Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Waterfowl memories are woven throughout Ocracoke native Eddie O’Neal’s life.

He recalls redheads, pintails, teal and great flocks of geese on the Pamlico Sound and winter days in sink boxes with old-timers like Thurston Gaskill.

Because of that history and his skill of turning a block of wood into a work of art, he was named featured carver for this year’s Ocracoke Island Waterfowl Festival from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Ocracoke School gym.

O’Neal chose the Canada goose as his signature piece, honoring both the bird and the generations of island hunters and carvers who came before him.

“A Canada goose was a real trophy back then,” he said. “Something you showed off with pride and often shared with older neighbors who couldn’t get out to hunt themselves.”

O’Neal graduated from Ocracoke School in 1978 alongside classmates Vince O’Neal and the late John Simpson, two of the founders of the Ocracoke Decoy Carver’s Guild in 2018.

As a boy, O’Neal was constantly on the water.

Like many island youth, by age 12 he was already hunting and fishing around Springer’s Point and on his father’s nearby property.

He fished commercially with his father, Carson, who served in the Coast Guard, and brothers Andy and Albert, working pound nets and gigging flounder.

During his 23 years working for the state of North Carolina, he held a variety of positions: on a dredge crew, building spillways and working heavy equipment from Southport to Knotts Island.

Included in his working career, he also built golf courses, was a truck driver and worked on road paving crews for an asphalt company out of Norfolk, Virginia.

He and his wife Pam also ran the Island Galley restaurant on Ocracoke until damage from Hurricane Isabel (2003) forced them to close.

Although he appreciated decoys, he didn’t start carving as a hobby until around 2008 while living in Virginia Beach. Over time, that hobby “morphed into a full-time job.”

Among his fond memories are watching Wilbur and Clinton Gaskill, older Ocracoke carvers, who turned out small geese flyers and decoys at an astonishing pace. Wilbur could make 15 to 20 decoys a day and sell every one of them on a summer day when the island was far quieter than it is now.

His second cousin, Dave O’Neal, a retired Coast Guard man and renowned carver, has been an important influence offering tips on the techniques and tools of the craft.

Preferring to focus on his own carvings, O’Neal doesn’t collect or trade in other people’s decoys.

When he and Pam retired several years ago, they moved back to Ocracoke, and his carving became a daily practice.

Today, O’Neal does most of his carvings for the Island Ragpicker shop, run by his siblings Stephanie and Albert.

Not just decoys — he crafts shore birds, small flyers, fish, and a variety of decorative pieces that keep the shelves full and his hands busy.

Carving is his “therapy room” — something that keeps him grounded in retirement and balances time with his grandchildren Carter, Kyler, Amaya, Johnny and Angel.

He rarely sells pieces directly, except at some island events.

He prefers to stock the shop or donate carvings to local fundraisers like the Ocracoke Firemen’s Ball auction where his works have helped raise significant financial support over the years.

For materials, O’Neal favors northern white cedar, which he hauls back from a sawmill near Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

He also uses tupelo, sourced from a Mennonite mill near Pink Hill, and some pine.

Large decoys are almost always cedar, while smaller items, like flyers, often come from scrap wood he picks up from around the island, such as from the school that was torn down.

He appreciates cedar’s similarity to local juniper and its fine, aromatic grain. O’Neal shapes his birds with an angle grinder for the rough form, then refines them with a Dremel and extensive sanding, especially on the delicate heads and bills of shore birds.

He draws most of his own patterns by hand and also enjoys building furniture, having made tables and household pieces for family members from barn oak and other reclaimed woods.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke Island. Coastal Review partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Currituck County’s America 250 NC Task Force has launched a yearlong challenge to visit 10 of North Carolina’s lighthouses as part of the country’s celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Called the NC Lighthouse Challenge, participants must visit the 10 sites and submit their photos with the lighthouse visible to nc.lighthouse.visit@gmail.com by the Dec. 31 deadline. Those who complete the challenge will be awarded a personalized certificate from Currituck County upon completion, and earn a free lighthouse climb.

Organizers noted that Hatteras, Lookout, Ocracoke, and Bodie are not offering the free lighthouse climb because of either long-term maintenance or National Park Service rules.

Register at https://www.eventcreate.com/e/nc-lighthouse-visit to receive the official set of rules.

“Long before modern navigation systems, lighthouse keepers and members of the U.S. Life-Saving Service stood watch along North Carolina’s treacherous coastline. Their dedication—often in isolation and through severe weather—helped guide ships safely and protect countless lives,” organizers said in a release.

“These early services were eventually unified under the U.S. Coast Guard in 1939, continuing a legacy of vigilance and service that remains today. The NC Lighthouse Challenge honors that legacy, inviting participants to walk in the footsteps of those who helped ‘light the way’ for a growing nation,” they continued.

The 10 historic sites include the following:

• Old Baldy on Bald Head Island, built 1817.
• Ocracoke Lighthouse, 1823.
• Cape Lookout Lighthouse, 1859.
• Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, 1870.
• Bodie Island Lighthouse, 1872, on Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
• Currituck Beach Lighthouse, 1875.
• Oak Island Lighthouse, 1958.
• Roanoke River Lighthouse, 1886, in Edenton.
• Roanoke River Lighthouse 1867 replica in Plymouth.
• Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse 1877 replica in Manteo.

Tony Cerri, a member of the county’s celebration task force, said that at its core, the challenge is about more than visiting beautiful places.

“It’s about recognizing the vital role North Carolina’s lighthouses — and the people who served in them — played in guiding commerce, protecting lives, and supporting the growth of our nation,” Cerri added in the release.

Currituck County’s America 250 NC Task Force is one of the county committees that plan and organize events, projects, and initiatives at the county level as part of America 250 NC. The state’s official commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary is a program of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division is expanding the schedules of four ferry routes to accommodate the increase in spring traffic.

As of Tuesday, the Hatteras-Ocracoke route increased daily departures from 36 to 52, and the Swan Quarter-Ocracoke and Cedar Island-Ocracoke schedules both increased from four to six daily departures.

The Southport-Fort Fisher route moved to its spring schedule, increasing daily departures on weekdays only from 28 to 32, but the weekend schedule will remain unchanged.

The Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach, Bayview-Aurora and Currituck-Knotts Island routes will all remain on their year-round schedules.

Spring ferry schedules as of Tuesday, March 31, were the following:

Hatteras-Ocracoke

• From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and midnight.
• From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and midnight.

Cedar Island-Ocracoke

• From Cedar Island: 7:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m.
• From Ocracoke: 7:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 4:30 p.m.

Swan Quarter-Ocracoke

• From Swan Quarter: 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m.
• From Ocracoke: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m.

Southport-Fort Fisher weekdays

• From Southport: 5:30 a.m., 7 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:15 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:45 p.m., 6:15 p.m.
• From Fort Fisher: 6:15 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:15 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:45 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 7 p.m.

The full 2026 schedule is available for download. For real time text or email notifications on schedule adjustments and other ferry information, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins​.

Second and final in a series

As the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel studies the effects of permanent beach erosion control structures such as seawalls and jetties, a critical aspect of the analysis will be looking at the lessons learned.

The commission banned hardened structures on the ocean shoreline in 1985 because of the down-shore erosive effects on the beach. Still, there are numerous examples of such structures in place along different parts of the coast, with varied degrees of effectiveness.

Erosion is not only more severe and longstanding on the Outer Banks, which are more exposed to the power of the open ocean and coastal storms than other parts of the North Carolina coast, it is the most dramatic and unforgiving, especially on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. But coastal erosion is a statewide issue. To that point, federal beach nourishment projects in North Carolina began in 1965 at Wrightsville Beach and at Carolina Beach, and nourishment at both locations has been done in recent years.

When development and tourism took off on the Outer Banks in the 1980s, it didn’t take long before beach cottages began lining ocean shorelines.

Still, the forces of erosion had no mercy, and Kitty Hawk began losing beachfront properties. After the commission issued a variance to the hardened structures ban in 2003, permitting sheet-piling along N.C. Highway 12 in the beach community, then-Sen. Marc Basnight strongarmed the state’s ban into legislation.

Then in 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law that permitted four “test” terminal groins and has since expanded the permissible number of groins to seven. To date, four communities submitted permit applications: Figure Eight Island, Ocean Isle Beach, Bald Head Island and Holden Beach. Holden Beach has since withdrawn its application.

Long before the ban, numerous attempts were made to shore up the beach oceanward of the 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton. By 1930, the nation’s tallest brick lighthouse was a mere 98 feet from the ocean.

According to National Park Service records, interlocking steel sheet-pile groins were installed in the 1930s on the beach near the lighthouse and reinforced a few years later. Over the years, dunes were built, grasses were planted, the beach was nourished, revetment and sandbag walls were installed.

In 1969, the U.S. Navy installed three reinforced concrete groins to protect its base, which was adjacent to the lighthouse at the time. But the erosion continued. More sandbags were put in place; more beach nourishment was done. The Navy left in the 1980s. While the National Park Service officially gave up its beach nourishment and dune stabilization efforts in 1973, it continued trying in ensuing years to protect the lighthouse from the sea with rip-rap, artificial seagrass, sandbags and a scour-mat apron.

Finally, after much study and public debate, with the ocean lapping at its foundation, in 1999 the lighthouse was relocated about a half mile from the beach.

Fast-forward a quarter-century and, since September 2025, 19 unoccupied beach houses near that same beach in Buxton have collapsed into the ocean.

Escalating beach erosion along the state’s entire coast, but especially in Buxton, has put difficult discussions about lifting the hardened shorelines ban back on the table. The few existing permanent erosion-control structures built over the years on North Carolina beaches have yielded mixed results.

Oregon Inlet

One of the most successful examples of a terminal groin doing what it was intended to do, and with relatively minimal harm, is the 3,125-foot terminal groin and 625-foot revetment built in 1991 to protect the N.C. Highway 12 tie-in at the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, which has since been replaced and renamed the Marc Basnight Bridge. The $13.4 million groin is substantial — ranging from 110 to 170 feet wide at its base and 25 feet wide at its landward end, and 39 feet wide at its seaward end — and was built to withstand waves as high as 15 feet, according to an analysis done by the state Division of Coastal Management, “North Carolina’s Terminal Groins at Oregon Inlet and Fort Macon,  Descriptions and Discussions.”

Located on the south side of Oregon Inlet at the north edge of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge land, the groin placement encouraged sand buildup, or accretion, landward, resulting in a wide expansion of 50 acres of sandy property on the inlet side of the historic state-owned Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station. The building is vacant, but has been weatherized to preserve it for future use.

The groin site and surrounding beach have been regularly monitored by state and federal coastal scientists. Studies have shown that the structure has likely increased shoaling of a spit on the Bodie island side and deepening of the channel. Yet, the groin has cause little if any destructive downstream erosion while adequately protecting the highway and bridge infrastructure.

But the report warned that within the next 20 years or so, the continued southward migration of the Bodie Island spit could push the inlet’s main navigational channel up against the terminal groin structure itself.

“If this were to occur, the result would be severe scour and an increase in the maintenance necessary to preserve the threatened integrity of the structure itself,” according to the document.

Beaufort Inlet/Fort Macon

Since Fort Macon was constructed in 1834, about 25 erosion-control structures adjacent to Beaufort Inlet have been built, including groins, breakwaters, timber cribbing, sand-fencing and seawalls, as well as multiple beach nourishment projects, according to the terminal groin report.  The first phase of the terminal groin project began in 1961 and included a 530-foot seawall, a 250-foot revetment and 720-foot long, 6-foot-high terminal groin. Phase II, beginning in 1965, extended the groin 410 feet oceanward, and another groin was built west of the revetment to address extensive soundside erosion, while 93,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach.

The third phase, started in 1970, extended the terminal groin another 400 feet, to a total of 1,530 feet long. A 480-foot-long stone groin was built to stabilize the beach fill, and another 100,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach. Total costs for the three-phase project was $1.35 million.

Effects of the project include increased wave energy along the Fort Macon State Park and Bogue Banks area, and continued increases in wave energy were predicted. A sediment deficit has created erosion on the inlet’s western shoreline. Meanwhile, the sand spit at Fort Macon has migrated into the western bank of the navigation channel, indicating that the terminal groin has become inefficient at trapping sediment.

“Without constant beach nourishment, the terminal groin would no longer perform as observed historically and potentially fail altogether,” the report concluded.

Buxton

Dare County is planning a nourishment project in Buxton, as well as restoration of one of the Navy’s three abandoned reinforced sheet-pile groins that had been installed in 1969. According to the recent application to repair the southernmost groin, which is 50% or more intact, that groin had been lengthened in 1982 on the landward side by 300 feet, and armor stone was added two years later. New sheet piles and additional scour protection were added to the structures in 1994. The other two groins in the original groin field are too damaged to qualify under the Coastal Resources Commission’s “50% rule” that permits repairs.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten has said publicly that the county is under no illusions that the project planned for this summer will solve the erosion issue for good. But the hope is that it will serve as a Band-Aid long enough to find a more permanent solution to erosion that is now so severe it is threatening the livelihoods of community residents and the island’s tourism economy, as well as N.C Highway 12.

Retired East Carolina University professor and veteran coastal geologist Dr. Stanley Riggs, who has studied the Outer Banks since the 1970s, agreed that the fact that the lighthouse had to be relocated to save it illustrates why Buxton’s erosion is not going to be easy to tame for long, with or without groins. When the first coastal survey from Virginia to Ocracoke was done in 1852, the original 1802 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was destroyed, had been 1,000 feet from the shoreline, Riggs recently told Coastal Review. All told, the shoreline has receded 3,000 feet, or about two-thirds of a mile, at the cape, he said.

“And it’s been constant,” Riggs said. “It oscillates a little bit, but the main direction has been constant.”

As Riggs explained, offshore just north of the motel area in Buxton, there is an underwater rock structure that is set at an oblique angle relative to the barrier island. Similar “old capes” are also off Avon and Rodanthe, he said. The rocks are under as much as 50 feet of water, and they dictate how the waves refract there.

“And so, if you fly over it, and you get the right angle down there, what you see is a series of cusps, and one side of that cusp will be stable, the other side will be highly erosional,” he said. Groins will only make the eroding side erode faster. And when there are permanent or semipermanent structures along the beach, the shore face — the part that is under water — starts to erode and gets steeper and steeper, he said. And the steeper it gets, the more severe the overwash and the more difficult it is to hold the sand in place. That’s a big reason why beach nourishment is having to be done more frequently.

Not only does the Outer Banks stick out farther into the Atlantic, there is also a narrower continental shelf, which allows the bigger waves to come ashore from the open ocean without the wider “speed bump” needed to dissipate the power.

There’s no negotiating with the ocean, Riggs said. Considering the combination of coastal dynamics at play in Buxton, efforts to control erosion will continue to fail.

“It’s that land-sea-air interface that is really the highest energy place that we’ve got on our planet,” Riggs said. “And there’s some things you can do there. There’s some things you shouldn’t do there, you can’t do there, and it’s a matter of understanding how that system works.”

Ocracoke Island

A persistent erosion hot spot on the north end of the island along N.C. Highway 12, the only road between the Hatteras Ferry Docks and Ocracoke Village, has been patched on and off for decades by increasing numbers of ever larger numbers and size of sandbags.

But even the type of large, new, trapezoidal bags permitted at Ocracoke, Pea Island and Mirlo Beach have not held up as expected, according to a presentation provided by Paul Williams of the North Carolina Department of Transportation at the February Coastal Resources Commission meeting.

Williams presented details at the meeting of NCDOT’s revised request to increase the base of the sandbags from 20 to 30 feet and the height from 6 feet to 10 feet, to better protect them from being undermined by waves.

The newer bags have open ends at the top, which proved to be a problem at Pea Island, Williams told the commission. The Pea Island Refuge at the Visitor Center, he added, faces similar risks now to that seen at Mirlo Beach in Rodanthe in the years before the hotspot was bypassed with completion of the Rodanthe “Jug-Handle” Bridge.

“The performance has not been what we anticipated,” he said, describing how they were flooded at the top, which caused the sandbags to deflate. “This product, there may be some modifications that can be made to make them more resilient.”

Some of the new bags were also installed along with traditional sandbags at Ocracoke, and they’re still covered, Williams said, but roughly 1 mile of sandbags along N.C. 12 are at risk of being undermined during the next big storm.

“So it’s basically to give us more latitude on different products, to try to protect the roadway out there better than traditional sandbags have,” Willams told Coastal Review after the meeting. “We’ve used them for decades out there, and especially Mirlo, they really got tossed around during storms. We were looking to find a more resilient product, and we’re working on evaluating other options out there.”

The new sandbags with an opening at the top are quicker to fill, he said. They’ve worked at other areas, but conditions elsewhere are not as fierce.

“When you’re on the Outer Banks, you’re under constant pressure during some of these storm events, because we’ll have a storm set up on the coast and grind for days at a time,” Williams said. “And every tide cycle is just steadily pulling sand out of the bags, and we need to have some way to stop that.”

Even though many of the traditional sandbags without the troublesome opening are still in place at Ocracoke, Williams said that about half of them, or about 1,000, have been exposed and need to be replaced. Another issue on the island is the limited amount of sand available to cover.

Sandbags, which are considered temporary erosion-control structures that are permitted parallel to shore to protect imminently threatened roads or structures, have rules about color and size, but those rules have been notoriously abused with regard to the “temporary” part, with extensions often adding up to decades at a site, making them “hardened structures” in everything but name.

Before Nags Head in 2011 started nourishing its eroded beaches in South Nags Head, for instance, even battered and torn sandbags weren’t removed for years, and property owners often successfully sued the state to keep longstanding stacked rows of protective bags in place in front of their oceanfront homes on the eroded beach.

As sea levels continue to rise, storms intensify and erosion accelerates, even sandbags as fallbacks in the absence of other impermissible erosion-control structures are becoming less effective, as evidenced by photographs of huge piles of sandbags lined up against undermined houses at North Topsail Beach.

Ocean Isle Beach

Responding to the state legislature’s repeal of the ban on hardened erosion-control structures on the coast, Ocean Isle Beach in 2011 began the planning process to pursue permits to install a terminal groin at Shallotte Inlet to stem erosion that for decades had chewed away at the island’s east end. Five years later, state and federal approval was in hand to build a 750-foot-long terminal groin, but environmental groups in 2017 filed a lawsuit to stop the project. A ruling in March 2021 in the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the project alternatives were properly considered. By April 2022, the $11 million terminal groin was completed.

Today, a diminished beach remains in front of multi-million-dollar homes that were built after the groin was in place. Rows of sandbags block the surf from reaching some of the oceanfront homes, and several lots remain vacant because there is no longer enough property left to meet setback requirements.

In November, the Coastal Resources Commission allowed the owners of eroding vacant oceanfront lots to use larger sandbags to protect their properties.

Interest in future terminal groins

The Village of Bald Head Island, the first community to build a terminal groin after the “test groin” law passed, was issued a permit in October 2014 to build the erosion-control structure, which was completed in 2015.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality monitoring of the project after its completion did not turn up significant issues requiring corrective measures, according to its January 2024 report.

“While ongoing post-construction monitoring performed by the permittee has not identified any significant issues that would require corrective or mitigative measures, the Village performed a maintenance beach nourishment event, received nourishment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regularly scheduled Wilmington Harbor maintenance project, and is currently seeking permit authorization for a second Village-sponsored maintenance nourishment event,” according to the document.

Six other communities have expressed “varying degrees” of interest in building a terminal groin project, including North Topsail Beach and Figure Eight Island, as noted in the report.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s ferry system will soon increase the number of departures for the Hatteras-Ocracoke route.

Beginning Tuesday through to March 30, departures of the popular ferry route will jump from 28 to 36.

The new schedule from Hatteras will begin at 5 a.m. then every hour on the hour to 6 p.m., then 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and midnight.

The first departure time of the day from Ocracoke will be at 4:30 a.m. and proceed as follows: 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and midnight. 

The full schedule may be viewed and downloaded on DOT’s website.

To receive text or email notifications on schedule adjustments and other ferry information, you may sign up for the ferry information notification system.

A team has scheduled two discussions for later this month to hear from Ocracoke residents their thoughts on the challenges associated with changes to the physical environment the island is likely to experience.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Duke University and East Carolina University researchers have already completed a multiyear research project that simulates how the physical landscape such as beaches, shoreline, dunes and marshes of Ocracoke Island may change in the future because of road management decisions.

The team now is looking to hear from residents their perspective on meeting these challenges, particularly to transportation and accessing the island.

Sessions are scheduled for 1-3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30, and 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Jan. 31, at the Ocracoke Community Center. Reserve a spot to join the discussion. Participants must be an adult residing in Ocracoke.

“We’re conducting community deliberative dialogues to better understand your unique perspective about the challenges Ocracoke faces due to increasing environmental hazards,” researchers said. The two “events are a part of a research study to gain a better understanding of how communities demonstrate scientific literacy, within the context of coastal resilience issues and solutions.”

A deliberative dialogue is a structured discussion, moderated to help foster open conversations and provide an opportunity to share and hear different perspectives.

K.C. Busch, who can be reached at kbusch@ncsu.edu, is leading the study titled, “Redefining Scientific Literacy At The Community Level.”

BUXTON – Faced with devastating destruction across a significant segment of its beachfront, this small Outer Banks village is seeking help for coastal solutions, including measures that could require potentially controversial legislative action by the state and federal governments.

Since September, 15 houses have collapsed on a stretch of beach in Buxton just north of Cape Hatteras, the distinctive point of land midway along the East Coast that juts far into the Atlantic. Adaptation to storms and natural forces have fortified the community since its establishment in the late 1800s, but now stunningly rapid erosion is endangering its future.

“Today, small areas of our oceanfront have deteriorated to the point where we can no longer shoulder these challenges alone,” Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard wrote to members of the North Carolina General Assembly in November. “With your support, we can preserve our coastline, protect public infrastructure, and sustain the economic engine that benefits all of North Carolina.”

The county is one of the few “donor counties” in North Carolina, with more than 3 million people annually visiting Dare’s beaches and national parks and generating significant state tax revenue, he said. So far, he added, the county has spent about $275 million for beach nourishment as well as additional millions to maintain inlets, with little state or federal assistance.

In addition to a beach nourishment project in 2026 for Buxton, the county is planning to repair a purportedly half-intact groin, one of three installed in 1969 to protect the former Navy base constructed in 1956 near the original location of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

Dare and Hyde counties also have asked the state Division of Coastal Management to lift the 1985 state ban against hardened structures so the remnants of the two deteriorated groins at the site can be replaced.

But beach stabilization of any sort on the Outer Banks, with its extraordinarily high-energy coastal conditions, is becoming more challenging in a changing climate with quickly evolving and often unpredictable consequences: Sea levels are increasing faster than projected, storms are intensifying, rainfall is heavier.

In recent years, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands on the barrier islands’ southern end have been suffering dramatically increased shoaling in its inlets and far worse erosion at numerous hot spots along N.C. 12, the island’s only highway. Over wash, loss of dunes and road damage is becoming more frequent and difficult to mitigate, sometimes resulting in loss of vehicular access for hours or days. 

People say things feel different. Residents — from old timers to long-time transplants — have noticed places flooding where they never did before, shoaling in waterways that had never clogged before, and erosion consuming an entire shoreline that had been wide and stable just a few years before. And this fall and winter, even seasonal nor’easters have switched to overdrive, with the storms coming in one after another and more often than some ole salts say they’ve ever seen. 

“When we really developed these islands in the ’70s and ’80s, it was a different system, and we need to recognize that, acknowledge it, and plan accordingly,” Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute and Dean of the Integrated Coastal Program at East Carolina University, said in a recent interview. “We can’t let self-interest lead the way. We need to understand what this looks like, and we need to get behind better policy. And it starts with how we develop.”

Responding to increasing numbers of house collapses in Buxton and Rodanthe, the Hatteras Island’s northernmost village, state leaders are urging Congress to pass legislation introduced by Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican from North Carolina’s 3rd District, that would authorize proactive Federal Emergency Management Agency flood insurance payments to remove threatened oceanfront houses before they fall.

While the proposal has garnered bipartisan support, FEMA is currently understaffed and targeted for downsizing, reorganization or even elimination, and its flood insurance program is woefully underfunded.

A delegation representing local, state and federal officials toured the damaged area in Buxton on Nov. 24, where dozens of additional oceanfront houses are scattered willy-nilly, awaiting near-certain demise. Numerous members of the group expressed shock at the disarray and destruction at the scene.

Meanwhile, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson has directed the Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel to analyze shoreline stabilization options, including the potential effectiveness or negative impacts of groins.

Erosion on Buxton’s oceanfront has been a persistent problem for many decades, at least to the infrastructure on the beach, such as the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

“It was quite obvious to everybody that in the course of time the lighthouse would topple into the Atlantic Ocean and the thousand acres of park land, upon which no tree and scarcely any blade of grass grew, would be swallowed up by the warring ocean currents that swirl around the point of Cape Hatteras,” author Ben Dixon MacNeill wrote in an article published on July 30, 1948, in the Coastland Times. At that point, he noted, in just the lifetime of a middle-aged man, erosion had already whittled away 1,500 feet of beach. 

Despite the 1937 congressional directive to the National Park Service to preserve what would later become Cape Hatteras National Seashore as a “primitive wilderness,” until the early 1970s, according to park documents, the agency spent more than $20 million to stop the “natural process” of barrier island movement. Projects included installing in 1930 steel sheet pile groins along the beach by Cape Hatteras Lighthouse; installing in 1933 additional sheet pile groins at the lighthouse; nourishment of the beach in 1966 near the Buxton motel area with sand dredged from Pamlico Sound; and in 1967 placement of revetment of large nylon sandbags in front of the lighthouse.

