Fins to the left...fins to the right..."
I always wanted for my band to put on a show and give out a bunch of shark fin hats and get a circle pit going so it looked like a bunch of sharks schooling, then have go-go dancers come out with red jello and signs the said "FEEDING FRENZY" and throw the red jello in the crowd. Haven't been able to pull that one off...yet. A man can dream right?
