DATE: Sunday, August 3, 1997                TAG: 9707310249

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: SONG OF A SAILOR

SOURCE: RONALD SPEER

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

LIVING ON THE OUTER BANKS IS DIFFERENT FROM VISITING THE OUTER BANKS

About 340 times a day some visitor tells me how lucky I am to live on the Outer Banks.

The comments come from old friends on vacation, from total strangers who like to talk to year-round residents, and from awed newcomers visiting for the first time.

``We pay hundreds of dollars to come here for a week and you get to live here all year round for nothing,'' goes the plaintive lament. ``And you even get paid.

``Life just isn't fair,'' the tired traveler from Tennessee will remark. ``You're only a few minutes from the ocean or the sound, no matter where you live.

``You can go fishing every day, or sail, or swim. You can pick and choose from dozens of fine restaurants. You can play golf or fly a kite or visit galleries day after day after day.

``You're a lucky man, my friend.''

Nearly everyone I know on the Outer Banks who lives here is accustomed to the envy.

There's only one flaw in the theory: Most of us who live here are so busy making a living that we don't have time to enjoy the good life that lures hundreds of thousands of outsiders to the Banks.

Lots of people who visit and are delighted with the ambience of the Outer Banks for a week or two go home and decide to chuck it all back in Ohio or New Jersey or Pennsylvania and move here for good.

For many of the newcomers, that means working long hours or holding down two or three jobs to pay the bills.

And even the folks who can handle the cost of settling down here quickly discover that living in the Outer Banks is different than visiting the Outer Banks.

Since the ocean is forever, many of us go for years without swimming in the surf, walking the beaches or stretching out on the sand to soak up the sun.

We spend our spare time working in our gardens or entertaining friends of taking kids to baseball games.

And even when we do take advantage of the good life we don't really appreciate what we've got.

When I get up early and stroll the waterfront in downtown Manteo checking out the sailboats, I don't bother to carry a camera. And I don't go home and excitedly tell how enchanting it was.

But when I visit exotic waterfronts when I'm on vacation, I shoot rolls of film, marvel aloud about the charm and beauty and send postcards to friends extolling the virtues of the setting.

Wise residents DO realize how much more visitors get out of the Outer Banks than the year-rounders, and emulate the vacationers.

Even though they live but minutes from the Atlantic, they rent beach-front cottages and become tourists for a week or two. That way they can play poker in the morning, eat fried foods, order pizza, relax on the beach for hours without contributing an iota to humankind - and feel not a twinge of guilt about their selfish indolence.

But most of us year-rounders never find the time to do the things that first drew us to the Outer Banks. Maybe tomorrow, we promise ourselves. But tomorrow rarely comes.

``It's easy to recognize the locals,'' says Bonnie Brown, who lives in Kill Devil Hills, works full time, and with her husband takes care of a couple of active kids. ``We're the pale ones.

``The visitors are the ones with tans.'' MEMO: Ronald L. Speer is a former North Carolina editor for The

Virginian-Pilot.

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