In addition, the U.S. Navy built three reinforced concrete groins in 1969 to protect its facility near the lighthouse; the beach near the Buxton motels was nourished again in 1971 with material dredged from Cape Point; and the beach near the Navy operation was nourished in 1973 with Cape Point sand. 

Those actions were in addition to construction and repeated reconstruction of sand dunes, as well as beach fences and planting grasses, shrubs and trees to hold the dunes. 

Finally, in 1973, the National Park Service acknowledged the futility and unsustainable costs of stabilization, and abandoned its efforts. The agency, however, did continue various attempts to protect the lighthouse with riprap, offshore artificial grass, sandbags and a scour-mat apron. With the sea by then lapping at its base, the lighthouse in 1999 was relocated a half-mile inland.

In a letter dated Jan. 9, 1974, from the U.S. Department of Interior to a Buxton resident, the agency promised that all available data would be analyzed before determining future beach stabilization management decisions in the Seashore, including relative to the groins.

“The most reliable scientific data we have obtained thus far offer no evidence that the existing jetties or groins at Buxton provide acceptable protection from ocean forces,” the department added. “While some stabilizing effect may be gained in the immediate area, the jetties actually cause more erosion in adjacent locations.”

A report the year earlier published by University of Virginia coastal scientist Robert Dolan, et. al, to analyze the effects of beach nourishment in Buxton, in fact, said that the groins — short jetties extending from a shoreline — rapidly increased erosion by the motel area, causing dune destruction and ocean over wash into private property.

“The groins, somewhat unexpectedly, are trapping sediment at the expense of the beaches to either side and as a result of their success, the reach protected by the groins has become stable,” the report said, adding that the localized erosion problem at Buxton had followed construction of the groins.

Barely more than four years after they were built, the groins were damaged by storms and required repairs with new sheet piling. Patches and reinforcements continued until the Navy in 1982 abandoned the base, apparently leaving the groins to the elements.

By the time heated discussions kicked in about whether the lighthouse should be saved in place or moved, the community tried to persuade the federal government to not only maintain the by-then-deteriorating existing groins, but also to add a fourth groin. The petition was soundly rejected, and the Navy, the Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appeared to want nothing to do with the groins.

Today, the county sees the sand trapping barriers — even a single groin — as a way to prolong the effectiveness of a $50 million beach nourishment project, and importantly, as a way to buy time while consultants determine a long-term strategy for Buxton.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten reported in March that, according to Coastal Science & Engineering, the firm hired to do the beach nourishment and groin work, the southern-most groin would meet the state’s 50% rule that allows repair of an existing structure that has 50% or less in damages. The county is currently awaiting approval from the state, as well as acknowledgement that the application meets the exemption criteria for an exemption from the hardened structures statute, he said.

If the groin work is approved, contractors estimate the $2 to $4 million project would take up to two months to complete this summer and involve about 640 feet of repairs, using steel sheet pile and riprap scour protection within the original footprint.

As Outten summed up the current dilemma facing Dare and other North Carolina coastal communities: There are two extremes, either hold the coast in place as it is, and build sea walls. Or let nature take its course, let the houses fall and see the economy crumble.

“And neither one of those extremes is acceptable,” he told Coastal Review. “To anybody.”

Hatteras-Ocracoke, Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach and Southport-Fort Fisher ferry routes will be on an adjusted schedule for the Christmas holiday.

All other state-run ferries will be on their regular schedules over the Christmas holidays, North Carolina Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday when the revised schedule was announced.

The routes will adhere to the following schedule:

Hatteras-Ocracoke Dec. 24-25

• From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m., midnight.
• From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m.

Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach Dec. 25

• From Cherry Branch: 5 a.m., 5:45 a.m., 6:45 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
• From Minnesott Beach: 5:25 a.m., 6:15 a.m., 7:15 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Southport-Fort Fisher Dec. 25

• From Southport: 5:30 a.m., 7 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
• From Fort Fisher: 6:15 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 3:15 p.m. and 4:45 p.m.

Organizers invite anyone who has participated before in the annual Christmas Bird counts on Ocracoke or Portsmouth Island, or those who have expressed interest, or might know others who’d like to join, to sign up as soon as possible.

The count dates this year will be Dec. 30 on Ocracoke Island and Dec. 31 on Portsmouth Island.

RSVPs are needed to inform Capt. Donald Austin know how many people will be heading from Ocracoke to Portsmouth.

The Ocracoke count has run every year since it began in 1982.

The Portsmouth count started in 1988 and has missed a few years due to bad weather or scheduling problems.

“With all the dismal reports on birds declining, we did get a bounce from last year’s Ocracoke’s count,” said compiler Peter Vankevich.

Ocracoke’s 2024 Christmas Bird Count tied the record for the number of species.

To volunteer, call or text Vankevich at 202 468-2871, or email petevankevich@gmail.com.

The tally rally will begin at 6 pm, Dec. 31, at Vankevich’s house in Widgeon Woods, near the lighthouse on Ocracoke Island.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

“They swam all the way to Ocracoke?”

I suppose I should not have been so incredulous upon learning that National Park Service employees were having to track down rogue coyotes on Ocracoke Island. During my time conducting surveys of colonial waterbirds across the North Carolina coast, the impacts of coyote predation on young chicks was impossible to not take seriously. Their presence posed a constant challenge for federal, state, and municipal authorities. It’s not only birds that are affected; coyotes, with their acute sense of smell, pose a serious threat to sea turtle nests as well.

Invasive species often pose a serious challenge for ecosystems that have not evolved alongside them, and the havoc they wreak often vastly outstrips the pace at which the environment can adapt to their presence. While we have come to think of coyotes as a part of our everyday lives here in the eastern U.S., they are actually only native to the Southwest.

As wolves were killed en masse and driven out of the eastern U.S., coyotes migrated eastward to fill in the ecological role that was left wide open. As they did so, they picked up genes from the retreating wolves along their way. Now native red wolves are restricted to the Albemarle peninsula of North Carolina, a remnant of a once-dominant population that would have kept the coyotes from ever reaching the barrier islands simply by virtue of their presence.

While red wolves and coyotes are somewhat similar in appearance, coyotes are solitary mesopredators (mid-level carnivores that are still threatened by apex predators) that are characteristically opportunistic when it comes to food sources such as sea turtle eggs. Red wolves on the other hand are cooperative pack hunters that go for much larger game than coyotes, and will drive coyotes away or attack them under normal ecological conditions.

I bring the expansion of coyotes up as one example of how North Carolina’s barrier islands have changed since the onset of European colonization in the 16th century. The changes have been numerous, catastrophic, profound, and formative all at the same time.

One of these changes are the wild horses that roam these dunes, in locations ranging from Corolla to Beaufort. I have enjoyed many meals from childhood to present dining on the Beaufort waterfront, looking across the narrow intracoastal waterway to find horses grazing on the Rachel Carson Reserve. For locals, they are a sight as ubiquitous as spotting dolphins in the waterway. Entire businesses and marketing promotions of the area have fixated on these horses as a unique part of the area’s culture and appeal.

I am presently a researcher with North Carolina State University studying the crystal skipper. The crystal skipper is a butterfly species only found on a 30-mile stretch of the North Carolina Crystal Coast from Bear Island to the Rachel Carson Reserve.

The Rachel Carson Reserve just so happens to be a location with resident horses, making it the only place where horse and skipper populations interact.

People frequently come to the Rachel Carson Reserve to hike or relax on the beach, whether they come by way of ferry or their own watercraft. As my coworkers and I work in our highlighter-yellow vests, visitors are frequently drawn to us with inquiries about where they can spot the horses. Their assumptions aren’t wrong, I have been coming here for years at this point and I can direct them where to go to have a good chance of seeing them. They are often surprised, however, to find us unenthusiastic about the horses when we are directly asked about them.

We usually address the visitors on the Rachel Carson Reserve surrounded by centipede grass, the only grass that remains after the horses have eaten their fill. Seaside little bluestem, the sole grass species the crystal skipper lays their eggs on and eats as a caterpillar, is nowhere to be found in the areas the horses frequent. It’s heart-wrenching to watch the horses stride into the one small section of the Rachel Carson Reserve that still contains a viable crystal skipper population, consuming who knows how many eggs and caterpillars as they satiate their hunger on seaside little bluestem. In a sharp contrast to the horses, the crystal skipper is not only from here, it is only found here.

Who are these horses for? For tourists?

I doubt the desire to see the horses would increase as people grow in their knowledge about the horses’ condition. When I am asked about how healthy the horses are here, I feel as though I am lying by omission if I don’t tell the truth as I see it.

For tourism boards?

North Carolina’s coast is replete with breathtaking sites and awe-inspiring nature, I doubt horses in particular are needed to promote the area.

For a rare and imperiled butterfly species found nowhere else on Earth?

Certainly not for them.

One could easily ask who the crystal skipper is for, to which I would reply that it is for the very island ecosystems that created it in the first place, whose selective pressures picked the genes that gave rise to its very body plan. Secondarily, the crystal skipper is for the people who live and visit here who are able to appreciate its beauty and intrinsic link to the land.

For all the problems I have highlighted here, I do believe that there is a solution to this problem that addresses the concerns of all involved. To anchor this solution in how I began the article, I once again want to return to the subject of Ocracoke.

Horses remain on the island but have been corralled into a pony pen, easily accessible to anybody visiting the island. These horses are given a proper diet, bereft of the hardy and sandy grasses that stitch the island together against the advances of the wind and waves. This keeps the island’s ecology and structure intact, enables visitors and residents alike to see this part of Ocracoke’s history, and keeps the horses protected from careless visitors.

It would be impertinent and wrong of me to dismiss the cultural and tourist value that the horses provide simply because I am approaching the topic as a conservationist. That said, if you are able to get a close look, the horses’ taught skin stretched over their hips and ribs represents a sharp contrast to the horses that folks are generally used to seeing.

If folks are going to come to see the Crystal Coast, I want them to see the best of the Crystal Coast, where we steward our ecological resources well and care for the animals in our charge.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Four critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were spotted last month off the coast of Ocracoke.

The aerial sighting triggered what is known as a dynamic management area in the vicinity where the whales were spotted Nov. 18 during an aerial survey. Dynamic management areas are voluntary and used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to notify vessel operators to slow down to avoid right whales.

“Maintaining speeds of 10 knots or less can help protect right whales from vessel collisions,” according to NOAA’s website.

Vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear remain the leading causes of death and serious injury to North Atlantic right whales, of which there are fewer than 400.

The 2024 population is estimated at 384 individual whales, a slight, 2.1% increase over the 2023 estimate, according to numbers released in October by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

And while the latest estimate shows a continued slow, upward trend in growth over the last four years, marine scientists caution that strong protective measures are crucial to the recovery of the species.

“The North Atlantic right whale is in such peril that even a single human-caused death threatens the recovery of the species and its chances at avoiding extension,” Michelle Bivins, Oceana Carolinas Field Campaigns representative, said in an interview on Thursday.

Right whales migrate seasonally, spending their spring and summers in waters off New England and farther north into Canadian waters, to feed and mate.

In the fall, the whales travel south, sometimes more than 1,000 miles, to their calving grounds off shore from the Carolinas to northeastern Florida.

In 2008, NOAA created a speed rule limiting vessels 65 feet or longer to travel no more than 10 knots in seasonal, mandatory and voluntary slow zones.

“I think it’s important though to emphasize that history does show boats smaller than 65 feet can also harm and kill North Atlantic right whales,” Bivins said. “In February 2021, a calf died from propeller wounds, broken ribs, and a fractured skill from a collision with a 54-foot recreational fishing vessel that was not subject to the speed requirement.”

That calf was found off the Florida coast.

In March 2024, a dead calf washed ashore on Georgia’s coast with fatal injuries caused by a boat estimated to be between 35 feet and 57 feet in length, Bivins said.

Earlier this year, NOAA announced its withdrawal of a proposed speed limits for vessels under 65 feet in length through designated North Atlantic right whale seasonal management areas in the northeast, mid-Atlantic, and southeast. The agency “encourages” smaller vessels to 10 knots or less.

In the meantime, scientists are calling for additional measures to aid in the right whale population’s recovery, including the use of ropeless or on-demand fishing gear for crab fishing to reduce whale entanglements.

A Republican lawmaker for most of the Outer Banks has pressed the governor’s office to declare a state of emergency for sections of the barrier islands that have suffered in the last several weeks from what he calls “catastrophic shoreline collapse” and the associated infrastructure damage, particularly to N.C. Highway 12.

Sen. Bobby Hanig, who represents District 1, which consists of Bertie, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Tyrrell counties, penned a letter to Gov. Josh Stein’s office dated Friday, Oct. 31, requesting a state of emergency be declared, for the “affected Ocracoke area (Highway 12, encompassing Hatteras and Ocracoke) and activate all state resources.”

In his letter to the governor, Hanig explained that the Buxton community “has suffered catastrophic shoreline collapse, resulting in the loss of sixteen homes and over two hundred feet of shoreline. NC Highway 12, south of Oregon Inlet — the only access route for residents, emergency services, and visitors — has been washed out by ocean waters, isolating families and placing lives at risk. Local emergency management and county resources are fully exhausted and cannot effectively respond without state support.”

He also requested that the state coordinate with federal partners to secure emergency assistance, and authorize emergency shoreline and infrastructure protection where “state and federal interests intersect.”

A spokesperson with the governor’s office said Monday in an email response to Coastal Review’s request for comment that “The images of homes being swept away are deeply unsettling. The state of the North Carolina is working closely with Dare County and state and federal partners in the area to make sure that North Carolinians remain as safe as possible.” 

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety explains on its website that “when a governor or local body declares a State of Emergency, emergency managers are provided with the legal means they need to deploy resources and immediately respond to a crisis to protect lives and property.”

This means that government officials can bypass certain procedures that are typically required, such as, for example, the budget approval process to access emergency funds, or the bidding process to hire a contractor to perform cleanup.

Arrr! you worried you won’t make it to the Ocracoke Pirate Jamboree because of the ongoing closure of a section of N.C. 12 on Ocracoke Island?

Well matey, we’ve got some good news for you.

You can still walk the plank onto the passenger-only ferry that runs from Hatteras to Ocracoke or walk on the sound class vehicle ferries from Cedar Island or Swan Quarter to get to the jamboree, one sure to immerse visitors in Ocracoke Island’s pirate lore and the legend of Blackbeard.

“We encourage our visitors to hop on the passenger ferry or walk-on from the mainland,” Ocracoke Access Alliance Executive Director Justin LeBlanc said in a release.  “Our village is quite walkable, there are bikes and golf carts available for rent, and we hope to have our public tram running for the weekend.”

All ferry terminals offer free parking on a first-come, first-served basis.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation continues to work to clear N.C. 12 on Ocracoke with the hope of re-opening one lane of the road by 5 p.m. Friday, though “much depends on any additional overwash of the road during the next high tide,” scheduled for later today, according to a release.

Vehicle ferry operations, which have been suspended because of the closure of N.C. 12 at the north end of Ocracoke Island, will resume once the road reopens.

“We appreciate the efforts of the NC Ferry Division to provide access to the island during this difficult time,” LeBlanc said.  “Folks who choose the passenger ferry will be returned to their vehicles in Hatteras at the end of their visit to our wonderful island.”

Passengers of the Ocracoke Express, which bypasses N.C. 12, are delivered directly into the village where the festival kicked off Friday. A round-trip ticket is $15 and reservations may be made in person or by calling 1-800-BY-FERRY.

NCDOT’s Ferry Division personnel will decide whether to extend weekend service later Friday afternoon, according to a release.

An evening round trip on the Ocracoke-Swan Quarter vehicle ferry has been added Friday, departing at 7 p.m. with a return trip from Swan Quarter at 10:30 p.m., according to a DOT release.

For a full schedule, visit the N.C. Ferry Division’s webpage.

Ocracoke Preservation Society is readying for its first historic home tour since before Hurricane Dorian hit the region in 2019.

Set for 2 to 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 28, tickets are $50 each and can be purchased online.

The tour features four homes along Lighthouse Road within the nationally recognized Ocracoke Historic District and wraps up at 4:30 p.m. with a first look at the renovation of the Island Inn. Built in 1901, the building has been an Odd Fellow’s Lodge, a school, Navy officer’s club, a coffee shop and more. Ocracoke Preservation Society purchased the building and is renovating the structure to serve as a community, education and visitors center.

Holiday lighting of the Commons, the public garden space next to the Inn, is at 5:30 p.m., followed at 6 p.m. by a boat parade sponsored by the Fish House. Spectators can view the parade from anywhere on Silver Lake Harbor.

The night will close with an Ocrafolk Opry Concert with music provided by island residents at Ocracoke Alive’s Deepwater Theater at 8 p.m.

“The home tour is an incredible opportunity to step back in time and experience the design and details of historic structures on the island from folks so intimately involved,” the society’s Administrator Warner Passanisi said in a release. “This event is a unique opportunity for visitors to experience Ocracoke inside and out.”

The Ocracoke Preservation Society was founded in 1983 and has maintained since 1992 a museum in the David Williams House built around 1900.

The 18.8 million visitors to North Carolina’s nine National Park Service sites in 2024 injected $2.3 billion into the state’s economy, second only to California’s $3.7 billion, finds a recent report.

Of that $2.3 billion statewide, around 4.7 million visitors spent $732.2 million in the communities around the coast’s five National Park Service sites, according to “2024 National Park Visitor Spending Effects: Economic Contributions to Local Communities, States, and the Nation” made available to the public Sept. 25.

Park service officials release the annual report detailing what visitors paid the previous year on lodging, camping fees, restaurants, groceries, gas, local transportation, recreation industries and retail in gateway regions, which are the communities or areas that surround a site. An easy-to-use interactive online tool breaking down the report is on the website.

With the ongoing government shutdown that began Oct. 1, and ongoing at the time of this publication, next year’s numbers will likely show a different story.

Visit NC Executive Director Wit Tuttell told Coastal Review that the report “makes it clear that national parks, seashores, historic sites and trails enrich our state and local economies.” Visit NC is the state’s official destination marketing organization.

The study looked at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, all on the Outer Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County, and Moores Creek National Battlefield in Pender County, and, in the western part of the state, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.

“Beyond the monetary impact, there’s endless value in preserving our scenic wonders and the experience of what humans as well as nature have achieved,” Tuttell continued. “Travelers come here to channel the Wright Brothers, camp on the beach at Cape Lookout, and view the foliage along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Knowing there’s an economic boost to go along with these priceless experiences makes us doubly appreciative.”

Nationwide, more than 85 million acres make up the 433 federally managed sites found in every state, Washington, D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The report states that across the country in 2024 a record 332 million park visitors spent an estimated $29 billion in gateway regions at the 404 sites that counted the number of visitors. The previous record was set in 2016 with 330.9 million visits.

Total visitor spending estimates increased by almost 10% in 2024 compared to 2023, which the report authors credit to a 2% park visitation increase of around 6.36 million. Data also shows that more than 55% of parks had an above-average off-season in February-June and October-December. 

Using this report, the National Park Conservation Association estimates that the National Park Service is losing $1 million a day nationwide from fee revenue for each day the government is shutdown.

“Based on the Park Service’s shutdown plan, almost 9,300 people (nearly two-thirds of Park Service staff) are now being put in the scary position of not knowing when their next paycheck will arrive. Additionally, park concessioners and partners now face the prospect of lost revenue and further economic hardship — local economies could lose as much as $80 million in visitor spending every day parks are closed in October,” the association stated on its website.

National Park Service on the coast

On the Outer Banks, Wright Brothers National Memorial saw 407,000 visitors who spent around $28.6 million. The site in Kill Devil Hills “encompasses the spot where Wilbur and Orville made their world-changing first flights, the historic sand dune where they did most of their gliding, and the location they lived while they were experimenting in the Outer Banks,” the park service states.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is on Roanoke Island and its 275,000 visitors brough in an estimated $19.3 million to the local economy. The site “preserves and interprets the site of the first English Colony in the New World, is the site of the theatrical production, The Lost Colony, and interprets the historical events of the Native Americans, European Americans, and African Americans who lived on Roanoke Island, North Carolina,” according to the park service.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore saw 2.8 million park visitors in 2024 spend an estimated $650 million. This national seashore is roughly 70 miles from north to south and is made up of Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. The nation’s first national seashore, Cape Hatteras was established in 1937 “to preserve significant segments of unspoiled barrier islands along North Carolina’s stretch of the Atlantic Coast,” the National Park Service said.

Bryan Burhans is the director of Outer Banks Forever, the official nonprofit partner of three parks, and a branch of Eastern National, a nonprofit that promotes America’s national parks and other public trust partners.

“The National Parks are a money generator. They generate a lot of tourism dollars for the Outer Banks,” he said, but more importantly, these sites are “such an integral part of the fabric that makes up the Outer Banks, which he called “a unique and special place.”

Outer Banks Forever is the official philanthropic partner and does not receive any federal funding. Its work is funded by local businesses, donors, state and county partners, and through various grants. “And our goal is simple. It is to preserve and enhance the visitor experience of our national parks here on the Outer Banks,” Burhans said.

One of the group’s recent projects is the pathway at Cape Hatteras connecting the lighthouse to the beach. It’s in the second phase of the project and is under contract with a company to build a restroom facility with outdoor showers with hot water. “The restroom facility alone is about a $380,000 investment by Outer Banks Forever.”

Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County brought in 552,786 visitors that spent $28.9 million. The site protects a 56-mile stretch of barrier islands where sea turtles and shorebirds nest, a herd of wild horses roam free, and Cape Lookout Lighthouse and two historic villages are a snapshot into the past.

“People come to Cape Lookout National Seashore to recreate at the beach and end up supporting the U.S. and local economies along the way,” said Katherine Cushinberry, the acting superintendent, in a release. “We’re proud that Cape Lookout generates $32 million in revenue to communities near the park.”

Moores Creek National Battlefield is an 88-acre site in Pender County that welcomed 691,000 visitors who spent about $5.4 million. The battlefield preserves the site of a Feb. 27, 1776, Revolutionary War battle. “Loyalist forces charged across a partially dismantled Moores Creek Bridge. Beyond the bridge, nearly 1,000 North Carolina Patriots waited quietly with cannons and muskets poised to fire. This battle marked the last broadsword charge by Scottish Highlanders and the first significant victory for the Patriots in the American Revolution, according to the website.

“The two leading drivers of tourism are natural resources and history. Moores Creek National Battlefield is rich in both,” Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Executive Director Tammy Proctor said in an interview.

“This national park is a treasure that attracts thousands of visitors each year, not only from the Pender County beaches but from the Wilmington area and Brunswick Isles,” she said, adding that the park and its history “had a significant impact on the Revolutionary War. Those fighting for independence from England experienced their first decisive victory at Moores Creek Bridge.”

Moores Creek is a tributary flowing to the Black River and a perfect kayaking location, with a kayak launch at the park. “The creek is pristine and leads to one of the nation’s most pristine rivers. The trails in Moores Creek provide visitors with an experience of the great outdoors and a walk among historical events,” Proctor continued.

“Regarding Moores Creek National Park staff, I can’t say enough about the educational opportunities, programs, and events this staff orchestrates in collaboration with the Friends of Moores Creek Battlefield Association, the nation’s oldest National Park friends organization,” she said.

National Park Service and the shutdown

As of Wednesday, the United States Government had been shut down for three weeks because, according to Oct. 10 post by the National Conference of State Legislatures, on Oct. 1, “lawmakers failed to resolve a budget deadlock, halting some federal operations and putting approximately 750,000 employees on unpaid leave. Triggered by partisan clashes over funding beyond Sept. 30, the shutdown has created uncertainty for many federal programs.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures was created in 1975 by state legislators and legislative staff to provide research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers, according to its website.

During a government shutdown, the organization continues, “the administration retains limited spending flexibility by prioritizing funding for programs that the president deems essential for public safety or national security, such as military operations or emergency services.”

As a result, national parks have remained partially open to the public. Many of the sites advise that some services may be limited on their official Facebook page by way of a reshare from the National Park Service dated Oct. 1, with a link to the Department of the Interior’s “Operations in the Absence of Appropriations” that includes the park service’s contingency plan dated September 2025.

Lincoln Larson, an associate professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at North Carolina State University, explained to Coastal Review that during a government shutdown, much of the park staff is furloughed, “meaning they don’t work and aren’t paid but retain their job and benefits when the shutdown ends. Overall, a shutdown presents enormous challenges for park management, members of the public who want to visit parks, and for the park employees themselves.”

In most cases, the decision to close depends on the park itself, but many park managers want to keep their sites as open and accessible to the public as possible. However, that is difficult to do with limited staffing, he continued.

While basic services such as roads and restrooms are usually open, they are not monitored or maintained at the same level as during regular operations, and other services, including visitor centers, entrance kiosks, campgrounds, websites, programming and permitting systems, might not be available at all.

Most National Park Service staff view stewardship of natural and cultural resources as a major part of their job, but when they’re not available to protect and conserve these valuable assets, many threats arise, including the effects of overtourism.

Threats like littering, graffiti, human waste, and off-trail behavior often increases under these conditions, causing irreparable damage to fragile park resources. “We saw this happen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when excessive visitation and limited staffing created unprecedented challenges for parks,” Larson said.

Limited staffing also creates safety issues, particularly if law enforcement or search and rescue operations are negatively impacted, which led to many parks closing during the pandemic because of concerns about degradation in the absence of enforcement. A government shutdown poses similar problems.

