09/11/2026
This is far harder than walking 20 miles to school in the snow…..
Another testament to the amazing strength and courage of our coastal people, the ones who grew up here and learned what it took to live by the seawaters.
ON THIS DAY: TEENS BRAVE ORDEAL BOATING TO SCHOOL
CAROVA, N.C. (Richard C. Bayer, Virginian-Pilot) — On This Day, September 10, 1975, two Outer Banks teenagers who commuted to school by boat with a younger brother and sister spent about two hours in the shallow waters of Currituck Sound pulling and pushing their disabled craft to shore against a stiff northeast wind.
"Sometimes we had to swim," said 17-year-old Patrick McLaughlin (pictured, left), who tied a line from the boat's bow around his waist. "And sometimes we could walk."
"It was muddy, very muddy, and it was cold, very cold, because of the wind," he added.
"The mud was very deep — anywhere from our ankles to our waists," said Patrick's 18-year-old sister, Donna (pictured, right), who pushed the 18-foot outboard boat from the stern.
The McLaughlins lived just south of the North Carolina-Virginia line on the isolated Outer Banks of Currituck County, N.C. Their father, Wilbert, was a steel worker in Norfolk who stayed there during the week and came home on weekends.
The four McLaughlin children began their school day with a 3.5-mile boat trip across Currituck Sound from the Outer Banks to Knotts Island. They left their boat there and took a ferry the rest of the way to the mainland.
That Wednesday, with 14-year-old Valerie and 12-year-old John also aboard, the four McLaughlin children had just about reached Knotts Island when, Donna reported, their 60-horsepower motor tangled in milfoil — a stringy aquatic grass — and stopped operating.
With a stiff wind blowing the boat away from the island, Donna said, the two older McLaughlin children elected to get into the water and push and pull the boat ashore.
They were successful and the two younger children went on to class at Central Elementary School on the Currituck mainland.
But, Donna said, she and Patrick were wet and cold and elected — after getting the motor to run again — to return home instead of going on to Knapp High School.
On the return journey, however, the motor tangled in the milfoil again and stopped. Donna and Patrick went back into the Sound.
It took them about two hours, struggling through the shallow but choppy water, to get the boat back to the Outer Banks. They then went to a friend's home to get warm.
Another Outer Banks resident, Charles Gertz Jr., picked John and Valerie up at Knotts Island in his boat that afternoon. They had no problems returning home.
Dr. Jerry Blake, superintendent of the Currituck schools, said he thought the McLaughlins were the only children who travelled across the sound by boat. Blake estimated that there were no more than 10 school-age children on the Currituck Outer Banks.
He said some of them boarded on the mainland during the week with the county paying $50 per month for each student to help meet expenses. A couple of others, Blake said, travelled south along the beach to Dare County schools.
Norris Austin, who was the postmaster at Corolla Beach, said those children travelled with their mother, who worked for the Dare County school system. Blake said Currituck County did not provide transportation for Outer Banks students.
While mainland boarding might have been an alternative, Blake said, he had no "satisfactory solution" to the problems of the Outer Banks pupils.
Donna said she and the other McLaughlin children rode the bus to school in Virginia Beach until the end of the last academic year. The McLaughlins moved across the state line to a large mobile home after their home burned down, so the children then had to attend Currituck County schools.
📓 Carova Times | Off Road and Beyond
