I will show you the Pirate Coast

"But the love of adventure was in father's blood"

-Buffalo Bill

It would be an exercise in futility  to try and describe the expressions on some of our friends and families faces when we first hatched the idea of beach camping with our 4 month old son, and while I was not surprised by their reaction, it should come as no surprise that we would carry out what we had said all along.

The baby would be an extension of our lifestyle, not a detractor.

To say that I didn't have a measure of anxiety as we slowly cruised across Core Sound would be shortsighted, I was well aware of the unique challenges that come with beach camping on Portsmouth Island and I was about to introduce my infant son to an environment that can go from pristine to violent in the time it takes for the wind to change direction.

 

As things go, mother nature appeared to mock my decision making and thick rain clouds began to stack up in the distance  while we set up camp for the first night.

 

While I love adventure, I try not to be fool hearty about placing my family in compromising situations, should the need arise,  our "back-up" plan would be to retreat to the Tacoma if things got too sketchy for the tent.

Our first 2 nights on the island would test my resolve with seemingly endless bands of thunderstorms that rumbled in from the sound then drifted down the beach only to regroup off shore.

 

Emotions collide with reason in these situations, and there was a degree of unspoken tension as Ash and I sat on the tailgate of the truck sipping beer  watching magnificent lighting strikes out over the sea wondering if we had made the right decision.

To say that these situations are surreal would be an understatement, think what you like, but camping on an uninhabited island is not Disney Land and there are certain risk that have to be taken into consideration.

That being said, the feeling of sitting there with Ash in that moment is still with me, which is the entire point of going.

 

 

So the babies' first camping trip went off without a hitch, there were no boogie men lying in wait, the mosquitoes did not carry him off, wild animals did stalk our site (that we are aware of), and not a single shark breached the depths of the ocean to try and rob us of our newborn son, and while a few thunderstorms did create a short lived pucker factor, the trip and the memories it created illustrate that life doesn't end with the introduction of a child, it begins... again...  

Stephen