Larson said it’s difficult to quantify the broader economic impacts of park closures or service reductions.

“Although a shutdown clearly impacts operations within a park itself, the negative effects outside of parks can take an even greater and longer-lasting toll on nearby communities,” Larson explained. Adding, in many parts of rural America, including eastern North Carolina, national parks are major economic engines that, through outdoor recreation and tourism, power local economies.

“These gateway communities depend on park visitation to survive and thrive. Many park workers also live in communities near the parks, and their salaries breathe life into these towns. When parks shut down, many of these economic benefits are lost, making life much tougher for people living nearby. If shutdowns happen during peak tourism seasons, the economic impacts can be even more devastating and leave a lasting effect on the social and cultural landscape of an area,” Larson said.

The National Park Conservation Association urged in a Sept. 29 letter that the National Park Service close all parks during the shutdown to avoid the damage to infrastructure, vandalism and sanitation issues, like human waste and trash, many of the federally managed parks experienced during the last shutdown that lasted 35 days in December 2018 to January 2019.

“NPCA will not stand by and watch history repeat itself… We know what happened last time park staff were forced to leave parks open and unprotected, and the impacts were disastrous … If the federal government shuts down, unfortunately our parks should too,” NCPA President Theresa Pierno said in a release.

The Ocracoke Working Watermen’s Festival is Saturday, Oct. 11, at The Community Square docks.

The festival set for 10 a.m. to sunset celebrates island traditions. As reported by the Ocracoke Observer, “Since they became the first inhabitants of the island, Ocracokers have made their living on the water, from piloting ships through the treacherous Ocracoke Inlet, to fishing, crabbing, clamming, oyster harvesting, duck hunting, and decoy carving, all of which continue today, handed down through the generations.”

These traditions will be central to the festival’s exhibits, demonstrations, vendor booths and guest speakers.

Proceeds from a clam chowder lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. will go to benefit the Ocracoke Community Pool Association.

An oyster exhibit and tasting is 3 to 5 p.m. with a guest chef, a seafood sampling and then live music from 4 to 6 p.m.

Two heavily shoaled channels used by state ferries to Ocracoke Island are expected to be dredged next year, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps’ Wilmington District announced Wednesday its award of a contract for maintenance dredging of Rollinson Channel, also known as the Hatteras Ferry Channel, and the Big Foot Slough portion of Silver Lake Harbor at the opposite end of the island.

Chesapeake, Virginia-based Cottrell Contracting Corp. was awarded the $11,778,000 contract to restore the channels to their authorized depths, “which is vital for the safety of mariners, navigation, and the local economy that relies on waterborne commerce and recreational boating,” according to a Corps release.

“This effort will help ensure the continued navigability of these important waterways and support the essential work of our stakeholders at the North Carolina Ferry Division,” the release states. “The Wilmington District is committed to working closely with the contractor and local stakeholders to minimize disruption and ensure a successful project completion.”

Precariously perched as a narrow strand protruding into the stormy Atlantic Ocean, Ocracoke Island and its vulnerable highway have been a longtime headache for coastal scientists and road engineers.

Worsening erosion, flooding and storm damage exacerbated by climate change have heightened the urgency for the year-round community: What can be done to save their beloved island?

Researchers met with islanders Sept. 10 at the Ocracoke Community Center to present a study that modeled what the island’s future may hold under different scenarios, from the status quo to new efforts at beach nourishment and bridging.

The bottom line is that the very road itself, along with ongoing attempts to block the ocean’s advance with dunes and stabilize the roadbed with sandbags, has instead resulted in the narrow, low landscape that is currently so under threat by natural forces.

“The heart of the challenge is that the storm events we need to protect roads and buildings from would actually otherwise provide a lifeline for barrier islands in the face of rising sea levels,” Laura Moore, professor and associate chair of research with University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said in an interview before the meeting. “It’s an extremely difficult reality, but unfortunately, the more successful we are in preventing storm impacts, the more quickly we’re managing the barrier islands out from under us.”

Accessible only by ferries, private boats and small planes, Ocracoke Island, most of which is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, depends on a single, highly vulnerable highway stretching about 13 miles from the ferry dock on the north end of the island to the village.

The road, N.C. Highway 12,  has been protected by oceanside sandbags for years along one section about 5 miles from the northern ferry terminal known as the South Dock because of the link to Hatteras Island. But not only are the sand barriers unable to withstand the overwash during storms — the road was impassible and closed for several days after Hurricane Erin in August — the stacking lanes by the ferry dock have also suffered severe erosion.

“It’s very threatened,” Moore told Coastal Review. “I mean, we spend so much time thinking about the road, and yet (potential loss) at that terminal is a storm away, maybe two.”

The multiyear study, led by the UNC Chapel Hill researchers as part of a team that also included scientists from N.C. State University, Duke University and East Carolina University, as well as representatives from the N.C. Department of Transportation, the National Park Service, Hyde County and Tideland Electric Member Corp., is intended to provide information based on scientific modeling, and does not make recommendations or propose solutions.

“What we were charged with was to consider how different management strategies might influence the future landscape,” Moore said. “So, we have looked at different management strategies under different sea level rise scenarios, and we are able to say something about how the different strategies will likely influence Island width and island elevation and the persistence of the island in the future.”

In other words, as Moore explained, the study did not set out to design and test strategies; it instead modeled, which is essentially, “if you do ‘X’, this is what is likely to happen.”

“We’re really looking at relative differences between the management strategies in terms of their effects on the island,” she said.

Moore said that researchers studied current coastal conditions and processes and worked off data and prior research provided in the N.C. 12 Task Force report and NCDOT feasibility studies for guidance as the team developed the strategies to be reviewed: the status quo, i.e., dune road and/or sandbag rebuilding and maintenance; beach nourishment, i.e., widen or nourish the eroding shoreline with sand pumped from stored dredged material or offshore deposits; or road alternatives, i.e., relocate the ferry dock(s), which would eliminate the need to maintain hot spots on N.C. 12,  or build a bridge or causeway to Hatteras Island.

What the modeling revealed is that under the status quo, the island would continue to narrow until, within years or decades, it would become impossible to maintain the transportation corridor. With use of beach nourishment, there would be short-term improvement for 10 to 20 years. But elevating or bridging the road would help to rebuild the landscape.

It’s the first time that the coastal scientists have been able to customize a barrier island model that includes all these processes for a particular location, Moore said, as well as conduct hindcast to calibrate that model.

“Not only are we supporting the local community and the stakeholders … we’re also supporting the scientific community and barrier island communities more broadly because what we’re learning also advances the science so that we can do even better next time,” she said.” It’s really been a beautiful next step to both be coproducing the science in a way that contributes to the local conversation and also contributes to the scientific advancements so that other communities throughout the world on barrier islands can also learn from one another.”

The Ocracoke erosion and road problem has been the target of much study by several iterations of an N.C. Task Force, a multiagency panel of coastal scientists and engineers and government officials that focused on seven vulnerable areas — the “hot spots” — all but one on Hatteras Island. The most recent group was established by the Dare County Board of Commissioners in 2021, with a report released in 2023.

Back in 1972, renowned University of Virginia coastal scientist Robert Dolan, who died in 2016 at age 87, warned in a study published in the journal Science about the consequences of development on the Outer Banks.

“Barrier dune development has been encouraged by man along the Outer Banks of North Carolina to stabilize the barrier islands,” according to the study abstract. “This modification of a delicately balanced natural system is leading to severe adjustments in both geological and ecological processes.”

Dolan, who was credited with being the first scientist to determine that the Outer Banks, rather than being anchored to coral reefs, was instead a 30-foot-deep shifting “ribbon of sand,” later elaborated, saying that the islands’ dune system “may be detrimental to the long-range stability of the barriers and may become more difficult and costly to manage than the original natural system.”

While other coastal scientists have built on Dolan’s research, including Moore, it is undeniable that the complex tension between natural forces and humanity’s need to control them where they live is becoming more difficult in places like Ocracoke.

“And so, the only reason the barrier islands exist in the first place is because of these processes that move sand from the front to the island interior,” Moore said. “That’s what formed these islands, right? And so now that things are changing more rapidly, we’re just really getting pinched in a way that we haven’t seen before.”

In simple terms, barrier islands are built higher and broader by overwash and wind carrying sand over the land. Where the ocean is battering away at the shoreline, the swath of land from the ocean to the sound side collects the sand, unless it’s blocked.

“We are understandably wanting to protect road and roads and infrastructure,” she said. “It makes perfect sense from that perspective, to build a dune to protect the road.”

As sea levels are getting higher, and storms intensify, the battering is more powerful. “And if we don’t allow the island elevation to build up, it will eventually become fragmented and drown in these areas,” Moore said. “So we’re kind of fighting a losing battle, unfortunately.”

Sea levels have been rising ever since the islands formed, she added. But it’s now rising much faster. Between the year 2000 and 2050, seas have been expected to rise 12 inches, a rate Moore called “very significant.”

“It’s so unfortunate, but if we can’t quickly slow the rate of sea level rise, we’re definitely going to have to find different ways to live at the coast,” she said. “In the case of barrier islands, if we want them to persist, we need to find a way to allow them to shift underneath us or accept that we may lose the ability to live on them at all.”

Still, with adjustments, there is hope, Moore said. Citing the 2.4-mile Rodanthe “jug handle” Bridge” and, farther north, the 2,350-foot-long Richard Etheridge Bridge as examples, she said sand will rebuild the island and the shoreline when the natural processes are allowed to happen.

The main goal of the research is to provide the scientific models of several scenarios so the community can work with partners in planning their island’s future.

“It’s really an opportunity to be an incredible example and posterchild leading the way for coastal communities broadly, because they are at the forefront,” Moore said.

Naturally, islanders can see that conditions are changing, and something has to be done, said Randal Mathews, chair of the Hyde County Board of Commissioners and an Ocracoke resident. For the time being, he said, the consensus seems to be to do beach nourishment.

“Well, it’s going to buy some time, because there’s no long-term plan, and there’s no real good short-term plan.”

What could be a reasonable solution, he said, is to “harden” the area with a jetty by the South Dock Ferry Terminal.

What the island folks don’t want to do is move the ferry terminal toward the Pony Pens in the middle of the island, as has been proposed in the recent past.

“They did a survey, and it was 90% of the people don’t want to move south and don’t want to lose access from Hatteras, because they know, like after Dorian, that’s what it was like here, logistically,” he said. “We were dying.”

Mathews said he is truly grateful for Moore’s and her research team’s work, and islanders are listening. But meanwhile, Ocracoke can’t withstand repeated hits to its economy, and the ferry system and road access are major concerns. And he knows that they need political support and funding.

“You know, in the big picture, there’s a lot of moving parts that we have to address, we have to come up with these short-term solutions,” he said. “And we’ve got to  go to Raleigh, and we’ve got to go begging, you know, and that that’s how it works.”

The Outer Banks Association of Realtors announced this week that it had awarded eight $1,500 scholarships to graduating seniors from Dare County and Ocracoke Island.

The association said Tuesday that the awards reflect its “commitment to supporting the next generation of leaders” along the Outer Banks.

The association’s 2025 scholarship recipients include the following students:

• Julian Alvarez Isidoro – Manteo High School.
• Kristin Bennett – Cape Hatteras Secondary School.
• Samuel Cage – Manteo High School.
• Dresden Jackson – First Flight High School.
• Mya Kelly – Manteo High School.
• Audrey Kramer – Cape Hatteras Secondary School.
• Caroline Stocks – Ocracoke High School.
• Spencer Twiford – Manteo High School.

The association’s scholarship committee chaired by Tricia Driscoll of Coldwell Banker Seaside Realty selected the recipients.

“The selection process is both humbling and inspiring,” Driscoll said in the announcement. “So many students had incredible stories. We’re proud to help our community by recognizing this year’s recipients, and we should all look forward to seeing the impact they’ll make.”

Scholarships were presented at each school’s awards night.

“Seeing these students walk the stage was incredibly rewarding,” Outer Banks Association of Realtors President Christi Bryant in the statement, adding that it was a privilege to support them on behalf of the association’s members.

Since the 1990s, the association has awarded over $300,000 in scholarships to more than 200 local students. These scholarships are made possible through the association’s annual Surf, Turf, and Roll initiative, a series of three fundraising events, including a surf fishing, golf, and bowling tournament, which invites the community to donate and support the association’s charitable funds. 

For more information on how to donate to these funds or how to get involved, visit www.outerbanksrealtors.com.

Transportation along the Outer Banks is beginning to return to normal in the aftermath of Hurricane Erin’s close pass.

N.C. Highway 12 on Ocracoke Island, which ocean water washed over and partially undermined during storm-amplified high tides, was set to reopen at 5 p.m. Monday.

The Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry was to begin service also at 5 p.m. with an amended schedule overnight followed by a full schedule Tuesday morning.

The ferry schedule tonight is as follows:

• Departures from Hatteras at 5, 6, 7:30, 8, 9, 11 p.m. and midnight.
• Departures from Ocracoke at 6, 6:30, 7:30, 9, 9:30, 10:30 p.m. and midnight.

The ferries will resume the regular summer schedules on Tuesday.

“Keep in mind, there will be some water and a thin skim of sand on the highway, so please drive with extreme caution if heading that way,” North Carolina Department of Transportation officials said in a Facebook post. “Our crews will also be continuing to work on the road, so please give them room to work.”

N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island reopened Saturday, and those who had evacuated were allowed to return. The Marc Basnight Bridge reopened at noon Saturday.

The highway was closed the evening of Aug. 20 after severe overwash from Hurricane Erin inundated a section of the highway with deep water and sand north of the National Park Service Pony Pens. Since then, NCDOT crews have been working to clear N.C. 12 between high tide cycles to make the road safe for travel.

Also, the Buxton Woods Reserve site of the North Carolina Coastal has reopened after being closed since Aug. 18 because of the potential risks associated with the storm.

Update 4:30 p.m. Tuesday:

Gov. Josh Stein declared a State of Emergency Tuesday ahead of the anticipated impacts from Hurricane Erin, which was about 650 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras and moving at 10 mph at around 2 p.m. Tuesday.

“Hurricane Erin will bring threats of coastal flooding, beach erosion, and dangerous surf conditions,” Stein said in a statement. “North Carolinians along the coast should get prepared now, ensure their emergency kit is ready, and listen to local emergency guidelines and alerts in the event they need to evacuate.” 

Original post 6 p.m. Monday:

Eastern North Carolina should expect to see impacts from Hurricane Erin, including coastal flooding, starting Tuesday.

The center of the storm was predicted to remain off the coast by a couple hundred miles, but “We still expect impacts across eastern North Carolina, specifically coastal areas,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Erik Heden said during a webinar briefing at lunchtime Monday.

Effects will likely include dangerous surf and rip currents, storm surge, damaging beach erosion, major coastal flooding and overwash.

The storm was about 820 miles south-southeast of Buxton, or 810 miles south-southeast of Morehead City, according to the National Weather Service’s 5 p.m. Monday update. The Category 4 storm was moving northwest at 10 mph.

A storm surge watch and tropical storm watch were issued for eastern Carteret County, Hatteras Island, the northern Outer Banks and Ocracoke Island.

From Duck to Cape Lookout, water levels could reach up to 4 feet above ground, and 1 to 3 feet north of Duck and south of Cape Lookout.

“Elevated water levels will likely be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” forecasters said, adding peak storm surge forecast is generally provided within 48 hours of storm surge occurring in the area.

Heden, who is with the National Weather Service’s Morehead City/Newport office, said Monday that meteorologists began watching the storm Friday, and the storm is expected to increase in size in the coming days.

Updates throughout the weekend showed that as of midday Saturday, the storm was a Category 5, which has winds at 157 mph or faster on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. The major storm weakened to a Category 4, then to a Category 3, with winds from 111 to 129 mph, by Sunday evening.

The storm restrengthened overnight Sunday to a Category 4, with 140 mph winds, Heden said. Sustained wind speeds for Category 4 storms range from 130 to 156 miles per hour.

Forecasters said Monday that tropical storm force wind gusts were possible for the coast, with the highest probability for the Outer Banks, but stronger gusts were possible in any passing outer rainbands associated with Erin.

“The earliest reasonable time of arrival of tropical storm force winds for the immediate coastline is sometime Wednesday morning,” forecasters said. “However, the most likely time this area could see tropical storm force winds will be during the evening on Wednesday.”

The main concern with the winds will be the potential for soundside flooding on a north to northeast wind for Down East Carteret County, Ocracoke and Hatteras Island on Thursday.

Coastal flooding could begin as soon as Tuesday, more than 24 hours before any tropical storm force winds arrive, peaking Wednesday into Thursday and slowly easing up later in the week, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters also advise that extensive beach erosion could occur because of strong, long periods of wave energy with waves as high as 15 to more than 20 feet in the surf zone. These waves will also make the surf extremely dangerous Wednesday into Thursday, as well as the life-threatening rip currents expected the majority of this week.

Hyde, Dare counties

Hyde and Dare counties have issued states of emergency and were evacuating Ocracoke and parts of Hatteras Island ahead of the storm’s arrival Monday.

States of emergency went into effect for Dare County at 6 p.m. Sunday, and for Hyde County’s Ocracoke Island at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Dare County officials announced Sunday afternoon a mandatory evacuation had been issued for Hatteras Island Zone A, which includes all of Hatteras Island, including the unincorporated villages of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras.

Visitors were to evacuate by 10 a.m. Monday and residents must begin evacuating beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

The mandatory evacuation order for Ocracoke visitors began at 8 p.m. Sunday and for residents starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“It is extremely likely that Hyde County EMS services will not be available in Ocracoke due to Highway 12 being inaccessible. Please take this warning seriously, especially if you have medical issues or are likely to need special care,” Hyde officials said in a release, adding plans to continue monitoring the forecast and issue advisories as appropriate.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s ferry division announced Monday that only residents, homeowners or vendors with an Ocracoke re-entry sticker on their vehicles will be allowed on ferries inbound to Ocracoke, in coordination with the mandatory evacuation order.

“While we don’t expect Hurricane Erin to make landfall on the Outer Banks, there will likely be large waves, ocean overwash and major coastal flooding that impact Highway 12,” said Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon. “We hope everyone will heed the evacuation orders for their own safety.”

No visitors will be allowed access to Ocracoke Island until the evacuation order is lifted.

Priority boarding will be suspended for all vessels leaving Ocracoke, and tolls have been waived for ferries heading from Ocracoke to Cedar Island or Swan Quarter.

The Ocracoke-Hatteras, Ocracoke-Cedar Island and Ocracoke-Swan Quarter routes will run the published schedules until the evacuation is complete.

Service on the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry, which runs between the village of Ocracoke and Hatteras Island, is suspended until further notice.

For real-time travel information, please check NCDOT’s DriveNC.gov and the agency’s social media accounts. People can also receive text or email notifications on ferry schedules and changes through the Ferry Information Notification System, or FINS.  

National Park Service

To be consistent with Dare and Hyde counties, Cape Hatteras National Seashore will be closing beach accesses and facilities, the National Park Service said.

“The Coastal Flood Watch indicates that extreme beach erosion and coastal damage is likely along the oceanside, resulting in a significant threat to life and property. Large, dangerous waves will likely inundate and destroy protective dune structures,” according to the press release. “Severe flooding will likely extend inland where there is vulnerable or no protective dune structure, flooding homes and businesses with some structural damage possible. Roads will likely be impassable under several feet of water and vehicles will likely be submerged.”

Museum of the Sea at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the Discovery Center on Ocracoke Island will close by 5 p.m. Monday. 

Cape Point, Frisco, and Ocracoke campgrounds were to close by 3 p.m. Monday and Oregon Inlet Campground will close at noon Tuesday. Bodie Island Lighthouse will close Wednesday and Thursday.

Off-road vehicle ramps were to close by 9 p.m. Monday. To view the status of beach access ramps, visit http://go.nps.gov/beachaccess.

Due to the presence of threatened oceanfront structures, the Seashore will close beach access in Rodanthe from the terminus of Old Highway 12 to the end of the Ocean Drive and in front of the village of Buxton southward to Ramp 43.   

Visitors should stay off the beaches completely and discontinue use of all beach trails and boardwalks beginning Tuesday morning.

Hurricane Erin is forecast to be a potential threat to Cape Lookout National
Seashore, with North and South Core Banks expected to experience the most significant impacts, Lookout officials said, adding that coastal flooding will likely be a long duration issue with impacts lasting late into the week.

Cape Lookout National Seashore officials plan to close facilities starting at noon Tuesday, including the Light Station Visitor Center and the Keepers Quarters Museum, through at least Friday.    

Island Express Ferry Service will cease operations out of Beaufort and Harkers Island beginning Wednesday through Friday.   

Great Island and Long Point Cabin Camps reservations have been canceled for Tuesday through Friday. The closure could extend beyond Friday, depending on the impact on the seashore. 

“I hope Erin will remain off the coast and head out sea, but hope is not a good way forward.  I really hate to impact people’s plans, and we aim to reopen as soon as possible afterwards,” acting Superintendent Katherine Cushinberry said Monday in a statement.

The National Park Service staff will be monitoring ongoing developments with Hurricane Erin and will post updates as needed on the park website at go.nps.gov/stormwatch.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission are planning to host a public workshop in Ocracoke Village on the behavior and biology of coyotes.

Scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, in the Ocracoke Community Center, attendees will have the opportunity to learn laws and regulations regarding coyotes, and practical methods to prevent or reduce conflicts with the species of canine native to North America.

Though similar in appearance to red wolves, coyotes are smaller and usually dark gray but can range from blonde, red and black, with a long, bushy and black-tipped tail. The wild canine has pointed and erect ears, and a long, slender snouts, averaging about 2 feet tall at the shoulder and 4 feet in length. Adults are about the size of a medium-sized dog, weighing between 20 and 45 pounds, according to the commission website.

“Coyotes are not new to the Outer Banks, but the frequency of observation has increased in recent years,” because of the animal’s “unique ability to adapt to a wide range of habitats, including suburban environments, along with the loss of their own habitat due to rapid human population growth across the state,” according to the National Park Service.

As a result, visitors and residents to the Outer Banks may spot coyotes wandering populated beaches and neighborhoods, the park service continued. “Coyotes are not going away; therefore, we must learn to coexist with the animal in a safe manner.

A long-operating, family-owned motel in the heart of Ocracoke was sold at an auction earlier this week.

The Silver Lake Motel & Inn and former Jolly Roger Pub & Marine sold July 29 for $4.1 million to Greenville-based property management company ABC Family, LLC, according to a report in the Ocracoke Observer.

Dewey Dunn, Country Boys Auction & Realty Inc.’s vice president of real estate and marketing, told the Observer that the property was sold to a regional, family-owned group, one, he emphasized, that would uphold the island’s character and community values.

Dunn told the publication that the new owners plan to overhaul the motel and inn by bringing new infrastructure and amenities and restoring the Jolly Roger to its former charm.

The motel and inn remain in full operation.

A father-son duo from Grimesland, while fishing recently off the coast of Ocracoke, established state records for two species: a channel scabbardfish (Evoxymetopon taeniatus) and a spinycheek scorpionfish (Neomerinthe hemingwayi).

There were no previous state records for either species, according to a Wednesday announcement from the Division of Marine Fisheries, which is under the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

Jody Hopkins landed what officials called a “rarely encountered and deep-dwelling” channel scabbardfish that weighed 7 pounds, 3.2 ounces. The fish measured 60 inches total length from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail and had a 10.25-inch girth.

Hopkins’ son, Oden, landed a spinycheek scorpionfish, weighing in at 4 pounds, 6.4 ounces. The fish measured 20.63 inches total length and had a girth of 13.63 inches.

The Hopkinses were jigging 33 miles off Ocracoke July 13 in nearly 700 feet of water, both using a torpedo jig, a Dragon Strike DSC-633 rod and a Gomexus SX450L reel with 30-pound line and a 50-pound leader. The two fish were weighed in at Neuse Sport Shop in Kinston.

This is Jody Hopkins’ second state-record fish for 2025. He established a state record for bulleye in June.

The International Game Fish Association, or IGFA, current world record for the channel scabbardfish is 9 pounds, 9 ounces. That fish was landed in the Bahamas in 2023. This is one of only a few dozen recorded observations of this species in the Western Atlantic.

The channel scabbardfish was taken to the Division of Marine Fisheries headquarters in Morehead City for identification. Biologists worked with the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh to identify, photograph and collect genetic samples from the fish that will be donated to the museum’s permanent specimen collection.

The spinycheek scorpionfish unofficially tied the existing IGFA world record that was landed in Virginia in 2015. Fisheries officials advise anglers to handle any species of scorpionfish with care as the spines of the fish are venomous and dangerous.

For more information on state record fish, visit the state saltwater records webpage or contact the N.C. Saltwater Fishing Tournament staff at saltwater.citations@deq.nc.gov.

The first chapter of a recently published book about Ocracoke’s unique dialect begins with the imagined experience of a visitor’s first time taking the ferry from Swan Quarter across Pamlico Sound to Ocracoke Village.

During the trip to the 14-mile-long island only accessible by boat or light aircraft, the visitor decides to explore the ferry, pausing upon hearing a group speak a sort-of familiar dialect they can’t quite place.

“You greet the group and then make the same mistake as hundreds of tourists before you, by asking ‘Where are y’all from?’ The response, ‘right here,’ accompanied by uproarious laughter, leaves you disoriented,” the scenario continues.

The mistake is “so frequent that it is part of island lore, passed down by O’Cockers – Ocracoke residents who trace back their family lineage on the island for generations.”

This encounter in the first chapter of “Language and Life on Ocracoke: The Living History of the Brogue,” sets the scene for an exploration into the once-prominent dialect now only spoken by a few hundred on the island.

Published by UNC Press, authors are North Carolina State University English professors Jeffrey Reaser and Walt Wolfram, and Ocracoke Preservation Society board member Candy Gaskill, a fourth-generation resident.

“With this prolonged and comprehensive approach to the region, the authors document the island’s changes, providing readers with a deeply researched, empathetic, and engagingly written snapshot of one of North Carolina’s most cherished places, one with a linguistic heritage worth celebrating,” UNC Press said in a release.

Wolfram told Coastal Review in an interview that he really wants people to understand that Ocracoke had this rich legacy of language.

“What’s Ocracoke famous for? Well, it’s famous for Blackbeard,” Wolfram said about the pirate that was beheaded on the island in 1718. “It’s also famous for its language,” but O’Cockers are losing this tradition that has been a part of the island culture for centuries.

The dialect was “once an iconic trait of the 200-mile chain of Outer Banks islands” but is “now merely a whisper in the region.” Now, there are less than 200 who speak some semblance of the traditional brogue, the book states, and “there are sure signs that the traditional Brogue will soon become extinct.”

Wolfram said he thinks “there are certain things that are strongly associated with that community, and the language has been one of them, and now it’s threatened. What the book does is remind them of that tradition. So in a sense, (the brogue) will be remembered with examples even when it is almost gone.”

This is their third book on Ocracoke and builds on Wolfram’s 1997 “Hoi Toide On The Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue.” “Hoi Toide” is the brogue pronunciation of high tide — the long i vowel is pronounced as “oy” – and is the origin of the nickname, hoi toiders.

Reaser said in an interview that they “really wanted this to be the first linguistics beach read” and be a bit of an introduction to the linguistics, which is the study of language and structure, to make it accessible for all audiences.

The book is broken up into 24 short chapters, which can be read in any order, and touch on what the brogue is and who speaks it, if the brogue is Shakespearean English or if it’s pirate talk, how to study language, accents and dialects, about African American and Latino communities on Ocracoke, the weather, how the language is evolving, and speculation on how the brogue will evolve, or disappear.

The brogue isn’t Elizabethan, by the way, and it’s “not just pirate talk” (their emphasis) despite Ocracoke’s ties with Blackbeard.

What is it then? The short answer is that the “primary finding was that it was an English dialect that had been influenced by Gaelic languages and other English dialects that had previously been influenced by Gaelic languages.”

“We’re focused on Ocracoke, and we want to preserve and celebrate that dialect and that tradition, but there is another purpose of just getting people to understand more generally, that this is how languages work, this is how dialects work. That they’re always patterned and systematic,” Reaser explained. “Even when there’s a dialect that isn’t celebrated the way that Ocracoke tends to be, that is something that people should take seriously and value.”

Of special note is the companion website with more than 80 QR codes that link to sound or video clips on ocracokebrogue.com, all pulled from their extensive collection of oral histories, media clips, documentary footage and other materials.

“You don’t want to just read about it, you want to hear what it actually sounds like,” Wolfram said.

A peek between the pages

Many of the chapters are based on stories from villagers, such as the first chapter, “Do they take American money over there?” That’s coming straight from the O’Cockers’ stories, Reaser said.

There’s even an anecdote in the book about a British Broadcasting Co. crew that traveled to Ocracoke with the intention of having residents recite lines from Shakespeare’s plays.

Reaser said that having the BBC visit was a “really funny experience,” because they were sure the story was that Ocracoke had preserved Elizabethan English.

“We’re trying to tell them otherwise,” he said, and tried to direct their attention to how interesting the community is with its “really rich mix of all these historical traditions,” but they stuck with their story.

“They actually had the complete works of Shakespeare, and they’re trying to get locals to read it,” he said, expecting it to sound like they were at the Globe Theater, “which is so insulting.”

So, some of the performers in the community recognized what was happening, and decided to put on their best British accent, and overdo the stage performance.

“What the BBC captured was something that’s not even close to the local dialect,” Reaser said, but they aired it, and they must have received enough feedback because you can’t find it anywhere on their website. An updated version has been released but it still pushes the Elizabethan myth.

Wolfram said the publication features stories that people aren’t necessarily aware of as well, like the prominence of the one African American family that moved there in 1865 and maintained the family as a unit until the late 2000s, and how men’s and women’s speech patterns were affected by changing economic drivers, namely the village increasingly depending on tourism.

“We want people to remember how the Black family fit and didn’t fit into the community,” Wolfram said.

Women were in the service industry as tourism grew for the village while men continued to focus on water-related work, Reaser said. The brogue then became “crystallized as this artifact of masculinity, where it never had that in the past.”

Appreciating Ocracoke

Wolfram first heard about Ocracoke as a new professor at N.C. State in 1992.

In the acknowledgement, Wolfram explained that he and his wife decided to travel the state to experience different communities. While explaining these trips to his colleagues, another faculty member told him to “take a trip to Ocracoke, where ‘the people speak Elizabethan English.’”

Wolfram said he recognized the comment to be a “simplified romantic myth often associated with long-term isolated language varieties such as Appalachian English, but I was intrigued.”

That first trip was the catalyst to him devoting more than three decades and taking hundreds of trips to the island to learn more about the village’s families and their history.

When Reaser was a graduate student at N.C. State in 2000, he joined Wolfram on a trip and became just as enthralled with Ocracoke.

The two emphasized how grateful they are to have been welcomed over the years.

There’s a real love of the community and people who live there. “They’re so generous to us. It’s an incredible experience,” Reaser said.

Wolfram said the residents “have been incredibly collaborative and cooperative with us, and we can’t thank them enough for that.”

He feels that when researchers study a community, it’s nice for academics and their reputation, “but we want it to be meaningful” for the communities who give their time and resources.

“We do these sorts of sophisticated analyzes, but what does the community get out of it?” Wolfram continued, explaining that he finds it “ethically inappropriate” when academics go to a community for information and never see them again.

People need to know what you’re doing with the stories, histories and cultures they share with you, and how what you’re doing can help the community, Wolfram said, adding he and his team try to help with any project or program they can as a way to thank the community for “being so generous in terms of talking to us, working with us, and allowing us in.”

Update 4:30 p.m. Tuesday: The Ocracoke fireworks have been canceled due to the threat of thunderstorms and high winds forecast for Wednesday, July 2. The pre-fireworks gathering at the National Park Service docks has also been canceled.

Original post:

There are two fireworks shows planned for this week in celebration of the Fourth of July holiday on Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

A permitted show is scheduled for 9:15 p.m. Wednesday at the south end of Ocracoke Island and at 9 p.m. Friday at the Avon Fishing Pier.

Seashore officials are taking the opportunity to remind the public that it is illegal to detonate fireworks, or have fireworks in your possession, on all seashore beaches, including those on Ocracoke Island and in Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras Village.

“In addition to fireworks being illegal and a significant fire risk to local communities, the personal use of fireworks can be a considerable nuisance to humans, pets and wildlife,” officials said, adding that seashore law enforcement are to patrol beaches throughout the holiday week.

Featured Image

A wall of sandbags extends along the roadside far into the distance aside N.C. Highway 12 on the north end of Ocracoke Island. This is where washouts and erosion from storm surge repeatedly chew away at the barrier island beach and roadway, part of the normal ocean dynamics that humans often try to control. Photo: Dylan Ray

After a delay, the two vehicle ferry routes that cross Pamlico Sound to Ocracoke are now operating on the previously announced summer schedule.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division announced earlier this week the increase in trips for the Cedar Island-Ocracoke ferry and the Swan Quarter-Ocracoke ferry.

NCDOT in May alerted travelers that moving to the expanded schedule as planned on May 20 had been postponed while Army Corps of Engineers dredged Bigfoot Slough, the ferry channel near the village’s Silver Lake Harbor.

On Tuesday, ferries on the two routes began adhering to the following schedule:

• Cedar Island-Ocracoke: 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke-Cedar Island: 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Swan Quarter-Ocracoke: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke-Swan Quarter: 7 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 12:45 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.

During the busy season, officials strongly recommend reservations, which can be made online at www.ncferry.org, or on the phone at 1-800-BY-FERRY.

The village is only accessible by boat or private airplane.

There are two ways to reach Ocracoke from Hatteras: the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry or the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry. The express ferry takes reservations, the Hatteras vehicle ferry does not.

For real-time text or email updates on weather or mechanical delays, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins. 

Visitors to Ocracoke Island this summer can learn a little about the cozy village during the Ocracoke Preservation Society’s 2025 Free Porch Talk Series.

The society was founded in 1983 with the goal to “provide access to education, research, and exploration of the island’s rich history and culture through programs, events, and exhibits,” its website states.

The nonprofit organization has maintained since 1992 a museum in the David Williams House built around 1900, where the porch talks will be held at 49 Water Plant Road. Parking is available at the National Park Service docks. Attendees are encouraged to bring drinks, snacks and their pets. Offered at no charge, the nonprofit organization welcomes donations.

Organizers have announced the June talks and plan to publicize each on its social media.

The following is the June schedule:

• 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 5: “Stories on the porch” No. 1 with Donald Davis and his Ocracoke storytelling workshop participants.
• 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 10: Ocracoke lighthouse history, details and “My Most Memorable Climb to the Top of the Ocracoke Lighthouse” book signing with author Philip Howard.
• 1 p.m. Thursday, June 12: “Ocracoke A.D. (After Dorian)” with authors Ann Ehringhaus and Heather Johnson.
• 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 17: Ocracats Inc. Rita Thiel will discuss the clinic that manages the village’s feral cat population.
• 10:30 a.m. June 19: “Stories on the porch” No. 2 with Donald Davis and his Ocracoke storytelling workshop participants.
• 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 24: “Language and Life on Ocracoke” with authors, Jeff Reaser, Candy Gaskill and Walt Wolfram.
• 1 p.m. Thursday, June 26: Seashells of Ocracoke Island with North Carolina Shell Club member and island resident, Charlie DeCarlo.

The society is currently working on the series schedule for the remainder of the season. Contact admin@ocracokepreservationsociety.org to give a talk on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon.

Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center has announced its summer Parlor Talk Series schedule.

The museum is headquartered on Harkers Island, and has a satellite location at 806 Arendell St., in downtown Morehead City, where the talks will take place.

The talks are scheduled for 2 p.m. every Thursday from June 19 to Aug. 28 and will be in the upstairs parlor. No reservations are needed. Accessible accommodations are available.

The following is the 2025 summer series schedule:

• June 19 “The Education of an Island Boy: Growing up on Harkers Island” with author Joel Hancock.
• June 26 “Menhaden: A Biologist’s Thirty-Two Year Journey with the Fish and the Fishery” with author Joe Smith.
• July 3 Horses of Shackleford Banks with Cape Lookout National Seashore Wildlife Biologist Dr. Sue Stuska and Foundation for Shackleford Horses.
• July 10 “Growing Up in Old Beaufort” with Geoffrey Adair, lifelong resident.
• July 17 “Eastern North Carolina’s Baseball Heroes” with Frank Tursi, author of “Tar Heel Boys of Summer: North Carolina’s Major League Ballplayers.”
• July 24 “Songs & Stories About the People I Love” with Connie Mason.
• July 31 New programs at Carteret Community College with its president, Dr. Tracy Mancini.
• Aug. 7 “Language and Life on Ocracoke” with two of its authors, Candy Gaskill and Walt Wolfram.
• Aug. 14 “The Value of Diamonds: A coastal North Carolina Down East Novel” with author, Lura J. Salter Hill.
• Aug. 21 “Flooding – More Than You Know” with researchers James Collins, Ryan McCune, Dr. Katherine Anarde and others.
• Aug. 28 “Fish House Liars Keep Telling The Tales” with Rodney Kemp and Chris Yeomans.

The satellite site and gift shop in downtown Morehead City is open year-round and carries curated collection of locally sourced gifts, art, home and outdoor decor, books, jewelry and much more.

The museum at 1785 Island Road on Harkers Island houses permanent exhibits on Carteret County’s heritage and history, traveling exhibits and serves as a community meeting place.

Past parlor talks are archived for viewing on the museum’s website.

Editor’s note: Coastal Review regularly features the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the state’s coast. More of his work can be found on his personal website.

Today I am remembering a trip last fall, when my wife traveled to a conference in Cape Neddick, Maine, and I went with her. It was a lovely area — the wild and rocky seacoast, the salt marshes, the bogs, all of it.

While we were there, we took a few extra days to explore that southern part of the Maine coast. We drove up to the old Shaker settlement in Alfred. We visited Winslow Homer’s studio at Prout’s Neck. We went bird watching at Biddeford Pool. We hiked in the Kennebunk Barrens.

One drizzly day though, while Laura was at her conference, I drove down to the Portsmouth Atheneum, a venerable old library located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 15 miles south of Cape Neddick.

Located on the Piscataqua River, which is the dividing line between Maine and New Hampshire, Portsmouth was one of New England’s most important seaports in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Founded in 1817, the Portsmouth Athenaeum is above all a library of America’s maritime history. Its books, manuscripts, maps, art, and relics speak to the distinctive maritime heritage of Portsmouth and of the Piscataqua’s lesser seaports, shipyards, and fishing villages.

But the Athenaeum’s collections were not only of local interest. Shipping and shipbuilding tied the region’s seaports to the whole North Atlantic. In the library’s collections, you can learn about the places where local merchant vessels did business, and sometimes where they came for refuge or even to their end.

One of those places, as we’ll see, was the North Carolina coast.

My special interest — aside from the popover shop across the street from the Athenaeum (worth the trip) — was a collection of historical manuscripts in the library’s collection that date to the early 1800s.

They are the records of the New Hampshire Fire and Marine Insurance Co., a firm that was based in Portsmouth and specialized in insuring local merchant sailing vessels and their cargos.

The company was in business from 1802 to 1822. During that time, it occupied the handsome, three-story brick building in Market Square that is now the home of the Portsmouth Athenaeum.

When the insurance firm closed in 1822, the board of directors passed the building onto the Athenaeum. Evidently, when they moved in, the library’s caretakers discovered the company’s business records had been left in the building’s vault. They became the first, or one of the first, groups of historical manuscripts in the library’s collection.

For me, as a historian of the North Carolina coast, the most compelling manuscripts in the insurance company’s records were the claims reports of shipwrecks and storm damage that had some connection to the Outer Banks and other parts of the North Carolina coast.

Only half a dozen of the company’s claims reports involved the North Carolina coast. Nevertheless, I found them a riveting look at seagoing life in that day and time, and most definitely worth the trip from Cape Neddick.

(Again, I would have made the trip for the popovers, so the manuscripts were gravy.)

I found the sworn affidavits in the claims reports the most exhilarating. Most were firsthand recollections of mariners who had lived through a storm or a wreck that had led to an insurance claim.

When I read those affidavits, I felt as if I could almost hear the voices of those seamen as they struggled through storms that came perilously close to sending them to the bottom of the sea.

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Some of the oldest insurance claims that I found related to the North Carolina coast, I mean, were those of the brig, Alligator. According to the claims report, she limped battered and beaten up the Cape Fear River and anchored off Wilmington, on the first day of February 1805.

The insurance company’s policy on the Alligator was a bit of a dry read, but I found far more drama in the testimony of John Stavers, one of the mariners who served on the Alligator.

According to Stavers’ testimony, given before a notary in Wilmington, the Alligator had sailed from Portsmouth to Martinique, which at that time was a French colony where most of the inhabitants were enslaved African laborers imprisoned on sugar plantations.

On Nov. 24, 1804, the Alligator left Martinique, bound for Portsmouth, with a hold full of the ill-gotten molasses and sugar.

She quickly ran into foul weather. In his account of the Alligator’s misfortunes, Stavers testified, “That they had very cloudy hazy weather attended with storms, ice and snow for nearly 30 days….”

The Alligator finally made land on Dec. 1, but a heavy gale out of the north-northwest brought in “a rough sea and very hard freezing weather” that pushed them back out to sea.

Stavers testified that two of his fellow sailors had “their feet frozen.” Another of his mates fell sick, leaving the Alligator shorthanded in the storm.

On Jan. 5, things got worse. Stavers recalled that four more crewmen fell sick and were incapacitated.

Soon the storm also began to take a toll on the Alligator. He and his shipmates were hit, Stavers said, with “severe freezing weather and strong gales of wind from W.N.W.”

The heavy seas sprung the brig’s mainmast.

Then, he told the notary, “the bulk-head labored, and the water ways complaining and one of the Plank shares washed off, and the sails and rigging [were] much cut with the ice—some of the chain bolts carried away, and one of the topmast back stays, [so] they tore away before the wind for the Port of Wilmington N.C.”

He testified that they did so for “the preservation of their lives.” According to Stavers, the brig’s master did not believe that they could make any other port before the Alligator fell to pieces.

Stavers ended his report by telling the notary that they had barely made it to the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

“They had heavy gales of wind with snow and ice with a rough sea,” he swore.

The Alligator struggled to make it through the storm, taking in a great deal of water, until finally, on Feb. 1, 1805, “they came to anchor up the River near Wilmington.”

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Many of the claims reports also featured the sworn testimony of local port officials and shipyard workers.

That testimony focused on their evaluations of the extent of a vessel’s damage, the necessity of repair, the costs of the repairs and what shipyards and maritime tradesmen did the work.

With respect to the Alligator, for instance, the claims report includes the port wardens’ assessment of the damage that the brig had suffered and of the extent of the repairs that had been done in a Wilmington shipyard.

The report also provided a rundown of the tradesmen who worked on the Alligator and a list of the ship chandlers who supplied the materials for the repairs.

The list of the shipyard workers included those I rarely see in seaport records. In this case, the appraisals, receipts, and job orders listed two ship’s carpenters, William Thidden and Thomas Hunter; a sailmaker, Bethel Gentry; a blacksmith named London Harris; and a block maker named either William Bells or William Bills. (The name was hard to read.)

They also indicated that John Woods led the repairs of the Alligator’s rigging, while John Lord supplied planking for the repairs and a merchant named Richard Langdon supplied naval stores.

There was also a rather general bill from a ship chandler, David Smith. He evidently supplied cordage, rudder iron, new spars, and even 13 barrels of flour and 2 boxes of fish that were apparently crew rations either for the voyage home or for the period while they were waylaid in Wilmington.

-4-

Around the same time, another vessel insured by the New Hampshire Fire and Marine Insurance Co., the brig Rockingham, grounded at Currituck Inlet, on the northern end of the Outer Banks.

In the claims files for the incident, I read that the Rockingham’s master, Nathaniel F. Adams, gave sworn testimony that he and his crew had sailed from the British colony of Grenada, in the Windward Islands, bound for Norfolk, Virginia, on Christmas Eve 1803.

Capt. Adams did not indicate the Rockingham’s cargo, but Grenada was another notorious slave labor colony and had recently repressed yet another slave rebellion.

Over a period of 125 years, the British, and the French before them, had shipped an estimated 125,000 Africans to Grenada to serve as their workforce there.

By 1803, when the Rockingham was there, the vast majority of the island’s slaves were confined on sugarcane, coffee, and tobacco plantations. When the brig sailed for Norfolk, its hold was likely full of the products that they had been forced to produce, most likely sugar, rum, and/or molasses.

According to Capt. Adam’s testimony, the Rockingham had a “pleasant breeze” and smooth sailing for the first few weeks of the voyage.

That changed on the 17^th of January 1804. On that date, the captain testified, “a heavy Gale from the northward and westward … blew us off the coast again and continued heavy Gales from the northward and westward until Saturday the 21^{st .”}

For a day they enjoyed fair winds again, as they found themselves nearing Chesapeake Bay.

But only a few hours later, on January 22^nd, a northeasterly snowstorm hit the Rockingham, pushed her back south, and pressed her hard against a lee shore. Soon her crew was struggling desperately to keep her beyond the breakers.

Captain Adams reported:

“… a Heavy Gale the wind about NE bent our cables, close leafed our Topsails & [illegible] up our Foresail[,] the Gale still Increasing and snowing tremendously…. 11 AM saw the land on our lee beam close on board[,] then wore ship and stood to the southward….”

As Adams continued, he recalled that the Rockingham “… just cleared the breakers, continued on to the south and nearly in the breakers the sea making one continual break over us until ½ past 4 PM.”

At that point, he testified, “finding it impossible to keep off any longer,” he made the decision to run the brig onto the beach at Currituck Inlet, a desperate move but the only one he had.

He did so, he said, “for the preservation of our lives and what of our property we could save….”

At the time that Capt. Adams gave his testimony, the Rockingham was still grounded at Currituck Inlet. She was evidently battered and beaten, but must have found a decent place to go aground.

Only nine months later, in fact, a Baltimore newspaper reported that the Rockingham was back at sea.

She had arrived in Portsmouth, Virginia, having sailed from Turks Island, presumably with a cargo of salt. (Baltimore American, 31 Oct. 1804, courtesy of the Maryland State Archives.)

I am not sure why, but I did not find any record of the damage to the Rockingham, its cargo losses, or any potential casualties in the insurance records at the Portsmouth Athenaeum.

The intent of Capt. Adams’ account was clear, however. He sought to convince the insurance company’s appraisers that the brig’s damages were due to an act of God, and thus insured, rather than a result of recklessness or poor seamanship, and thus not covered by the company’s policy.

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A couple months after the Rockingham ran aground at Currituck Inlet, another vessel insured by the New Hampshire Fire and Marine Insurance Co. was also struggling off the Outer Banks.

This was the sloop Polly, which sailed out of York, Maine, a seaport 10 miles north of Portsmouth.

In a claims report dated `March 1804, the Polly’s master, Henry Donnell, his first mate Joseph Vondy, and seaman William D. Molton described a voyage from St. Martin to New Bern, North Carolina.

St. Martin, or St. Maarten, is another island in the Caribbean, the northern side of which was a French colony and the southern side of which was a Dutch colony.

At the turn of the 18^th century, when the Polly traded there, the large majority of the island’s population were enslaved African laborers.

The Polly sailed from St. Martin on the 4^th of March. The sloop enjoyed fair winds until the 24^thof March “when the wind blowing a gale …  carried away the jib stay . . ., and in about two hours after, carried away the back of the mainsail.” 

The three mariners added: “The wind still continuing to blow a gale[,] they sprung the bowsprit at about 12 o’clock.”

On the 25^th of March, they were given a respite. “The wind blew fresh, they took in the jib & set the foresail…. The wind [proved] moderate the latter part of the day, they set the jib and shook the reefs out of the mainsail & stood to the Northward….”

 Two days later though, a gale hit them with new force, “the wind coming on to blow violently at one o’clock P.M.”

The storm carried away the Polly’s main boom and shredded the foresail “all to pieces.”

The gale kept coming. Even two days later, on the 28^th, to quote the claims report again, “the wind continued to blow with great violence & a heavy sea.” Soon the winds sprung the main mast and carried away the cross trees and much of what little was left of the sails.

The Polly was left adrift. The crew spent the next day making a new foresail out of old canvas and repairing the rigging.

They then continued to stagger toward Ocracoke Inlet, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

On the 2^nd of April, they finally made land north of Cape Hatteras, then ran past Diamond Shoals. By noon the next day, the Polly had reached the bar at Ocracoke Inlet.

They anchored by the inlet that night. The next morning, an Ocracoke pilot sailed out to the Polly and guided her through the inlet and into safe harbor behind Portsmouth Island.

“The current setting strong and the wind being light, they did not get over the Bar until three o’clock P.M. and at four ‘clock came to with the best Bower in Wallace’s Channel, and on the 7^th following they arrived at New Bern…”.

At that time, New Bern might as well have been a port in the West Indies, by the look and feel of the place.

The large numbers of enslaved Africans, the multitude of languages spoken along the docks, and the vibrancy of the songs heard in the town’s streets– all gave the little port that feeling. Indeed, to many visitors, the seaport seemed a far outpost of the Caribbean Sea.

The Polly’s crew must have felt right at home, surrounded, as they were, by seamen from far and wide, and of many races and creeds, many of whom, like them, knew the perils of the sea.

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In the New Hampshire Fire and Marine Insurance Co.’s records, I also found three other claims for damages that involved the North Carolina coast. The oldest of those manuscripts, an affidavit dated Nov. 25, 1804, concerned the schooner Dolphin, Ephraim Sutton, master.

That affidavit gave few details but made clear that the Dolphin had been damaged in a storm while sailing from Cape Fear to Portsmouth the previous October.

Another claim, also lacking in detail, concerned a brig named the Reward. According to that claim, the Reward “was cast on shore, at a place called Ocracock, on the coast of North Carolina” either in the last weeks of 1804 or the first weeks of 1805.

A final claim for damages involved a brig called the Forest, another vessel that sailed out of York, Maine. That claim concerned a relatively minor incident, but it provided some interesting details.

In the winter of 1817, the Forest had sailed from Basse-Terre, one of the islands that made up the French colony of Guadeloupe.

At that time, almost 90 percent of Guadeloupe’s population, some 90,000 men, women, and children in all, were enslaved Africans who had been taken from their homelands and forced to work on the colony’s plantations (or were the first generation’s children and grandchildren).

According to the affidavit of Capt. John Perkins, the brig’s master, the Forest left Guadeloupe, presumably having filled its hold with sugar or other goods produced by those enslaved Africans.

 She was bound for Portsmouth but was waylaid evidently by storms on the North Carolina coast.

As Capt. Perkins testified, he and his crew “arrived off Cape Fear and saw Bald Head Light House on the 20^th of … February, and made a signal for a pilot.”

With a gale rising from the south, none of local pilots responded to the Forest’s signal. Fearful of running the inlet without a pilot, Capt. Perkins ordered the crew to anchor outside of the Cape Fear River’s bar for the night.

The strength of the storm continued to grow throughout the night. By first light, the seas had grown so nasty that the captain “judged it would be unsafe to lay any longer at anchor.”

He decided “that it would be most prudent, and was necessary, for the safety of the Crew, as well as the preservation of the Vessel and Cargo, to slip the Cable… and make …  his way in over the Bar, without a Pilot.”

The Forest’s crew “slipped the cable,” abandoning the anchor and chain, and managed to make it  over the bar and into a safe harbor.

As I did not find any record of damage to the Forest, I assumed that the insurance claim was for the loss of the brig’s anchor and cable, a relatively small but not inconsequential expense.

Seen in that light, the level of detail in the claims report was meant make it plain that slipping the cable was necessary, given the storm’s dangers, rather than an act of panic or foolhardiness.

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By the time I finished at the Athenaeum, a hard rain was falling. The library’s last patron, other than me, had gone home, and one of the curators and I walked around the library together.

He told me who was who in the old oil paintings, and we talked about the relics, seemingly in every nook and cranny, that had come from sea voyages and distant seaports many years ago.

It was a cozy way to spend a day, listening to the rain and getting swept up in the scenes of shipwrecks and storms that were described in the New Hampshire Fire and Marine Insurance Co.’s records.

At lunchtime, when it was only drizzling, I had walked down to the banks of the Piscataqua, and then over to where, long ago, the waterfront district called Puddle Dock used to be.

Once upon a time, salt marshes and oyster bays were found on that edge of the seaport. Built up over the water, ramshackle fish houses, sailors’ boardinghouses, canneries, and ship chandleries had stood there. Perhaps a brothel, dance hall, and tavern or two, or three, as well.

A sailor’s world. Sea-salt air. Grimy. Raw sewage in the tidal creeks. People of all colors and faiths. People that had been places, most of them. Had seen things. Knew things. Full of life.

The marsh and oyster beds are long gone now, filled in, replaced with a park and a lovely museum and cobbled streets that at least on a cold and rainy day were empty, quiet, and still.

As I walked those misty vacant streets, my thoughts turned back to the records that I had been reading at the Portsmouth Athenaeum.

I thought about all the slave colonies I had seen listed just in the few claims reports that I had been looking at– Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Grand Turk, St. Maarten and St. Martin.

And I thought of the seaports on the North Carolina coast, which were not that different, their business grounded in shipping the crops that enslaved laborers grew, the lumber they cut, the fish they caught.

As I came out of the rain and into the Athenaeum, I thought as well of the first-person accounts of shipwrecks and storms that I had been reading that morning.

I thought of those sailors on that lee shore at Currituck Banks, looking out over the breakers, eyeing their end.

I thought about all those on the Alligator, the Polly, and the Rockingham, the Forest, the Reward, and the Dolphin. I imagined them watching the waves roll over the decks, the dark and endless sea all around them.

I thought as well of the people on the nearest shores. Perhaps someplace like Ocracoke Island or, closer to where I grew up, Cape Lookout.

I imagined them: the sky still clear, maybe just the first signs of trouble visible on the horizon. I saw them walking along the beach and scavenging driftwood or digging clams or watching over children playing in tidal pools, unknowing, like all of us, of all that was happening out in the great, wide sea.

Pamlico Sound ferry routes linking the two mainland terminals and Ocracoke Village will remain on its spring schedule of six daily departures until a dredging project planned for the end of this month is complete.

North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division officials said Tuesday that the Army Corps of Engineers had scheduled the emergency project because of shoaling in the Bigfoot Slough ferry channel near the village’s Silver Lake Harbor.

“Our boats are ready, our crews are ready, but the Bigfoot Slough channel is too shallow and narrow to operate our largest ferries safely there right now,” Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon said in a release.

The Corps is responsible for maintaining the channel and has scheduled the emergency dredging project to begin in late May. Weather permitting, the project is expected to take about a week to complete, according to NCDOT.

Once the channel is considered safe, both the Cedar Island-Ocracoke and Swan Quarter-Ocracoke routes will expand from their spring schedules of six daily departures to their summer schedules of eight daily departures.

Officials had initially planned to adopt the expanded summer schedules May 20.

For real-time text or email updates on weather or mechanical delays, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins. 

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ocracoke Express passenger ferry is scheduled next week to launch its seventh season.

Beginning Tuesday, the 129-passenger Ocracoke Express Ferry will carry passengers between Ocracoke’s Silver Lake Harbor and Hatteras. The ferry ride across Pamlico Sound takes about 70 minutes. Officials said the service will stop Sept. 15.

“Passenger surveys have shown us that the Express is an extremely popular option for day trips to Ocracoke,” Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon said in a release Thursday. “It’s the easiest and most convenient way to spend a day on Ocracoke Island.”

For 2025, the passenger ferry is scheduled to make a total of eight departures a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which officials said are busier days. Trips from Hatteras are to leave at 8:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1:45 p.m. and 5 p.m., and return trips from Ocracoke are at 9:45 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3.p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Departures from Hatteras on Friday, Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., with return trips from Ocracoke at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. No passenger ferry service will be available on Sundays.

Once on Ocracoke, visitors can walk, bike or use Hyde County’s free Ocracoke Village Tram to travel between businesses and other points of interest.

The fare is $15 for a round-trip ticket, with children under 3 riding for free, and an additional $1 to bring a bicycle on board.

Reservations are available 90 days in advance for the passenger verry and highly recommended during the busy summer season. Travelers can make reservations online at www.ncferry.org, or on the phone at 1-800-BY-FERRY.

The Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry route will continue running 52 scheduled departures at no charge everyday between Hatteras and the north end of Ocracoke Island. No reservations are accepted on the Hatteras vehicle ferry.

For real-time text or email updates on weather or mechanical delays, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins. 

A project to reduce power outage time on Ocracoke was recently awarded state funding to improve North Carolina’s electric grid.

Tideland Electric Membership Corp.’s Project Ocracoke Resiliency will entail the installation of underground electrical lines and equipment, and relocating aerial lines to areas where they are less likely to be disrupted.

The project, which will also support the island’s microgrid to further increase resiliency and reliability, is one of seven in the state recently awarded more than $20 million from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s State Energy Office.

Projects selected for funding aim to update grid infrastructure and resilience against severe weather.

“We know that storms will keep coming with increasing frequency and intensity, and it’s critical that we build more resiliently to strengthen our electric grid,” Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson said in a release. “These investments will help improve the grid’s resilience and reduce outage times.”

Other projects selected through the competitive application process include:

• Wilson Community Resilience project, which will benefit rural areas in Wilson, Nash, Edgecombe, Pitt, Greene, Wayne and Johnston counties.
• Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corp.’s Foothills Resiliency project, which includes upgrades to decrease natural hazard-related outages by 35%.
• The Four County Electric Membership Corp. project that entails upgrades to the 55-year-old electric grid in Sampson County.
• The Fayetteville Public Works Commission project to decrease outage time and maintain low customer costs by replacing 480 wooden poles with steel poles.
• Duke Energy’s Cherokee Area Resiliency and Environmental Safety, or CAR-ES, project to transform the grid in two disadvantaged communities in the Cherokee area of Western North Carolina.
• Gastonia’s Strategic Upgrades for Resilient Grid Enhancements, or SURGE, project, which will upgrade and enhance the grid with infrastructure and technology improvements.

“While these projects will enhance our grid, they will also benefit our communities by providing access to resilient and reliable energy and workforce development opportunities,” State Energy Office Director Julie Woosley said in a release.

Funds for the projects are provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Tribal Formula Grants Program, which was authorized by the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The state anticipates receiving annual funding to improve North Carolina’s electric grid over the next three years, helping the state achieve its goal of delivering reliable electricity at an affordable cost.

Transportation officials have scheduled two public meetings in May to discuss a proposed study on the future of the Ocracoke-South Dock terminal, which currently serves as the southern terminus for the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry route.

The meetings are to take place 5-7 p.m. May 21 in the Hatteras Civic Center and 5-7 p.m. May 22 at the Ocracoke Community Center.

North Carolina Department of Transportation representatives and project team members will be on hand to answer questions and receive comments regarding the proposed study that will look at the feasibility of rehabilitating or relocating the facility, which has been impacted by ocean encroachment and road closures in recent years.

Design concepts will focus on traffic flow, construction challenges and multiple types of transportation. The study will also assess the need for new infrastructure, channel dredging, potential breakwater impacts and other navigational factors.

All comments received will be reviewed and discussed by the project team and taken into consideration as the project develops.

For project details and maps, visit the public input at https://publicinput.com/southdock. Officials said the website will be updated as more information becomes available.

Comments may be submitted at the public meeting or online until June 6 by emailing southdock@publicinput.com or by calling 855-925-2801, code 11113 to leave a voicemail message.

Contact Sunil Singh at 919-707-6087 or scsingh@ncdot.gov for auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Call 800-481-6494 to request interpretive services.

State transportation officials next week are increasing ferry runs between Hatteras and Ocracoke to the full summer schedule.

North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division announced plans to bump up daily departures from 36 to 52 starting Tuesday through Nov. 3.

The division released the following schedule:

From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and midnight.

From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and midnight.

For real-time text or email notifications on schedule adjustments and other ferry information, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins. 

Ocracoke is celebrating the planet April 11-13 with its family friendly Earth Day Weekend Celebration.

In its second year, organizers said there will be a variety of indoor and outdoor activities designed for all ages, including nature walks, history talks, nature crafts, live music, stargazing, a beach cleanup, stargazing, music and storytelling, a fish house tour and a traditional square dance.

Attendees can listen in on discussions about fireflies, dark skies designation, composting and organic farming, trash survey, invasive plants, and climate change.

The event will conclude with a community beach bonfire at Ocracoke’s lifeguard beach.

The full, detailed schedule for the festival is online.

The Ocracoke Earth Day Weekend Celebration is sponsored by Ocracoke Alive, with financial support from Ocracoke occupancy tax revenues, the North Carolina Art Council, Pony Island Inn, and John and Sarah Saunders, longtime supporters from the Charlotte area.

​Dozens of carvers, collectors and exhibitors from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware are planning to make the journey later this month to Ocracoke Island for a two-day celebration of waterfowl carving heritage.

Hosted by the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild, the Ocracoke Island Waterfowl Festival is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 11, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 12, in the Ocracoke School gym.

In addition to perusing the about 30 booths expected to be set up in the gym, festivalgoers will have the opportunity to bid on silent auction items, purchase locally baked goods, including Ocracoke fig cake, and buy raffle tickets for the canvasback decoy made by the 2025 featured carver, the late Mark Justice of Ocracoke.

The guild was founded in 2018 to “preserve, promote and carry on our waterfowl carving heritage which has been an important part of our island culture. It is our goal to continue the craft of hand carving decoys so our future generations may enjoy the same and that it will not be lost.”

Trudy Austin, founding board member and Ocracoke resident, said that the support the guild has received from the carving community “has been amazing” and that “there is something for every decoy enthusiast” at the festival.

Every year, the board votes on a carver from the community, and selected Justice in April 2024, Austin explained. Justice, who carved for more than three decades, finished the canvasback decoy before his death in October 2024.

Austin said the guild plans to honor Justice and his family, who donated the decoy after his death to be raffled at the festival.

Founding member Vince O’Neal said during an interview that festivalgoers will have an opportunity to learn about the carving traditions that are “a very important part of our history and still is today” and see different types of decoys.

“As we carry this on, this tradition of making decoys, we’re concentrating on the actual art of making the decoys. So we just encourage everybody to come (to the festival) and have a good time,” he said.

O’Neal has been carving for more than 30 years and prefers carving the traditional, working-style hunting decoys, though there are all types of decoys, and every region has its own style.

O’Neal describes Ocracoke decoys as “somewhat primitive, but stylish, and not a whole lot of detail.”

The decoys were rugged, versatile and practical because of the quantity needed for open waters. “You needed a big rig of them to attract the waterfowl as they were flying by,” he said.

He explained that when the country was growing, “bursting at the seams from late 1800s on, waterfowl was on the menu in practically any restaurant you went to — Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, all the cities” and was important for subsistence, a way for locals to put food on the table.

“There weren’t any Food Lions around, right? You had to eat. You ate what was around and the fowl were abundant,” O’Neal said, reiterating that waterfowl was important to the economy and for subsistence, to live.

Long in the works

Established in 2018, the idea to form the guild had been brewing for decades.

“In high school, John Simpson, Vince O’Neal and Scotty Robinson always talked about starting a decoy guild and festival to honor Ocracoke’s decoy heritage. Ocracoke has had many carvers over the years,” Austin said.

O’Neal said that when the guild started seven years ago, a bunch of local carvers and watermen got together and “we decided we needed to celebrate and preserve the history of and carry on the tradition of waterfowling and hunting, mainly, making the decoys for the hunting,” he said. “We wanted to educate the public on the history, how important carving was and still is today. We didn’t want to lose the art of making decoys.”

Simpson, who died November 2024, was president of the guild and the board is adjusting to the loss.

“He was one of our founding members,” O’Neal said. “He was very instrumental in getting (the guild) going. We talked about it for years, and then we decided, well, you know what, we’re going to do it. So we did, and glad we did so it will carry on. John was big in promoting it, and definitely our leader, but he left us in good shape.”

Hunting has been a big part of Ocracoke tradition, Austin said. “Like some of our board members, I am also a ninth-generation descendant. I collected decoys for years. Being part of the guild and serving on the board was very important to me. Preserving the heritage of decoys is our main goal.”

Donations, details

Donations are being accepted for the silent action and should be related to waterfowl and hunting, as well as baked goods. Contact O’Neal at beachbirds@embarqmail.com to find out more about the silent auction. Baked goods donations should be delivered to the gym by 9 a.m. April 12.

The fish fry to benefit Ocracoke Seafood Co. is to begin at 11 a.m. April 12, followed at 1 p.m. by a decoy head carving competition.

Because of limited parking, a shuttle will be available to transport visitors between Ocracoke School and the National Park Service parking lot by the ferry terminal.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. Morty Gaskill is a member of the North Carolina Coastal Federation Board of Directors. The nonprofit advocacy organization publishes Coastal Review, which remains editorially independent.

In 1976, a North Carolina Sea Grant newsletter sounded the alarm: large-scale land drainage was wiping out wetlands that protect our coastal fisheries. Fishermen saw their livelihoods at risk and 3,000 of them pleaded for action.

“We, the undersigned, being commercial and sport fishermen who use the creeks, rivers, and bays adjacent to Pamlico Sound and the waters of Pamlico Sound, petition the Marine Fisheries Commission and state officials as follows: … to investigate the effect of changing salinity in said waters upon the economy of Pamlico Drainage areas and to initiate proper controls to insure the continued health of commercial and sport fishing in this area.”

They saw it coming. But there was hope — state and federal leaders acted. For decades, farming, forestry, development, and fisheries co-existed under federal and state wetland safeguards — rules that carefully balanced economic growth and environmental protection. These safeguards didn’t create unbearable hardships; they provided stability for all.

Yet here we are again, nearly 50 years later, facing the same crisis — not just for our fisheries, but for our homes, businesses, and communities. Given the changing economic and environmental conditions of many coastal communities across North Carolina, it could not come at a worse time.

This time, the rollback of wetland protections isn’t coming from local drainage operations. It’s happening due to recent federal and state government actions. The Supreme Court’s Sackett v. EPA decision has dramatically narrowed the definition of federally protected wetlands. The North Carolina General Assembly followed suit, choosing to adopt the weaker federal standard instead of maintaining the stronger state level protections that had been in place for years. And now, under new leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is further diluting the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, stripping even more protections from wetlands and streams that feed our coastal estuaries.

The consequences? More wetlands drained. More freshwater rushing unchecked into saltwater nurseries. More flooding. More property damage.

Costly gamble

History has already shown us what happens when we fail to protect our wetlands. In 1976, Rose Bay fisherman Troy W. Mayo spoke out as catches dwindled.

“Twenty-five years ago, I owned a 26-foot shad boat. We used to go out in Rose Bay, two people, for five or six hours and we’d catch 35 to 40 tubs of oysters—that was two men pulling by hand,” said Mayo. “Today you go out in this same area with a power winder and all modern equipment, and I’d be surprised if you catch 10 tubs of oysters.”

Scientists confirmed what fishermen already knew. “Salinity is a major ingredient for survival in the estuaries”; reported the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. Preston Pate, who studied juvenile shrimp in Rose Bay, found that freshwater intrusion “definitely disrupted the salinity of small creeks in the area. The result was a smaller shrimp harvest by fishermen.”

But wetland loss isn’t just bad for fisheries. Wetlands absorb floodwaters, buffer storm surges, and keep pollution out of our waterways. Every acre lost means more homes and businesses at risk.

In North Carolina, our coastal communities have already been battered by hurricanes, rising insurance costs, rising property taxes, lack of affordable housing, and an aging drainage infrastructure that can’t keep up with heavier rains. Weakening wetland protections only adds fuel to the fire. It shifts costs onto property owners, local governments, and taxpayers — many of whom will be left paying for flood damage that could have been prevented.

Commonsense approach to conservation

Those lessons from the 1970s helped shape policies that kept North Carolina’s wetlands intact for decades. But now, history is repeating itself. The rollback of WOTUS protections and the state’s decision to weaken its own rules mean more wetlands will be drained, increasing flooding, pollution, and economic losses.

This shouldn’t be a divisive political issue. Wetland protections aren’t just about environmental policy — they’re about practical economics, public safety, and community well-being. They help prevent costly flood damage, safeguard private property, and support the resilience of coastal economies that depend on fisheries, tourism, and clean water.

Jim Brown of the Division of Marine Fisheries put it best nearly 50 years ago:

“We love beans and beef, and we have a serious need to extend agricultural operations. At the same time, we dearly love shrimp and oysters. There exists a very serious need for imposing compatibility between the two. Can it be done? That’s the question. Or do we just keep plodding along with our fingers crossed?”

If we ignore history, we aren’t just crossing our fingers — we are guaranteeing a grim future for our coastal communities. The fishermen of Rose Bay warned us decades ago. Will we listen this time? Or will we, once again, pay the price for failing to protect the wetlands that sustain our way of life?

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns.

With the beginning of spring, state transportation officials have added ferry runs between Ocracoke and the mainland terminals at Cedar Island and Swan Quarter.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division will increase the number of daily trips across Pamlico Sound from four to six, beginning this week.

The following is the schedule Tuesday through May 19:

• Ocracoke to Cedar Island: 7:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Cedar Island to Ocracoke: 7:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke to Swan Quarter: 7 a.m., 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
• Swan Quarter to Ocracoke: 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 4:30 p.m.

Reservations for Pamlico Sound ferry routes can be made up to 90 days in advance at ncferry.org or by calling 1-800-BY-FERRY.

For real-time text or email notifications on schedule adjustments and other ferry information, sign up for the Ferry Information Notification System at www.ncdot.gov/fins.

Vendors wanting priority loading on the state-run ferry traveling between Hatteras and Ocracoke Island will need to purchase individual priority passes for each vehicle.

The General Assembly passed a new law during the 2024 session that now requires each vendor vehicle traveling between Hatteras and Ocracoke to have a priority pass. Previously, multiple vehicles from the same vendor could share a single pass.

Cost is $150 per pass. Applications are available on the Ferry Division website.

Permanent residents of Ocracoke Island are eligible for a free priority pass to place on the driver-side windshield. Applicants must apply in person at the Ocracoke Silver Lake Terminal, 130 Pilot Town Circle. A valid driver license and a vehicle registration card that both have an Ocracoke address are required.

Four ferry routes will follow an adjusted schedule on Christmas, a traditionally low-ridership day.

The Hatteras-Ocracoke, Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach, Bayview-Aurora and Southport-Fort Fisher routes will follow the adjusted schedule on Dec. 25, North Carolina Department of Transportation officials said Friday.

The Hatteras-Ocracoke route will be on an alternate schedule on Christmas Eve as well.

All other ferries will follow regular schedules​ over the Christmas holidays.

Hatteras-Ocracoke route Dec. 24:

• From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m., midnight.
• From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m.

Hatteras-Ocracoke route Dec. 25:

• From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 6 a.m., 9 a.m., midnight.
• From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m.

Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach route Dec. 25:

• From Cherry Branch: 5 a.m., 5:45 a.m., 6:45 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
• From Minnesott Beach: 5:25 a.m., 6:15 a.m., 7:15 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Bayview-Aurora route Dec. 25:

• From Bayview: 8:45 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 5:40 p.m.
• From Aurora: 10:15 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 2:45 p.m., 5 p.m., and 6:15 p.m.

Southport-Fort Fisher route Dec. 25:

• From Southport: 5:30 a.m., 7 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
• From Fort Fisher: 6:15 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 3:15 p.m. and 4:45 p.m.

Guest column

Who among us are not looking for an off the beaten path location to end what, by all accounts, has been a tumultuous year?

To refine: Who wants to brave the end-of-year weather on the Outer Banks counting the many birds present and making a modest contribution to our knowledge of trends in bird life with implications for all of us?

I’m referring, of course, to the Christmas Bird Counts, the largest and longest-running community science projects in the world. Sponsored by the National Audubon Society. The first counts, 27 of them, began in 1900 and were organized by ornithologist, Frank Chapman, founder and publisher of “Bird-Lore,” which later became Audubon Magazine.

I am the founder and compiler of the Ocracoke and Portsmouth Island Christmas Bird Counts.

Billed as an alternative to a traditional holiday activity known as the “side hunt,” this hunt was a competition to see who could shoot as many birds and animals as possible. Instead, the Christmas Bird Counts focused on just counting birds, recording both species and the number of individuals — a means to promote conservation and improve knowledge of bird populations. It succeeded.

This activity has grown exponentially. Last year there were about 80,000 volunteers and 2,500 counts across 20 countries in the Western Hemisphere. The counts take place during a three-week period from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5 each year.

Two of these counts are held on Ocracoke and Portsmouth islands, the last two days of the year. The Ocracoke count is scheduled for Dec. 30 and Portsmouth, Dec. 31. There have been a few occasions when the dates were reversed due to weather concerns about getting to Portsmouth. They are RSVP only and many of the volunteer birders participate in both. RSVPs are needed because we need to know how many will be heading to Portsmouth Island, which is only accessible by boat and part of Cape Lookout National Seashore.

A count period covers 24 hours, but Portsmouth is much shorter as the participants board a skiff run by Capt. Donald Austin from Ocracoke Village in the early morning and return by midafternoon. Capt. Austin has a new skiff that accommodates up to 22 passengers. There is a $25 fee.

A  typical Ocracoke count can tally 80-85 species and Portsmouth, 65.

Portsmouth is a particularly enticing count. Stark, with wonderful winter light and mosquito-free, one can wander the village with binoculars in one hand and a camera in the other. Portsmouth is noted for having one of the state’s highest wintering populations for American oystercatchers. A few years ago, the counters were thankful for a bald eagle. Not only as a good bird for the count, but flying low, it spooked 29 hidden oystercatchers that flew into the air.

On Ocracoke you can walk the winter beach, scan the marshes and walk through maritime forests. Double-crested cormorants will be in the thousands and yellow-rumped warblers in the hundreds. Northern gannets, red knots and red-breasted nuthatches are usually reported.

One of the tricks to withstand winter weather, sometimes high winds and low temperatures, is to dress appropriately with more layers the better.

If spending the days counting birds is not enough, there is a social tally rally famed for its vegetarian chili and key lime pie at the compiler’s house near the Ocracoke lighthouse that takes place in early evening of the final day of the year.

The Carolina Bird Club has details about the North Carolina and South Carolina Christmas counts.

If you are interested in participating in either of these two counts, contact the compiler, me, Peter Vankevich, via Facebook or petevankevich@gmail.com.

Interested in bringing a little horse play to someone this Christmas?

That special gift is yours to give this holiday season through the Outer Banks Forever’s adopt-a-pony program, one that supports costs associated with care and feeding of wild Ocracoke Banker ponies.

Recipients will receive a photo and official adoption certificate by mail or digitally, adopter’s choice. A minimum $50 gift is required.

Photographs and descriptions of the ponies up for symbolic adoption are available here.

Adoptions must be made no later than Dec. 11 by those who wish to send a photo and adoption certificate by mail.

To send digital documentation, check the “Digital Option” on the last screen before completing an adoption. Digital adoptions must be made no later than Dec. 23.

WANCHESE — The National Park Service’s historic architect overseeing structural rehabilitation at the Ocracoke Light Station is the featured speaker this week for the “Science on the Sound” lecture series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus.

Historical Architect George Jaramillo of the park service’s Outer Banks Group will present “Elevating Stations: Preserving the Ocracoke Light Station Double Keepers Quarters.” The free lecture is set for 6 p.m. Thursday.

With more than 20 years of architecture, heritage and design experience within the private and public sectors, Jaramillo explores the history, architectural significance and key adaptation strategies for preservation.

The monthly, in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina.

“For two centuries the Ocracoke Light Station has maintained watch over the waters of Silver Lake,” organizers said in a statement. “Today, its continued threat from stronger storms has brought the need for climate-forward adaptation preservation strategies. We explore the entanglement of history and adaptation within the site and the current strategies implemented at the Ocracoke Light Station Double Keepers Quarters. Old and new techniques are promoted for the rehabilitation of the structure providing ‘tangible interventions’ (Anderson et al, 2018) to adapt our unique maritime legacy for our changing futures.”

The program will also be livestreamed on the CSI YouTube channel for those unable to attend.

With its international connections, centuries of history and unique attractions, Ocracoke has earned its reputation as a star of the Outer Banks.

Accessible only by ferry or light aircraft, Ocracoke is one of the few inhabited island destinations in the state without a highway connection to the mainland. But those who take the state-run ferry from Cedar Island, Hatteras or Swan Quarter to the isolated village are in for a delight.

Ocracoke is one of North Carolina’s more stable barrier islands. Ocracoke Inlet, at its western end, is the only inlet in the state that has existed since the 16th century. This stability has made Ocracoke a center of marine transportation since the centuries before European arrival. Native Americans used the island as a base for fishing, hunting and navigation.

Beginning in the 17th century, English ship pilots made their home there. One of the earliest settlements on the Outer Banks, Pilot Town was first settled around 1715, and was located where Ocracoke Village is now, according to “The Outer Banks of North Carolina, 1584-1958” by David Stick. Those pilots were predominately white in early years, but by the 19th century there were a considerable number of African Americans, both free and enslaved, piloting ships from Ocracoke.

Ocracoke remained sparsely populated throughout the colonial and early republic period. But its navigational status gave it outsized importance relative to its small population. To that end, the island is the home of one of North Carolina’s oldest lighthouses. Built in 1823, the Ocracoke Lighthouse still stands on the western section of the island.

Ocracoke’s isolation makes it special. It led to the development of islanders’ distinctive brogue, often called “High Tider,” or “Hoi Toider,” that linguists have studied extensively for decades. But isolation also exposed the island to enemy naval attack.

The most notable invasion occurred during the War of 1812, when Ocracoke and Portsmouth were taken over by the forces of British Admiral Sir George Cockburn. The invasion was embarrassing for North Carolina, whose militia took several days to reach the island. After the war, the temporary loss of Ocracoke prompted the state’s government to invest in internal improvements.

The island was once again vulnerable to invasion during the Civil War. It was the site of Fort Ocracoke, the home of hundreds of Confederate forces in the early months of the war. The fort was taken by the Union army without a struggle following the fall of nearby Hatteras Island.

The capture was the beginning of a shift in the island’s focus. It still hosted pilots, but in the late 19th century, the island also became a center for tourism and the location of a village which remains to this day.

The island never lost its connection to naval endeavors, however. During World War II, it was the site of a naval base and close to shipping lanes where many German U-boats hunted British and American ships.

One of these ships, the British HMT Bedfordshire, sank off the coast after a torpedo attack. Four bodies washed up on the shore at Ocracoke. The cemetery where these men are buried is still leased by the British government, one of the few of its kind in the United States.

Over the past 50 years, Ocracoke has experienced both growth and resilience in the face of harsh coastal conditions and historic storms. Hurricane Dorian in 2019 slammed the island with a more-than 7-foot surging wall of water. All aspects of life here were affected. Scars still linger.

Now Ocracoke’s tourist village, shops, motels are thriving again, and there are services including a dog kennel.

The island has more than a dozen restaurants within the mile or so between the ferry terminal and the Ocracoke Airport. In addition to the three vehicular ferries that visit the island, the North Carolina Department of Transportation launched the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry in 2019.

Though there is significant development on the western side of Ocracoke, the eastern side is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore and is home to horses, nesting sea turtles, and hundreds of species of birds.

Ocracoke has received numerous plaudits over the past two decades, as well.

In 2020, it was named by HGTV as one of the 22 best islands to visit in the United States, with the network describing it as “a peaceful escape to travelers willing to make the trip.”

Ocracoke’s quiet allure brings visitors of varied interests. Andrea Tolson, administrator of the Ocracoke Preservation Society, said she believes that beaches, fishing and history are the main draws for tourists.

Many of the businesses and sources of employment on the island have connections to the historic sites here, from the lighthouse and the museum to a coffee shop located in a historic house, she explained.

The island has successfully kept out chain stores and large-scale commercial businesses, Tolson said. Those wouldn’t be in keeping with the way of life here.

“Things are very self-sustained out here,” Tolson added, “and that’s the way we like it.”

While facing increased threats from climate change and hurricanes, the island has found balance in its unique ecosystem amid the demands of a tourist economy. The snowball’s chance of N.C. Highway 12 ever connecting the island to the mainland with a bridge would likely overwhelm the village and the island’s natural areas with tourists.

“I don’t think most of the community here would like that. It would change the whole face of this island,” Tolson said of a bridge.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore is teaming up with researchers and government representatives to begin a multiyear study on transportation and resource management challenges on Ocracoke Island.

Working with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Duke University, East Carolina University, North Carolina Department of Transportation, Hyde County and Tideland Electric Membership Corp., the study is to answer a series of questions relating to transportation adaptation and mitigation strategies to improve transportation reliability and management of natural barrier island processes.

An information and feedback session is scheduled from 1-2:30 p.m. Sept. 4 at the Ocracoke Community Center.

“Transportation strategies that have been used for decades to maintain N.C. Highway 12 and the South Dock Ferry Terminal can impact seashore lands and may have inadvertently contributed to the low elevations and narrow island widths that currently make transportation susceptible to disruption from multiple sources including ocean overwash, soundside flooding and heavy precipitation events,” according to a seashore release.

The overall goal of the project is to inform decision making as Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NCDOT, Hyde County and the village of Ocracoke work to address transportation and resource management-related challenges along the east end of Ocracoke Island as well as access to and from Hatteras Island.

The results from initial modeling and public feedback will be incorporated into the second year of research, which will evaluate the effects of other transportation strategies before concluding with a second information session during the summer of 2025.

To learn more about the study, including additional opportunities to provide feedback, visit the website.

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

One can feel helpless at times as to what one can do in the face of large-scale environmental catastrophes such as the unfathomable amount of plastic in the ocean. But individuals can take some actions that can make a positive difference and keeping the night as dark as possible is one of them.

Kaye and Rick Kohler are longtime vacation visitors to Ocracoke, during their visit in June they discussed their efforts in a talk in the Ocracoke Community Library: “Dark Skies: How to Preserve and Protect One of the Island’s Natural Wonders.” Rick also was a guest on WOVV’s “What’s Happening on Ocracoke.” 

The Kohlers live in Rappahannock County by the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

As longtime members of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, they have been concerned with the harmful effects of artificial lighting on the health of people and wildlife.

In 2019, the League, working with others, was successful in getting the Rappahannock community park certified as a Silver-Tier Dark Skies Park by the DarkSky International (IDA).

The IDA’s mission is to raise awareness about the negative effects of artificial light at night on human health, wildlife, and to provide the public with information and resources to help restore the night.

They have their work cut out as every year light pollution is increasing by about 10 percent around the USA, Rick said in his talk.

Rick and Kaye’s talk focused on what the IDA says, there is overwhelming evidence that light pollution can have harmful impacts on both people and wildlife and they provided examples.

Like many animals, humans have biological clocks called circadian rhythms regulated by the natural light-dark cycle.

Artificial lighting can disrupt these rhythms, which can cause insomnia, eye strain, headaches and lead to stress, anxiety and depression.

Artificial light can harm animals and even plants.

Nocturnal frogs and toads rely on darkness to make their mating calls. Excessive lighting can adversely impact their reproduction rates.

During nocturnal migration, birds become disoriented by bright lights causing millions of deaths every year by fatal collisions with tall lit buildings, some with reflective glass walls.

Last October, more than 1,000 birds were killed striking just one lit building in Chicago which lies along a major migratory route.

Fireflies are facing a worldwide decreasing population. Their flash of light is their mating signal and without darkness, they cannot find mates.

Some plants rely on specific lengths of daylight to trigger flowering and artificial lighting can cause them to grow more rapidly, flower out of season or not at all. Light pollution can disrupt the behavior of nocturnal pollinators like moths. One study showed that moths flew toward the street lamps and away from flowering plants. This resulted in a reduction of plant pollination. 

Artificial lighting can cause sea turtle hatchlings to become disoriented and wander inland, where they often die of dehydration or predation by ghost crabs, raccoons, opossums and coyotes, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

Its website notes scientists believe the hatchlings have an innate instinct that leads them to the brightest horizon, which, historically meant over the ocean.

The Cape Hatteras National Seashore provides information on how artificial light is harmful to hatchlings and what steps can be taken to reduce lighting.

Coastal communities around the world have passed ordinances that require residents to turn off beachfront lights during turtle nesting season, but not everyone complies.

In the upper Outer Banks, when sea turtles are getting ready to hatch, physical barriers, like screens or shades, are put up to block light from reaching the beach.

Ocracoke village is surrounded by dark skies, which makes stargazing and astronomy an attraction.

But Ocracoke village has grown brighter in the last several years, creating what is known as a sky glow that reduces the ability to see the stars at night.

The Kohlers say a lot of this diffused light can be remedied by using down-shielded light fixtures that direct the light downward where it is needed and does not allow the light to go upward.

Other steps include using warm-colored LED bulbs with a color temperature of 3000K or lower. These bulbs emit less blue light, which is more likely to scatter in the atmosphere.

Smart lighting systems, motion sensors and timers ensure that lights are only on when necessary, thereby reducing overall light output.

In 2021, Cape Lookout National Seashore became an International Dark Sky Park designated by the IDA. It joined 121 other national parks and is the first to receive this certification on the Atlantic Coast. This was achieved by community support from the Crystal Coast Stargazers Club, the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center and the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore has completed some steps in the process, but an official application has not been submitted, according to Mike Barber, the public affairs specialist.

Unlike the challenge of combatting human-caused climate change, reducing light pollution is as easy as simply leaving lights off at night whenever possible and by directing outside lighting downward.

So, comparatively, drastically reducing one of our many forms of pollution is as easy as, well, the flick of a light switch.

Also from the Ocracoke Observer: Let’s get Cape Hatteras National Seashore designated as an International Dark Sky Park

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review Online partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

OCRACOKE – The North Carolina Ferry Division is expanding ferry service to Ocracoke Island in advance of the expected holiday travel rush this weekend.

Starting Tuesday, ferry routes between Cedar Island and Ocracoke and between Swan Quarter and Ocracoke will increase service from six to eight departures each day.

The schedule will be as follows through Sept. 9:

• Cedar Island-Ocracoke: 8 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke-Cedar Island: 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
• Swan Quarter-Ocracoke: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke-Swan Quarter: 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:45 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.

In addition, the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry will begin its sixth season of service on Thursday. The ferry carries up to 129 passengers directly between Hatteras and Ocracoke Village on a 70-minute ride across Pamlico Sound.

This year, the passenger ferry will make eight departures during the busier days Tuesday through Friday, with trips from Hatteras at 8:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1:45 p.m. and 5 p.m., and return trips from Ocracoke at 9:45 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3.p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, departures from Hatteras will be at 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., with return trips from Ocracoke at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Reservations are available 90 days in advance and highly recommended during the busy summer season. Travelers can make reservations online at www.ncferry.org, or on the phone at 1-800-BY-FERRY.

In addition, the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry route will continue running 52 scheduled departures each day between Hatteras and the north end of Ocracoke Island. No reservations are accepted on the Hatteras vehicle ferry.

Discover more coastal celebrations and programs at Earth Day 2024. First held in 1970 to bring awareness to environmental issues, Earth Day takes place annually on April 22.

Organizers have scheduled educational talks, walks and more for the first Ocracoke Earth Day weekend celebration taking place April 19-21.

Ocracoke Alive Inc., a nonprofit organization that encourages and sponsors cultural, artistic, educational and environmental activities, has been working with area groups to coordinate the three days of festivities.

During the three days there will be nature walks, history talks, gardening, nature crafts, live music, stargazing, a village litter cleanup, and informative discussions and presentations about sustainability and solutions. The weekend ends with a community beach fire at Ocracoke’s lifeguard beach.

“We want to strike a balance between celebrating the beauty around us, while also offering discussions about the threats to the coastal environment and learning about practical and sustainable solutions to these threats,” Ocracoke Alive Director David Tweedie said in a release.

Keynote speaker for the weekend is Reide Corbett, executive director of East Carolina University’s Coastal Studies Institute. He is scheduled to present “North Carolina’s Changing Coast: Sea level, Storms, and People” at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Ocracoke Community Center.

Corbett leads an interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff that integrates the fields of engineering, maritime history, natural, and social sciences.

The celebration kicks off at 3:45 p.m. Friday, April 19, with an Earth Day student parade from Ocracoke School library to the Ocracoke Commons at the Island Inn property.

A full schedule is available on Ocracoke Alive’s website, including the following:

Friday, April 19

3:45 p.m. Ocracoke Earth Day Parade from Ocracoke Library to Ocracoke Commons. Those interested in participating should assemble at the library at 3:30 p.m.

4 p.m. Ocracoke Earth Day Welcome/Tour of Island Inn Commons.

5:30 p.m. Meet your Ocracoke fisherman and tour the Ocracoke Seafood Co.

7 p.m. Friday Night Concert featuring Bob and Jeanie Zentz, Deepwater Theater.

8:45 p.m. Stargazing and Celestial Navigation, Lifeguard beach. Bring binoculars if you want.

Saturday, April 20

8 a.m. – Bird walk with Peter Vankevich, NPS Campground parking lot.

8 a.m. – Help planting and beautifying at the British Cemetery, Sundae Horn.

10 a.m. – Trash to Treasure with Ella Ralston, Ocracoke Library

11 a.m. – Student Presentation: Surveying Stream Watch Presentation with Ocracoke eighth grade class, Karen Teklinsky, Community Center.

Noon – Latino Community Migrations to North Carolina, Daniel Velásquez, Community Center.

Noon – Nature and Garden Crafts for Families, Sundae Horn, Ocracoke Community Library.

1 p.m. Local Food and Resilience in Eastern NC: Past, Present, and Future, Carla Norwood and Gabriel Cumming, Community Center.

1 p.m. Trash pickup on Ocracoke Beach.

2 p.m. Ocracoke Ponies: Past and Present, Ocracoke Preservation Society Porch Talk.

3 p.m. Panel Discussion on Ocracoke Sustainability and Solutions Bevin Hardy and Heidi Smith, Community Center.

5 p.m. Green Energy Solutions Gustave Younggren, Community Center.

7 p.m. Keynote Speaker Reide Corbett from Coastal Studies Institute.

8 p.m. Earth Day Open Mic and Dance Party, Deepwater Theater.

Sunday, April 21

8 a.m. Yoga at the Community Square Docks with Desiree Adams.

9 a.m. Island Gardening & Medicinal Herbs with Kate McNally and Joseph Ramunni, Ocracoke Garden Center.

10 a.m. Ocracoke Fig Talk, Sundae Horn & Chester Lynn, Ocracoke Preservation Society.

11 a.m. Shores of Resilience: Navigating Climate Change in Coastal Communities, Bevin Hardy, Community Center.

Noon: Island Pollinators with Denise Deacon, Community Center.

Noon: Trash to Treasure with Ella Ralston, Ocracoke Library.

1:30 p.m. Nature Walk and history talk at Springer’s Point with Kane Lawhorn and Philip Howard.

2 p.m. “Trashion” Show, Ella Ralston, Ocracoke Library.

3:30 p.m. Community Beach Bonfire and Smores, and Earth Day Ocracoke farewell (Rain location: Community Center).

• Webpage.
• Online schedule.
• Printable schedule.

Living on the Outer Banks “requires you to be very much in touch with weather and Mother Nature,” says commercial fisherman Vince O’Neal.

The lifelong Ocracoke resident and owner of the Pony Island Restaurant told Coastal Review recently that his family has been on the barrier island, which is only accessible by boat or plane, for generations.

Many of the first settlers on the coast were watermen and what they did that day “depended on the weather and the hand they were dealt.” The velocity and the direction of the wind and tides determined if you were going on the water or if you were going to spend the day working on nets, boats, gear, or your hunting rig of decoys.

“Waterfowling was a big part of life on the Outer Banks as a way of income and for food on the table,” O’Neal said, as much as hand carving was in a waterfowler’s life.

“Growing up on Ocracoke Island as a kid, you were exposed to the natives making decoys all around the island,” O’Neal said, with some working in their backyard sheds and others carving or whittling while hanging out at the local stores or other gathering places.

“By the time that I came along,” O’Neal added, many of the old-time carvers were making decoys for the tourist trade versus using them as working decoys.

To keep the village’s decoy carving traditions alive, he and a group of other carvers formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild in January 2018 with the goal to “preserve, promote and carry on” the village’s waterfowl carving heritage, according to its Facebook.

That year, the guild hosted its first Waterfowl Festival and are carrying on that success. The organization is readying for its sixth festival, which has been expanded to two days this year, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 20, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, April 21, in the Ocracoke School gym.

There is no charge to attend the festival that will feature dozens of booths featuring carvers, collectors, exhibitors and demonstrations from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

New this year will be a fish fry hosted by Ocracoke Seafood Co. starting at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 20, and a bake sale with baked goodies and treats, including Ocracoke fig cake. Saturday events include a decoy head carving competition at 1 p.m. and a silent auction that ends at 3 p.m.

O’Neal, who is this year’s featured carver for the festival, explained that the methods of carving have been passed down through the generations and continue today.

“It is important that crafts such as this be preserved and taught to the younger islanders as it is part of their heritage, history and livelihoods,” he said.

Guild President John Simpson, who also grew up on the island, told Coastal Review that the festival is for all ages. Last year they had around 800 visitors attend.

As of Monday, Simpson said there were 27 different carvers, vendors and other artisans signed up to have a booth at the festival. Simpson is asking anyone who wants to be a vendor to let him know by April 14 for logistical purposes. Vendors can secure a table at $75 for both days.

He mentioned that in addition to the bake sale, there will be merchandise like T-shirts and sweatshirts, and a raffle on Saturday.

First place for the raffle is the decoy featured on the poster and shirts. O’Neal created that decoy in his role as the festival’s featured carver.

Recent organization, old tradition

Simpson said that the movement behind establishing a guild began several years ago. The carving tradition can be found generations deep in Outer Banks communities and especially in Ocracoke.

“There’s a lot of decoy makers,” Simpson explained, adding that one of his distant family members, Gary Bragg, who was alive 1881 to 1954, was a well-known carver on the island who “got a little bit of notoriety.”

Simpson said that he and some of his former classmates had been talking for a while about holding a festival like the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild’s festival held the first weekend of December on Harkers Island, a Down East Carteret County community.

So, Simpson, Vince O’Neal, his brother Dave O’Neal, and Scotty Robinson met in a friend’s living room in December 2017 and formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild. “The first meeting we ever had was in January of 2018,” and the group continues to meet the first Thursday of the month.

Simpson said they started the guild to promote Ocracoke’s heritage and the tradition of decoy carving as art.

“We all enjoy it, all of us that are on board,” Simpson said. “We all love it. We’re trying to promote it, and especially get the younger folks involved because it is a dying art. As much as I hate to say it, it is a dying art.”

“We made it simple. Anybody could join,” Simpson said of the guild.

When the group was establishing guidelines, they also decided to have a festival. “We scrambled around and did our first festival that year, 2018, on the third weekend in April,” Simpson said, and the group has tried to keep it that same weekend.

In April 2018 and 2019, the festival was at the school, and in 2020, they had to cancel the festival because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because Hurricane Dorian in late 2019 destroyed the school, the festival was held at Berkley Barn outdoor pavilion in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Simpson said the festival is returning to the school now that it has reopened because the event is for the students and the school. The guild offers scholarships to graduating students from Ocracoke School.

Simpson urged those who want to attend to go ahead and line up their lodging, which fills up quickly, and make sure to reserve a spot on the North Carolina Department of Transportation ferry to Ocracoke from either Cedar Island or Swan Quarter.

With parking being limited at Ocracoke School, there will be a shuttle to transport visitors from the National Park Service parking lot by the ferry terminal to the school during show hours.

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

A public hearing on this year’s Ocracoke Village Tram service application will be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday in the Hyde County Services Center and the Ocracoke Community Center. 

The application runs from July 1 to June 30, 2025, and, as in the past, seeks half of the budgeted amount of $202,434.21 from the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the rest, $101,217, from the Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board.

The Ocracoke Village Tram, which usually operates from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day, makes a continuous loop from the Silver Lake Ferry Terminal along Irvin Garrish Highway, down Lighthouse Road and along Back Road. 

A new stop at Ride The Wind Surf Shop was added this year, giving the loop 10 stops where riders can jump on and hop off. Tram operation is provided through Transportation LLC.

This application may be inspected in the government center, 30 Oyster Creek Road, Swan Quarter, from April 12-19.

Written comments should be directed to Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble at that address or via email, knoble@hydecountync.gov, before noon April 19.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Citing constant and major ocean overwash on N.C. Highway 12 from a low-pressure system this week and another low forecast for the area, the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that the highway on Ocracoke Island will remain closed for the “next several days.”

Officials closed the highway on the north end of Ocracoke Island Sunday morning when driving conditions became unsafe and suspended ferry service between Hatteras and Ocracoke.

N.C. 12 between the National Park Service pony pens and the South Dock ferry terminal continued to see deep water and hazardous driving conditions Tuesday.

Ferry service between Hatteras and Ocracoke is to remain suspended until the highway reopens.

NCDOT crews will reopen the road when conditions improve. Until then, travelers can use the following ferry system’s Pamlico Sound routes to leave or visit Ocracoke:

• Ocracoke to Swan Quarter at 7 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
• Swan Quarter to Ocracoke at 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• Ocracoke to Cedar Island at 7:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
• Cedar Island to Ocracoke at 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

The N.C. Department of Transportation has awarded an emergency contract to replace and repair sandbags along N.C. 12 on Ocracoke Island.

The $489,000 contract was awarded to Barnhill Contracting of Rocky Mount.

The work set to begin Monday involves replacing approximately 800 sandbags that were damaged or displaced during recent storms and restoring the protective barrier between N.C. 12 and the Atlantic Ocean on the northern end of Ocracoke Island.

Single lane closures will be in effect while the sandbag replacement is taking place.

Lifelong Ocracoke resident Alton Ballance can trace ancestors on both sides of his family back to the barrier island’s first settlers, he writes in the preface of his 255-page book, “Ocracokers.”

The book that is about “Ocracoke and Ocracokers, past and present, and how both have adapted to the changes that have taken place within the last few years” was published in 1989 by UNC Press.

His parents both grew up on Ocracoke, with roots going back generations to the 1700s. “We were related to so many people,” he told Coastal Review recently.

His late father, Lawrence, worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and his mother Vera, was “an Island girl” who was born in 1918 in the house where Alton Ballance lives today. “And she lived over 77 years there and died there,” he explained.

Ballance said that he remembers his childhood fondly “because of the connection to the outdoors, the families and the voices, the stories, the humor.”

Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s in the island village “was a time when you had immediate contact with people like grandparents, who had themselves grown up in the age of sail and in homes without running water or electricity and they depended on sailing across the sound to trade or go to Carteret County” to shop or get medical care.

Ballance will be taking the same Pamlico Sound route his ancestors likely took to Carteret County on Friday, Feb. 23, when he visits Harkers Island — one of the 13 unincorporated, tight-knit communities north of Beaufort referred to as Down East. He’ll be the guest speaker for the winter Taste of Core Sound.

The annual fundraising dinner at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center includes a family-style feast and two auctions. Located at the end of Island Road, the center is next to the Cape Lookout National Seashore visitor center.

Previously a teacher at Ocracoke’s K-12 school and staff at North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching on the island, Ballance has owned The Crews Inn on Back Road since 1989, served on Hyde County Board of Commissioners from 1984 to 1992 and was on the state’s Coastal Resources Commission, which establishes rules for coastal development, from 1996 to 2002. He has two daughters, Emma Reese, 11, who lives with her mother in High Point, and Vera, 23, who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ballance explained that the book is in three parts. The first is the history of Ocracoke through World War II, including the island’s geological formation. The second part focuses on the Ocracokers themselves, those who represent the island when he was growing up, and finally, what “launched us into where we are today,” including the National Park Service, tourism, and school.

He acknowledges in the preface that some of the people in the book have died or don’t do what they used to since he started writing the book in the late 1970s, but “this difference doesn’t bother me too much because the book really is about the past, about the people and events who have made Ocracoke what it is today. For all that might happen to the island in time to come, it will always have its past – a past full of rich history, some of it alive today.”

Ballance began working on the book in the late 1970s and it took to the late 1980s, to get it done. “It took me a while.”

The book went through through several revisions as it was transferred from handwritten pages, to manual typewriter, to electronic typewriter and finally, a computer.

The idea for the book happened shortly after Ballance graduated from high school.

He attended University of North Carolina Asheville for a few years — hitchhiking across the state the day before Thanksgiving one year to surprise his family — before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill.

At Chapel Hill, he discovered the library’s North Carolina collection and became interested in trying to record the stories of Ocracoke’s past and its people, which eventually became the core of “Ocracokers,” he explained.

He did much of the work after graduating from UNC and going back to Ocracoke around 1980. “I spent a year fishing with these old guys that I portray in the book,” he said, and writing, interviewing and keeping journal.

He said he took his first teaching job in Hillsborough after that year but moved back home to teach at Ocracoke School. He taught at the kindergarten through 12th grade school from 1982 to 2003. He also worked on his master’s through Middlebury College in Vermont, where he could take summer classes.

He became interested in village politics because of the Anchorage Inn being built on Ocracoke at the time and decided to run as the village’s representative for the Hyde County Board of Commissioners. This was in 1984.

He described the Anchorage Inn as a “brick building, like a roadside interstate hotel that had been jammed on a residential lot,” adding it was “Only 3 or 4 feet from the highway” and at some point, a ladder had to be on the highway to finish the project.

“So, I was interested in introducing the island’s first development ordinance. I wrote it myself in 1985 and so what got introduced was height limit, and setbacks and parking and things like that,” he said.

Before that, there were no development rules. “That wasn’t easy. To go from nothing to something, and most people, I think, were supportive,” he said.

While teaching, he heard about the program, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, or NCCAT, where teachers could take seminars in Cullowhee. He made his way there in the mid-1990s and the director at the time approached him about expanding the program to Ocracoke.

The first program they developed on the island was held in 1995 and took place a few times a year. Then one day, Ballance said they were heading over to historic Portsmouth Village, now protected as part of Cape Lookout National Seashore, and were discussing how the Coast Guard was downsizing and leaving Ocracoke. As well as its World War II-era station on the shore of Silver Lake empty.

“We had a dream to make the old station an eastern campus for NCCAT, he said.

“It took an act of Congress — literally and figuratively — for them to give the building to the state (for NCCAT) and we came very close in the late 90s to getting it,” he said, “But then Hurricane Floyd and a few other things put the brakes on the funding.”

When the effort reignited in 2003, he stepped away from teaching and began working to get NCCAT eastern campus to Ocracoke, which he succeeded in doing and it is still in operation today.

Though not offered anymore, one of the most popular seminars was called “Salty Dogs.” Groups of teachers would spend the day on commercial fishing boats. They would clean what they helped catch and then cook the seafood in Ballance’s backyard.

The teachers after that experience “would never look at seafood the same way again because of the complexities,” from having to be your own lawyer and accountant to having to take the risks. “I’ve seen my two nephews, who are commercial fishermen, you know, they make zero one day because they lost gear, and the next day make $10,000, so you’ve got to be really in tune to a lot change.”

Ballance led seminars at NCCAT until 2018, when he decided to spend more time at The Crews Inn.

“I’ve spent my time renovating. I’m kind of a do-it-yourself person, so after Hurricane Dorian (in 2019) I had rebuilt whole first floor of the inn, and my house, and The Crews Inn cottage,” he said.

Ballance told Coastal Review that he feels like Ocracoke and Down East are both kind of “at the end of the road,” the center’s slogan, and are “kindred spirits” for their coastal connection and concerns with when storms come along.

“You have to learn to be resilient if you’re going to keep living there. You’ve got to get used to pushing sand around, you’ve got to get used to being flooded, you’ve got to get used to having your roof blown off, trees down, and your backyards growing wetter,” he said. “We’ve got some of the same sort of concerns.”

About Taste of Core Sound

Taste of Core Sound begins at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 with a reception that includes oysters on the half shell.

The dinner, served at 7 p.m., is to include “Hancock Salad” with homemade poppy seed dressing, venison bites, stewed conchs, assorted fruits and cheese, oyster dressing, shrimp and grits, scallop fritters, redhead ducks and rutabagas, Ocracoke pork tenderloin, winter collards, sweet potato pudding, squash casserole and light rolls. For dessert, culinary students at East Carteret and West Carteret high schools are baking Down East fig cakes.

Ballance, who is slated to start his talk around 8 p.m. after dinner is served, will also be on hand to sign copies of his book throughout the event.

Visitors will have a chance to bid on decoys, collectibles and waterfowl art during live and silent auctions.

Davis Springle carved this year’s contemporary decoy for the live auction.

He said that both of his grandfathers started taking carving classes at the community college after retiring “so when I was growing up I was always helping them sand a decoy head or painting ‘abstract’ decoys,” he said.

He began carving decoys while in college, after joining his grandfather, Clinton Barnes, at the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild and have been carving since. “I usually carve Core Sound style decoys but will occasionally carve and paint a more decorative bird. I enjoy carving wood ducks the most but have carved most of the birds local to our area.”

A vintage decoy will also be auctioned.

Tickets are $100 per member or $125 each for nonmembers, and that includes an annual membership. There’s also the option to reserve a table with seating for 10 for $1,000. Call the museum at 252-725-1500 or visit www.coresound.com/wintertaste or at the giftshop in downtown Morehead City.

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer’s 2:30 p.m. Feb. 13 report

An Ocracoke Island man, Warren Howard Frantz of Sunset Drive, died Tuesday morning after his vehicle sailed off an overwashed N.C.12 at the north end of Ocracoke and landed in sandbags alongside the road.

Frantz, 61, and his wife, Janet, were driving to catch the 11 a.m. ferry leaving Ocracoke when the vehicle hit water on the road, it went airborne and off to the right toward the ocean.

A bystander, islander Thurston Sumner, ran to the vehicle and was able to get the woman out of the car. This reporter stood with Janet, who said she’d suffered a broken arm.

Soon afterward, Hyde County EMS and members of the Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene to attend to Warren, known as “Howdy,” and who was still trapped in the vehicle.

Hyde County Sheriff Capt. Joe Smith confirmed that despite rescue efforts and CPR, Frantz had died but Smith did not have further details.

North Carolina Department of Transportation officials have closed the road from the pony pens northward because of the hazardous conditions and after the 11 a.m. ferry left the N.C. Ferry Division suspended Hatteras ferry runs.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

ROANOKE ISLAND — The nonprofit Outer Banks Community Foundation announced Friday the creation of a scholarship fund for college-bound Ocracoke Island students and named in honor of a physician and his wife and their family’s love for the community.

The foundation said the Dr. Frederic B. Jr. and Ernestine H. Westervelt Scholarship Fund is “a tribute to the enduring connection of the Westervelt family with the Ocracoke community.”

Dr. Westervelt, who died in 2023, his wife Ernestine “Ernie” and their children chose to establish the scholarship fund as a testament to his legacy, fostering education and community support for generations to come.

“We wanted to do something that would be worthwhile and would help the community,” Ernie Westervelt said in a statement, “because we loved living there.”

A life devoted to service

Dr. Westervelt’s career included 30 years at the University of Virginia in the field of nephrology. The foundation said his role in establishing early dialysis programs and his subsequent commitment to community health exemplify a life devoted to service. After leaving the UVA, he opened his own dialysis clinic which he led for another 10 years, before moving to the Outer Banks.

For over six decades, the Westervelts found solace and joy on the island, making it their permanent home in 2005.

“Described by his family as a kind and ethical man who chose his words carefully, Fred was deeply appreciative of the remote island that allowed him to rest from the chaos of his regular life,” according to the foundation.

The scholarship, administered by the Outer Banks Community Foundation, will provide renewable support to eligible Ocracoke students pursuing higher education.

“The Outer Banks Community Foundation extends its heartfelt gratitude to the Westervelt family for their generous contribution,” said Community Foundation Board Chair Jean-Louise Dixon. “This important new charitable fund embodies the spirit of philanthropy that strengthens and uplifts the Ocracoke community.”

Parents and students interested in applying for any of the Outer Banks Community Foundation scholarships can now access the common application at https://obcf.org/scholarships/.

If you are interested in setting up an endowment fund, visit https://obcf.org/giving/create-a-fund/ or call the Community Foundation at 252-423-3003. Funds can be created to memorialize loved ones, support a favorite issue or charity, provide scholarships, and more. Anyone can learn about or donate to any existing fund online at www.obcf.org/donate.

The Outer Banks Community Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization that inspires philanthropy and connects people who care with causes that matter. The Community Foundation manages 220 charitable funds for individuals and agencies, including 70 scholarship funds; awards grants to nonprofits and scholarships for higher education, and provides tailored services to help donors pursue their charitable interests. Since its inception in 1982, the Community Foundation has awarded more than $13 million in grants and scholarships.  

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

Christie Woolard, manager of what will soon be arguably the most remote pharmacy in North Carolina, joked that she has a “terrible commute to work each day.”

In reality, Woolard more or less works from home. She lives with her dog in an apartment above Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy on Ocracoke Island.

Accessible only by ferry or private plane, the island is about 26 miles from the mainland coast. It was purportedly a favorite hideout of the pirate Blackbeard, who was killed there by British mercenaries in 1718. 

While Ocracoke’s isolation might have been advantageous for bygone buccaneers, it presents a challenge for contemporary islanders in need of prescription drugs. 

The unincorporated community has for years relied on Beach Pharmacy, a drugstore on neighboring Hatteras Island, for next-day deliveries. But those deliveries can be delayed if choppy waters or high winds — or both — prevent the shop’s couriers from safely crossing the Pamlico Sound on the state ferry system. That leaves residents at risk of running out of medicine, or lacking if they need emergency medications.

That shouldn’t be an issue once Woolard’s pharmacy — the first ever pharmacy on Ocracoke Island — opens. The facility is within walking distance of most homes in the small village that occupies the southern end of the island, which had a population of 797 permanent residents at the 2020 Census. 

Woolard moved to Ocracoke in July. A 1992 graduate of Campbell University, she spent most of her career as a pharmacist in North Carolina before taking a break to travel the U.S. in 2019.

“I decided it was time to pull up my roots,” she said. “I had been all over the country — New Mexico, South Dakota, Washington — and I just got homesick. When I saw the ad for this, I was like, ‘It’s time to get back closer to home.’”

Surprisingly complex launch

On a recent November afternoon, Woolard was working to secure stock for the empty metal shelves lining the pharmacy’s walls. It has been difficult to find a wholesaler that will deliver to the island, she said. 

Various other challenges have delayed the opening of the pharmacy, which was first announced by Ocracoke Health Center, the community’s nonprofit medical clinic, in June 2022. The center’s leadership originally expected the facility to be up and running by spring or summer of this year.

“I’ve been a pharmacist for a long time, but I didn’t know how complex getting a pharmacy open was,” Woolard said. “I figured it would take me a month of work and we’d be done. I had no idea it would be this complex.”

She hopes to finally begin filling prescriptions by January, giving the pharmacy a few months to prepare for the island’s busy summer season. Tens of thousands of travelers flock to Ocracoke to fish, surf and sightsee from June to August, swelling the population.

The Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy will be open to anyone visiting the island, making it the first public pharmacy in Hyde County. The county’s only other pharmacy is restricted to patients of Engelhard Medical Center, the health center’s sister clinic on the mainland.

“From a moral and ethical standpoint, I can’t say, ‘You can’t come here. Go to the Walmart up the street,’” Woolard said. “There is no Walmart up the street.”

Even when it comes to over-the-counter drugs, the options are limited. The local Variety Store is the only establishment that sells common items such as allergy medications and pain relievers.

Woolard said the pharmacy will offer a selection of antihistamines, vitamins and other over-the-counter drugs when it opens. They will not be sold at the high “resort prices” that are commonly charged in other tourism-centric locations, she said.  

‘More convenient’

The pharmacy can’t open soon enough for Jim Ogden, who has lived on the island for more than a decade.

Ogden has brain cancer and takes multiple medications a day. His prescriptions are currently filled at Beach Pharmacy in Hatteras and then dropped off at Ocracoke Health Center for pickup.

But there were several instances this past summer when his drugs arrived late because the ferry wasn’t running.  

“If there’s high winds or high tides, they can’t deliver,” he said. “And if I can’t get my medication, I’m in trouble.”

Assuming the Ocracoke pharmacy had Ogden’s medications in stock, he’d be able to get them the way most people on the mainland get their prescription drugs — by picking them up the same day at their local pharmacy.

Ogden said he plans to have his prescriptions sent to Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy when it opens. He predicts that many fellow islanders will do the same.

“It’s going to be much more convenient,” he said.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Coastal Review partners with North Carolina Health News to help bring our readers relevant news of the coast.

A groundbreaking for the $3.6 million project to raise and make repairs to the Double Keepers’ Quarters and other structures at Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Ocracoke Light Station is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7.

The 15-minute event, which caps off the year-long celebration of the Ocracoke Light Station’s 200th anniversary, will take place by the Double Keepers’ Quarters.

Hosted by the National Park Service, there will be brief remarks followed by the breaking of ground by representatives from the National Park Service, Hyde County, the State Historic Preservation Office and the contractor, Terra Site Constructors LLC.

The Double Keepers’ Quarters will be open for public viewing immediately after the groundbreaking event for one hour and the base of the Ocracoke Lighthouse for will be open from 11:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. 

During the 12-month project, the contractors are to raise the Double Keepers’ Quarters more than 4 feet to protect against storm surge, and the Store House, Carpenter’s Shop, Generator House and Privy by 2 feet on concrete masonry piers with concrete footers. 

The contractors also are to repair interior and exterior storm damage and repaint all structures, remediate all structures for mold, lead based paint and asbestos containing material, and install a pathway from the existing boardwalk to a custom lift to the Double Keepers’ Quarters. The pathway and custom lift will meet Architectural Barriers Act, or ABA, accessibility standards. 

Groundbreaking event attendees are encouraged to park at the nearby Ocracoke Township Tourism Development Authority parking lot due to limited parking at the Ocracoke Light Station.

Learn about the history and management of the Ocracoke horse herd at Cape Hatteras National Seashore beginning at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29.

The presentation is to take place in the Ocracoke Community Center, 999 Irvin Garrish Highway.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore and its philanthropic partner, Outer Banks Forever, are hosting the presentation with Kent Redford, a conservation practitioner and scientist with Archipelago Consulting, and Elaine Leslie, retired chief of biological resources for the National Park Service.

The researchers will include information on the history, genetics, range conditions and management of horses, often referred to as ponies, on Ocracoke Island. Results of the research may be used to help inform future management of the Ocracoke horse herd.

Audience members will have the opportunity to discuss the history of horses on Ocracoke Island with Redford, Leslie and seashore staff following the presentation.

There is no charge to attend the event and reservations are not required.

Contact the national seashore at 252-473-2111 for more information.

The Hyde County Board of Commissioners has asked the county’s congressional delegation for help in maintaining the federal channel in Hatteras Inlet, the Ocracoke Observer reported.

The county board wrote that the situation with shoaling in the channel used by ferries that serve as Ocracoke Island had become dire, lengthening travel times and “limiting life-saving services in one of the most treacherous areas along the entire East Coast,” according to the letter. “These changes have also impacted access to National Park Service lands as Ocracoke Island is also part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.”

Commissioners said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been given “an extremely limited and insufficient budget and can not maintain these federal channels with the resources that have been provided by the federal government over the last ten years. This is evident from the unacceptable condition of the federal channels that our community relies on for basic transportation. The USACE has not been able to provide adequate dredging services to maintain these channels with the resources they have been provided.”

“The Army Corps is failing us,” Commissioner Randal Mathews told the Observer Wednesday.

Commissioners wrote that the state was struggling not only with increased fuel and staffing expenses related to the longer ferry route but also “the treacherous conditions are causing costly damages to our state ferry vessels.”

They wrote that ferry repair costs as a result of running aground “are further compounding the state’s ability to provide basic transportation services to our community.”

OCRACOKE – Planned maintenance of the Ocracoke Express has run into unplanned delays, keeping the passenger ferry out of service for several days longer than expected, the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division announced Wednesday.

Officials said customers will be refunded for reservations made during the time the vessel is out of service. Customers with canceled reservations will be notified and refunds issued electronically.

The Ferry Division took the vessel out of service Tuesday for the planned work.

The Ferry Division said it will announce when the passenger ferry is ready to resume on its regular daily schedule, which includes the following:

• From Hatteras: 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• From Ocracoke: 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

The passenger ferry takes people on a 70-minute trip between Hatteras and Silver Lake Harbor in Ocracoke Village. A free tram operated by Hyde County is available to carry people around the village to shops, restaurants, accommodations and attractions.

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

Lighthouses are things that aren’t built anymore yet they are snapshots in time, David Hallac, superintendent, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said Thursday during the 200th birthday celebration of the Ocracoke Light Station.

“Their importance goes well beyond this picturesque scene here, where we sit in the shadow of the protection of a navigational icon and beautiful landscape,” he said.

The National Park Service owns the light station, and more than 500 visitors, islanders and dignitaries attended the celebration on the grounds of this iconic emblem of Ocracoke.

“This location is special as it’s embedded in the village and is part of the community,” Hallac said under a sunny sky with the crowd, seated and standing under decades-old live oak trees, buffeted by a breeze.

Hallac was among several who spoke about the lighthouse history and shared stories.

Alton Ballance, author of “Ocracokers” and whose family on Ocracoke stretches back to the 1700s, served as the master of ceremonies. He began with a pop quiz. Does anyone know who the president was when the lighthouse was built? After a bit of an awkward silence and some titters, he pronounced “James Monroe.” The audience was then off the hook for the rest of the ceremony.

While the National Park Service opens the base of the lighthouse in the afternoons, no one is allowed to climb up the spiral stairs.

But John Simpson, great-grandson of the second-to-last keeper, Joseph M. Burrus (1929 to 1946), recounted how he used to climb to the top to hang a Christmas wreath on it.

“It’s a great view,” he said. “One you won’t find anywhere else.”

Simpson wasn’t the only one. Philip Howard, who has been collecting stories and history on Ocracoke for most of his life, related a heretofore unknown tale of climbing to the top one night with a few friends.

“The first time I climbed up it was 1952 and I was 8 years old,” Howard said. “The next time I climbed it was in 1982 and it was illegal,” noting that he had researched the statute of limitations for criminal trespass on federal property which had long passed, drawing much laughter.

“It was midnight, a beautiful night with a waning moon and the light from the lighthouse were joined together to cast eerie shadows across the lawn,” he said.

Included in the group was a park ranger who had obtained a brass skeleton key that goes to the door of the lighthouse. Swearing to secrecy, he and his three friends crept silently along the wooden walkway so as not to awaken the keeper and his family.

The group climbed up the spiral staircase.

“But it doesn’t go to the top,” Howard said. “There’s a ladder that goes up to the lantern room through a trap door.”

When one of them opened the trap door, they all heard a loud  ‘Hoot, hoot, hoot!’” Howard said, flapping his arms and loudly hooting. “It was a barred owl guarding her nest,” he explained as the crowd laughed. The young man shut the door and the men scurried down and ran off.

They did not know that a windowpane had fallen out and an owl set up a nest next to the Fresnel lens.

As for the rest of the story, a few days later, the ranger casually noted to the keeper that he just noted a broken window. Howard reassured everyone that the owl was permitted to raise her hatchlings and the window was repaired after they had safely fledged.

Jami Lanier, deputy chief of cultural resources with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, gave a narrative of the buildings.

She noted that the Ocracoke light is a secondary light because it is located more inshore rather than closer to the ocean as primary lighthouses are.

But it was critical to North Carolina as the only navigable inlet from 1828 to 1846 for goods coming out of and going to the United States.

Two-thirds of our exports passed through Ocracoke Inlet,” she said. “The Coast Guard owns the Fresnel light because it’s still an aid to navigation.”

“(Lighthouses) call to us not just across the water but across time,” said Bett Padgett, president of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society.

Padgett also closed out the hour-long program, singing a song she composed for this event, “200 Years of Light.”

Trudy Austin, a 10th-generation Ocracoker and who lives across from the light station, read the names of the lighthouse keepers each for whom a bell would toll.

Lt. Cory Woods, supervisor of marine safety for the district that includes Ocracoke, recounted the U.S. Coast Guard’s long history and responsibilities in maintaining 400 lighthouses throughout the nation.

Randal Mathews, Ocracoke’s county commissioner, noted how the lighthouse has “weathered many storms, winds of changing times and witnessed the growth of this community in the shadows, which is that we can learn a valuable lesson afforded to resilience.”

Several times the Great Atlantic Storm of 1944, one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever strike the eastern United States, was mentioned because many islanders took refuge in the lighthouse during that event.

Scott Babinowich, chief of interpretation, education and visitor services, organized the event.

“I’m incredibly pleased with the turnout,” he said. “It’s humbling to see how many turned out, all the family connections.”

The base of the Ocracoke Lighthouse is open for viewing from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

The hour-long program can be viewed on the Facebook page of Outer Banks Forever, the nonprofit auxiliary organization for the Outer Banks National Seashore.

From 11-11:30 a.m. Monday to Thursday until May 25 on the lighthouse grounds, NPS rangers will talk about the details and history of the lighthouse and the keepers that kept the light burning.

Later this year, renovations will begin on the double keepers’ quarters, so-named because two families could live there duplex-style.

The rest of the complex will be renovated as well thanks to a $2 million federal appropriation.

The building will be refurbished back to as it was in 1823 as a visitor attraction and for park service staff housing.

OCRACOKE VILLAGE — As islanders and National Park Service personnel have been busy in recent weeks preparing to celebrate Thursday the 200^th anniversary of the Ocracoke Lighthouse, the beacon stands as a stoic symbol of the very island itself: sturdy, enduring and vulnerable.

For those not already on the island, the Ocracoke Light Station 200^th anniversary event set for 1-2 p.m. Thursday will be livestreamed on Facebook by Outer Banks Forever, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s official philanthropic partner.

The nation’s second oldest continually operated lighthouse, a cherished centerpiece of the village, was damaged when an astounding 7-foot surge of water from the Pamlico Sound was blasted ashore by Hurricane Dorian Sept. 6, 2019. Villagers called it the worst flooding in memory, 2 feet higher than ever before.

You may also like: Ocracoke museum to boost collections care

After two years of planning by Cape Hatteras National Seashore, including community meetings, discussions and review, the Ocracoke Light Station Preservation Project has been approved and funded. A contractor to work on the chosen alternative, which involves mostly elevation of the keepers’ quarters and repair of the lighthouse, is expected to be selected later this year.

Congress appropriated $2 million to the National Park Service in September to renovate and repair the Ocracoke Light Station.

“Most everybody, like 98%, thinks they’re doing what the community wants them to do, as a whole,” John Simpson, an 11^th generation Ocracoker, told Coastal Review.

The station’s 75-foot-tall Ocracoke Lighthouse, oil house, keepers’ quarters and ancillary buildings were completed in 1823.

An early option to relocate the lighthouse station — an idea Simpson said was more rumor than an actual consideration — was immediately tossed.

“I don’t think, personally, that was ever brought to a meaningful discussion,” he said. “You talk about a rebellion — the lighthouse means a lot to the folks that live there.”

When Simpson was in high school, his father retired from the Coast Guard and his family moved into the house his mother had inherited that was situated “due north along the creek on the Silver Lake side.”

Nearly every night, unless it was foggy, the beam of the lighthouse shined into his window, he recalled fondly.

“It was like a nightlight,” he said.

Many people on the island have their own personal connections to the lighthouse.

For Simpson, he is proud that his great-grandfather Joseph M. Burrus, known as “Cap’n Joe,” served there as a light keeper from 1929 to 1946. A Hatteras native, he decided to build a house on Ocracoke Island after retiring from 45 years in the U.S. Lifesaving Service. For a while when his father was young, Simpson said that his father and his family had lived in the keepers’ quarters with Cap’n Joe.

Simpson recalled a story his father had told him about the Great Atlantic Hurricane in September 1944, which until Dorian, he said, was the “benchmark storm for Ocracoke.”

“My dad said, ‘Son, I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,’” he recounted. “Across the street was a wooden skiff with a pig and three adults in it. The water picked up that wooden boat, brought it over the (lighthouse station) fence, put it in the yard and left them there high and dry.”

Dorian’s tide was 11 inches higher than that devastating 1944 storm.

Along with nearly every vehicle and building in the village, the entire light station was flooded. The grounds and walkways were completely submerged, and the base of the lighthouse, the double keepers’ quarters and five outbuildings were inundated with as much as 24 inches of brackish water.

“There was 18 inches of floodwater in the old keepers’ quarters,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac said in March 2021, months after Hurricane Dorian. “The shed got lifted up and floated off from the foundation.”

But the Ocracoke Light Station, which was added in 1977 to the National Register of Historic Places, is barely above sea level and situated next to a marsh. Its water table is so high that it is technically considered a wetland. Unless there is a dry spell, the station’s lawn is mushy and often impossible to walk on without getting wet feet.

“I’ve only been superintendent for six years and it’s flooded or practically flooded three times,” Hallac added.

With Dorian, the water roared through the station at a height of 6.7 feet above mean sea level.

“It came up super fast and it went down super fast,” the superintendent said while showing the damage at the site in February 2022. “But the damage was done.”

The power and water pedestals were all destroyed, requiring replacements of everything. The interior of the structure had to be cleaned of mold and dried out. Floorboards had to be removed. The wallboard had to be ripped out. Heating and air conditioning units were flooded; the new ones were installed higher. Thirteen park service vehicles were flooded.

“Nothing escaped the flood from Dorian,” Hallac said.

In addition to the chosen alternative from the environmental assessment approved in August, the park service had proposed simply following the existing management plan to repair storm damage, or removing the double keepers’ quarters and replacing it with a ghost structure that mimicked the existing building.

Regardless of the alternative chosen, the shotcrete on the lighthouse’s exterior bricks was slated to be replaced with a breathable coating; damaged masonry would be replaced; existing windows would be repaired or replaced with historically appropriate windows; leaks at the top of the lantern would be fixed; the interior would be repainted or recoated; and the original stone foundation would be exposed.

As Hallac noted during public presentations and discussions, the situation with ongoing and increasing sea level rise will increase flood risks on the island, including at the light station. 

Recent data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that the mid-range rate of sea level rise in Ocracoke is 1.14 feet in 2030, 1.8 feet in 2040 and 2.5 feet in 2050.

“This is not storms, this is not king tides, this is just everyday tides,” Hallac said.

In discussions about sea level rise, he added, people often focus on what is going to happen in the future. “And I say, ‘No — it’s happening now.’”

Simpson said he and most other folks on the island understand that the environment is changing, but preserving what they can is important. “Still, Ocracokers are used to doing the best they can with what they’ve got,” he said.

Going back centuries, adaptation is built into the mindset of islanders.

As he sees it, the Ocracoke Lighthouse embodies the heritage and deep roots of the island community. With the stout white tower still keeping watch over the village after two centuries of wars and storms while blinking its welcome to boats coming into Silver Lake Harbor, islanders have to believe that they — and the lighthouse — will continue to survive.

“You hope and pray you never get that one shot that devastates everything,” Simpson said. “This is our little cubicle of life. We live and die by the weather conditions.”

The Ocracoke Preservation Society is one of 44 institutions selected by the Collections Assessment for Preservation program to assess and improve collections care.

The Ocracoke Preservation Society is a nonprofit, community-based organization dedicated to the preservation of Ocracoke Island’s rich historical and cultural heritage.

The Collections Assessment for Preservation program provides small and mid-sized museums with partial funding toward a general conservation assessment. Participants who complete the program receive an assessment report with prioritized recommendations to improve collections care.

“We’ll be working with a team of two preservation professionals to identify our collections care priorities. We’re excited to begin this important work,” states a social media post by the society from earlier this week.

“This assessment is critically important for a museum and collection like ours and will help us identify our most valuable and vulnerable items for conservation. With ongoing threats from age, storage constraints, and weather, we must ensure that the OPS collection and museum are safeguarded for generations to come,” Administrator Andrea Powers said in a statement.

The society operates a museum in the David Williams House, a traditional two-story house built around the year 1900.

Its owner, David Williams, was the first chief of the U.S. Coast Guard station on Ocracoke. In 1989, it was moved to its present location on National Park Service property to prevent its demolition and was subsequently restored.

First opened in 1992, the ground floor rooms are the museum, which has no admission charge, and the second floor contains a research library and administrative offices.

The house and surrounding Ocracoke Historic District property are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

The Ocracoke Waterfowl Festival will be in its fifth year, but in a way, it’s into second generation.

A founding principle of this event was to celebrate a featured carver and this year it is Scotty Robinson, whose father, Dan Robinson, was featured in the second year of the festival.

The festival, produced by the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild, will take place at the Berkley Manor Barn and grounds from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 15.

During the festival there will be carvers, a silent auction, raffle, a bake sale beginning at 10 a.m. and Fat Fellas BBQ from Newport will have plates with barbecue, chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad, hush puppies and tea for $15 a plate.

The Robinsons have a family history of decoy carving and serving in the Coast Guard.

Scotty followed his dad, who had a long and distinguished tenure, by enlisting in the Coast Guard when he was 20 years old, retiring 20 years later.

“I was fortunate to spend my Coast Guard assignments in Virginia and North Carolina,” he said. “My favorite was Cape Charles. Chincoteague Island, which has a long history of decoys, was not far away.”

While stationed on the Delmarva Peninsula, he became enamored with the Virginia style of decoys. “They are hollowed out and very detailed, especially with the painting,” he said.

A graduate of Ocracoke School’s class of 1979, Scotty grew up around decoys. His grandfather, Eldon Willis, a renowned carver, also was an inspiration.

His first stab at helping with a decoy was in the fourth grade.

Eldon had carved a miniature duck and asked Scotty to paint it. It wasn’t until he was 14 or so that he tried carving himself.

“I liked piddling with carving as a boy, but I was more interested in collecting decoys,” Scotty said. “My uncle Roy collected them, and I admired the craft and liked to study them.”

Scotty’s interest in collecting also came from attending decoy festivals in Virginia Beach and Maryland as a youth with his father and John Simpson, last year’s featured carver.

But it got to a point that they were becoming too expensive — an incentive to do more carving himself.

While in the Coast Guard he did some carving, and those decoys were used for hunting. After retiring from the Coast Guard in 2001, he began to do more carving, especially in the last 10 years, he said.

His first decoys were not for the shelf but for the water.

“My first attempt was to carve a rig of hollowed mallards and black ducks,” he said. “I made a few rigs of decoys, but none of them are still around.”

Decoy carvers have a variety of techniques and wood preferences.

Scotty likes to hollow out the wood so that the decoys will be lighter and able to float.

“A lot of my decoys can be used for hunting, but most likely will be seen on a shelf or in a bookcase,” he said.

He does his own painting and prefers oil, which seems to take forever to dry. Acrylic is his alternative.

“For me, carving is a mood thing. You gotta be in the mood to carve,” he said. “Some people just sit down and do it because they’re bored. They gotta have something to do with their hands.”

When he is in that perfect groove, he can carve a decoy in one day.

The American Widgeon, carved and painted by Scotty, is the featured duck for this year’s festival and in the festival’s tradition, it will be raffled.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials plan to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Ocracoke Light Station with a special event in May and by holding weekly educational programs through the spring and summer.

There will be special celebration at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 18, including speeches, activities, and a birthday cake. Outer Banks Forever, the national seashore’s official philanthropic partner, plans to livestream the event.

Seashore staff are also planning to hold weekly educational programs this spring and summer. Once program details are finalized, they will be added to the special Ocracoke Light Station 200th anniversary webpage.

In 1822, the federal government purchased two acres at the south end of Ocracoke Island for $50 as the site for a new lighthouse and support structures. The 75-foot-tall Ocracoke Lighthouse and surrounding buildings were completed in 1823 by Massachusetts builder Noah Porter.

The seashore protects and preserves the lighthouse, double keepers’ quarters, oil house and the other support structures that make up the Ocracoke Light Station. The light continues to serve as an active aid-to-navigation with support from the U.S. Coast Guard.

In addition to seashore staff and community members, the anniversary planning committee includes representatives from the following organizations:

• Outer Banks Forever
• Hyde County
• Ocracoke Preservation Society
• Ocracoke Township Tourism Development Authority
• Outer Banks Lighthouse Society 

Editor’s note: Historian and author Kevin Duffus is set to present a newly produced lecture, “The Battle at Ocracoke — What Really Happened,” at this year’s Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Oct. 28-29 on Ocracoke Island. For more details visit the Facebook event.

OCRACOKE — It began within minutes after the notorious pirate Blackbeard was killed in the Battle at Ocracoke on Saturday morning, Nov. 22, 1718.

As soon as the wounded were attended to and the surviving pirates were placed under guard, the hunt was on, led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard. The first place they searched was Blackbeard’s cabin in the roundhouse of his 65-foot-long Jamaica-rigged sloop, Adventure. Surely the world’s best-known and most-feared pirate captain kept a chest of Spanish gold, silver and jewels hidden beneath his bunk, just for his walkin’ around money.

Rarely mentioned in the many books, articles and other accounts of the famous battle is that Maynard and the other volunteer sailors from the British king’s ships stationed in Virginia were persuaded to accept the potentially deadly assignment of apprehending or killing the North Carolina pirates by the prospect of acquiring pirate treasure. It could be said that the 60 men aboard the two, small, rented sloops under Maynard’s command were little more than pirates themselves.

Two weeks after the smoke cleared from the battle, Maynard and his men were still hoping to find a treasure on Ocracoke Island that would make them all rich. They were disappointed. In addition to casks of sugar, cocoa, indigo dye and a few bales of cotton, only a small amount of what is called gold dust, small nuggets of gold, were recovered from the pirates’ possessions. 

Maynard’s stay at Ocracoke may have been when an enduring Blackbeard myth was born. While nine captive pirates were held in the lower deck of the Adventure while anchored in the yet-to-be-named Teach’s Hole Channel, a guard may have asked them, So, where did the boss hide his treasure? Funny you should ask, a pirate replied, we posed that question to him just last night. 

The published version of the interrogation in a 1724 book, ”A General History of Pirates,” goes like this: “… one of his Men asked him, in Case any thing should happen to him in the Engagement with the Sloops, whether his Wife knew where he had buried his Money? He answered, That no Body but himself and the Devil, knew where it was, and the longest Liver should take it all.”

Among the many dubious aspects of the preceding quote, my research has proven that Blackbeard and his men had no idea on the night before the battle that they were under any threat at all. Having arrived from the inland waters of the colony and anchored alongside Beacon Island 3 miles away from the pirates’ moorings near today’s Springer’s Point, Maynard’s sloops had all the appearances of typical merchant vessels preparing to put to sea.

Nevertheless, ever since, writers and historians have assumed that because the quote was in print – like so many other popular but improbable Blackbeard legends – it must have been true.

At the end of the two weeks at Ocracoke, Maynard sailed Blackbeard’s Adventure across Pamlico Sound and up to Bath, but not with the pirate’s head hanging under the bowsprit as is so often told – it was too valuable, worth a bounty of 100 pounds sterling back in Virginia. In Maynard’s wake, however, has streamed, like the gold of marine phosphorescence, the hopes of the credulous that Blackbeard’s lost treasure might still be found.

Edward Thatch, aka Blackbeard, was far from a successful, wealthy pirate. When the value of the commodities recovered from the pirates’ possessions at Ocracoke were tallied up and sold at auction in Virginia, the proceeds amounted to 2,500 pounds sterling, not a treasure commensurate with the notorious pirate’s reputation, then or now. 

Compare Blackbeard’s final estate to Capt. William Kidd’s £14,000 worth of gold, silver, and jewels; or the East Indian pirate Henry Every’s much more impressive £350,000 haul; or Sam Bellamy’s estimated plunder of as much as a million pounds sterling. But that all ranks well below Sir Francis Drake’s massive piratical treasure of £1.5 million valued in 1582. Yes, Drake was the greatest pirate of them all.

But historical facts be damned, the world’s best-known pirate had to have had a massive treasure hidden somewhere, right? Seeking their own treasure of sorts in the form of royalties or writing fees, authors, journalists, and artists have perpetuated the notion of lost pirate treasure and enticed all sorts of believers to search for it. 

Robert Louis Stevenson really sparked the public’s imagination of instant wealth with his book, “Treasure Island,” first published as a weekly serial in a children’s magazine in 1881, and then as a more popular book in 1883. As many as five films have since been made based on the book.

The 19th century Delaware artist and writer Howard Pyle helped to paint the public’s perception of pirates and Blackbeard in particular with his illustrations like the one titled, “Blackbeard Buries His Treasure” that was published in Harper’s Magazine in 1887. It was also Pyle who conceived our modern ideas of pirate dress favored by Hollywood and pirate festival reenactors, fanciful things like sashes, bandanas, earrings and knee-high riding boots, all extremely impractical for men aboard a working vessel.

Most illustrations, such as those of Pyle, often depict sea rovers gathered around a hole in the sand on some unknown shore, and a sea chest nearby wrapped in chains and ready to be lowered into the ground. No one seems to question the practicalities of such a surreptitious mission. Even a small sea chest filled with gold, let’s say 2 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet, or 8 cubic feet, would weigh nearly 5,000 pounds. That’s a lot of weight for two pirates to lug about a sandy beach. No wonder the National Park Service claims that Blackbeard possessed “inhuman strength.”

The antiquarian writer John F. Watson in his 1830 book, ”Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania,” firmly planted the idea that pirates like Blackbeard provided security at the site of their hidden plunder by burying atop their treasure chests the gruesome remains of a prisoner or crew member who was chosen by lot to be sacrificed – murdered, to be precise – and left behind to rot, and to discourage would-be treasure seekers. “Hence it was not rare to hear of persons having seen a spooke or ghost, or of having dreamed of it a plurality of times, which became a strong incentive to dig there.”

The 1920s were heydays for promoters of pirate treasure with both the New York Times and the Raleigh News & Observer spinning tantalizing tales of Blackbeard’s vast fortune being found. 

According to the Times, Miss Florence E. Steward of Burlington, New Jersey, wanted to sell her house in 1926 near the Delaware River but according to family lore the old walnut tree in front, known as the “pirate tree,” was where Blackbeard had buried his treasure many years before. She didn’t want the treasure to be conveyed to the new owners so she hired some excavators to dig it up. For unspecified reasons, Miss Steward wasn’t present when the digging commenced. At the end of the day the excavators were gone but there was a large hole in the ground. The Times reported that the contractors had been observed by neighbors prying “a large, heavy object” from the earth and taking it with them when they departed. They were never seen again. 

Three years after Miss Steward’s walnut tree misadventure, Ben Dixon MacNeil, a correspondent for the Raleigh News & Observer, and later author of the much-beloved book ”The Hatterasman,” must have decided that Blackbeard’s home state of North Carolina would not be upstaged by New Jersey or the New York Times. MacNeil wrote a story for the Feb. 3, 1929, Sunday edition with a headline that was simultaneously buoyant and deflating: “Blackbeard’s Buried Treasure Found at Last; But Mystery of Pirate Gold Not Yet Solved.”

In MacNeil’s colorful two-page piece, he reported how, two days before Christmas in 1928, three men, believed to be duck hunters despite the fact that there were no eyewitnesses, visited by water Plum Point on Bath Creek in Beaufort County and found Blackbeard’s secret treasure vault, dug up a heavy chest, dragged it back to their boat and sailed away never to be seen again. Remember, there was no one who observed this, yet MacNeil reported it as fact. (Fictional news has been around a long time.) 

Legend says that Plum Point had long been the treasure hunter’s favored location of Blackbeard’s ill gotten gains. “For two hundred years,” MacNeil wrote, “the earth had been troubled by the digging of those who had been shown in dreams where the chest was hidden.”

We might speculate that the News & Observer journalist had been influenced by Watson’s ”Annals of Philadelphia” in which the author described dreams leading treasure hunters to the “X” that marked the spot. Ironically, previous dreamers and diggers had missed the location of the secret vault near Bath by just 3 feet, or so the story goes.

According to MacNeil: “… the next day, or the next — the stories are in some conflict here — other hunters making their way through the thick undergrowth that covers the Point, came upon the broken brick vault” out of which had been removed a “mysterious chest containing, according to legend, uncounted pieces of Spanish gold.” (It is worth noting that there is no record that Blackbeard ever robbed a Spanish vessel in his documented 23-month career as a pirate.)

The vault, 18 inches wide and 3 feet long, had been buried 8 feet under the sand in an area so pockmarked with craters from previous treasure seekers that the landscape looked like the far side of the moon. Suspicious markings in the original mortar of the brick vault, and some accumulation of rust, led the other hunters to surmise that an iron-clasped wooden chest once resided inside the vault. That tidbit leads one to wonder if the “other hunters” had been archaeologists.

Nevertheless, Blackbeard’s brick vault has neither been authenticated or even found again. The foundation ruins of a small 19th century house near Plum Point, however, were examined by the late archaeologist Stanley South in the 1960s.

MacNeil concluded his article by writing that Blackbeard must have been an exceptionally wealthy pirate, who buried his Spanish gold beneath the sand of numerous eastern North Carolina locations, “because otherwise he would have not been worth bothering the British navy, and successful pirates have chests of gold buried about in places. And where else should he bury the gold except in his own backyard.”

Despite the newspaperman’s reasoning that Blackbeard lived at Plum Point or buried his treasure in his backyard, property records and deeds in the Beaufort County courthouse affirm that Edward Thatch or Teach, or anyone else for that matter, did not live on that prominent point of land at the mouth of Bath Creek in 1718.

Bath’s Plum Point may be among the best known and most “earth-troubled” mythical locations of Blackbeard’s lost treasure but there are many more. There are those who believed the pirate buried his money at New Hampshire’s Isle of Shoals, others who think it’s somewhere on the subtly named Blackbeard Island off the coast of Georgia, or at the base of any number of trees along the Atlantic coast. Have you ever tried to dig a hole at the base of a tree?

There is no doubt that Robert Louis Stevenson and Howard Pyle have launched the treasure hunting hobbies of many wishful Americans, some of whom, to this day, hope that Blackbeard’s treasure may yet be found. 

So here’s a tip from someone who has spent decades researching the world’s best-known pirate.

If you wish to seek Blackbeard’s treasure, you might search the bank accounts of publishing companies, Hollywood studios, cable channel networks, museum stores, amusement parks, restaurants, and the importers of plastic pirate paraphernalia from Far East manufacturers. It’s there that “X” marks the spot, it’s there where the real pirate treasure can be found.

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Andrew Hawkins is concerned that Ocracoke might lose an iconic feature — the Banker pony herd — if more foals aren’t born soon.

Hawkins, a part-time islander who, with his wife, volunteers as a National Park Service campground host, also volunteers with the care of the 14-member pony herd, corralled at the center of the island.

“We’re just worried that if they don’t do something, we’re going to lose the herd if we don’t breed them,” he said. “We haven’t had a foal in four or five years.”

These Banker ponies are a special breed with a different number of vertebrae and ribs.

The herd has two stallions, one gelding, 10 mares and one filly. The mares range in age from 4 to 36 years.

“At least five are too old to breed and one too young,” Hawkins said. “So that’s five of breeding age and because of their relationship to the stallions we must discount one. That leaves only four mares eligible to breed, but father/daughter and brother/sister relationships make it complicated.”

Also complicating increasing the herd is the lack of a plan by the NPS, who manages the herd.

The Ocracoke ponies are part of an Outer Banks attraction of free-roaming horses, which are descendants of those that survived shipwrecks hundreds of years ago.

On Shackleford Banks in Cape Lookout National Seashore south of Ocracoke, and on the Currituck beaches in Dare County to the north, the horses still run free.

On Ocracoke, the herd ran free until the National Park Service bought almost all of the island in the 1950s.

When N.C. 12 was paved in 1957, permitting vehicles to drive 50 mph, the National Park Service corralled the ponies for their own safety, creating the 180-acre pasture area that in 1959 was officially named the Ocracoke Pony Pens.

“They’re managed much more like a domestic herd at this point,” said David Hallac, Cape Hatteras National Seashore superintendent. “We manage it as a cultural resource or historic resource. There are questions if that is the right management model. So, we need to develop this plan.”

Meaghan Johnson, chief of resource management and science with the national seashore, said the park first needs to receive funding to devise the plan. She said they applied for funding this year from the regional office but did not receive it. The most recent plan was from 1995.

A new plan would include the history of the ponies, the current herd size and their ages, their genetics and how a herd aligns with park service policies, she said.

Sea level rise and the groundwater sustainability in the area of the pens are also on the radar.

“Looking at the sea level rise projections, do we need to be thinking about the pen where they are currently?” she said. “I think we need to understand where we’ve been and to look at it in a broader picture before we make any decisions such as continuing breeding and what is the right number for that herd.”

Johnson doesn’t have the answers to that but hopes a management plan will yield those.

If they get funding, developing the plan would probably take a year.

In the meantime, a priority this year, she said, has been assessing the status of the pony pen facilities, the fencing, getting some new gates and managing the vegetation around the pens.

After the Ocracoke Light Station, also owned by the park service, the Ocracoke ponies are one of the top island attractions.

“The ponies have always been of interest to tourists because they’ve been here so long,” said Helena Stevens, executive director of the Ocracoke Township Tourism Development Authority. “The state tourism bureau gets a lot of inquiries and sends them to us.”

As of now, the Ocracoke herd consists of the following horses:

• Adults: Winnie, age 4, Jobelle, 5, Hazelnut, 7, Captain, 9, Rayo, 10, and Paloma, 12.
• Middle-aged: Jitterbug, 14, Sacajawea, 15, and Lawton, 18
• Seniors: Maya, 22, Luna, 24, and Easter, 28.
• Geriatric: Oops, 33, and Lindessa, 37.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

Dredging began Friday in Bigfoot Slough, just outside the state Ferry Division’s Ocracoke-Silver Lake Terminal, to alleviate shoaling that has caused recent schedule reductions on the Swan Quarter-Ocracoke and Cedar Island-Ocracoke routes.

The project should take a week to 10 days for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Dredge Merritt began to clear the shoaling, depending on weather and sea conditions, officials said Friday.

Once dredging to deepen and widen the channel is complete, the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes will resume full summer schedules.

“We could not be more grateful to the Corps of Engineers for all the work they’ve done to keep our boats running,” Ferry Division Director Harold Thomas said in a release. “Shoaling has been a serious issue up and down the North Carolina coast, and the Corps has responded quickly and professionally to all of our urgent requests.”

Real-time updates on weather or mechanical delays on the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes can be found on the Twitter feed @NCFerryPamSound.

After more than a week of schedule interruptions from COVID-19 cases and unplanned mechanical issues, two of the three Outer Banks ferries were back on track in time for the long weekend.

North Carolina Department of Transportation department officials said Thursday that Cedar Island-Ocracoke and Swan Quarter-Ocracoke routes had returned to the full summer schedules after repairs on unexpected mechanical issues on sound-class vessels were made.

A worker shortage continues to affect the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry schedule, officials said. The Ferry Division has seen 97 positive COVID-19 cases among its staff. Trends indicate that the Hatteras vehicle route could continue to be affected with cancellations possible.

Officials announced May 19 coronavirus illness-related interruptions to the Cedar Island, Swan Quarter and Hatteras ferry routes.

The department has scheduled a new job fair 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 9 at the College of the Albemarle’s Dare County campus in Manteo as part of a hiring effort. Visit the employment website and enter the word ferry in the search box for information.  

“The Ferry Division is working to address all issues affecting the Hatteras vehicle ferry route and return to a full summer schedule as soon as possible,” officials said.

Before departing, travelers should check the Hatteras route’s Twitter on the website, or call the Hatteras terminal at 252-996-6000.

Travelers also have the option to ride the passenger ferry between Ocracoke and Hatteras. Make a reservation on the Ocracoke Express passenger-only ferry, which makes three round trips daily directly between Hatteras and Ocracoke Village.

HATTERAS  — In a bit of serendipity, the North Carolina Ferry Division celebrated its 75^th anniversary Monday morning by christening its modern new vessel, the Ocracoke Express, the first and only passenger ferry in the system. 

“It’s been a long time coming,” North Carolina Secretary of Transportation Eric Boyette said to a small gathering under the shaded terminal in front of the sleek Carolina blue and white ferry waiting at the dock. “But look at what we have. Look at this scene.”

Behind him, the blue-green water in Hatteras Inlet, the passage between Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, lapped gently against pilings, belying its recent five-day fury from a strong coastal low. But the morning’s bright sun and pleasant temperature added to the upbeat mashup of old and new milestones.

While giving a shoutout to the original ferry builder and operator Toby Tillett of Wanchese, who, along with his father, began ferrying cars across Oregon Inlet in the 1920s, Boyette couldn’t resist good-humored teasing of current N.C. Ferry Division director Harold Thomas of Newport.

“Harold might have been the first captain of that vessel,” he joked.

After remarks from Boyette, who was joined at the event by N.C. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary of Multimodal Transportation Julia White and Board of Transportation member for Division 1 Allen Moran, Hyde County Manager Kris Noble, wielding the requisite bottle of champagne, christened the Ocracoke Express with a hearty slam. 

The group was then invited to tour the shiny new vessel, which is captained by Marshall Foster, a native of Hatteras village who has worked for the division since 2012, and Anthony Gavetti, who, like Thomas, hails from Carteret County. The captains will be piloting the vessel all summer in split shifts of seven, 12-hour days. They agreed that operating the passenger ferry is considerably different than running the bigger vehicle ferries.

“It’s night and day,” Gavetti said while waiting in the pilot house before a quick jaunt for the media. “It’s just a completely different system.”

For instance, the Hatteras-class ferry engine is 1,200 horsepower and lumbers along at about 9 knots an hour, while the passenger ferry is 3,200 horsepower and can zip through the water at about 25 knots. The more agile catamaran-style vessel is highly maneuverable.  

“It’s new to us,” Gavetti said. “Of course, it’s fun.”

Equipped with 96 seats in its air-conditioned interior, the new ferry has 26 additional seats on its top deck, which is mostly open. The boat includes two wheelchair tie downs, 16 bicycle racks and a concession area for passengers to enjoy snacks and drinks during the trip between Hatteras and Ocracoke villages, which takes about 70 minutes each way.

Despite the considerable difference in speed from the vehicle ferries, the lighter passenger ferry travels directly to the village, whereas the vehicle ferry brings occupants to a dock on the north end of the island, 13 miles from the village. Although the passenger ferry requires tickets, which cost $5 each way, they can be reserved in advance, unlike the free Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferries, which are first come, first served and can result in long waits during the busy season.

The impetus for the passenger ferry service was the need to address those long lines. Last year, a total of 16,594 people opted to hop on the passenger ferry, most of whom left their vehicle behind in the expanded parking lot by the Hatteras ferry dock.

When passengers are dropped off at the Silver Lake harbor dock in Ocracoke village, they can board a free tram to the village’s shops and attractions. There are also bicycles and golf carts available to rent in the village, or people can bring their own bicycles on the ferry for a $1 fee. The Ocracoke Express, which began ferrying passengers Tuesday, is scheduled for three trips a day from each side through Sept. 5.

Construction challenges

Not been smooth sailing for the passenger ferry, originally planned for launch in spring 2018, as set out in the $4.4 million contract with U.S. Workboats in Hubert in Onslow County.

Delays were blamed on difficulties with finding workers, among other problems, resulting in legal actions, including a $1,000-per-day fine against the contractors starting in August 2018. 

Ferry Division spokesman Tim Hass said the state paid $3.6 million of the $4.4 million total cost, but stopped paying April 22. Hass said further details about the fine were not immediately available.

“All the lawsuits (between NCDOT and U.S. Workboats) have been settled in our favor,” Hass said on Monday. 

US Watercraft, the commercial boatbuilding division of Waterline Systems, took over and finished construction of the aluminum ferry at the same waterfront facility in Hubert “after the original builder closed its doors,” according to a May 11 article published on the website Workboat. 

After building new infrastructure for the passenger ferry on both Ocracoke and Hatteras islands, the state had decided in 2019 to lease a similar passenger ferry from a private company until issues with the state vessel could be resolved and it could be completed.

Tillett’s ferry

Perhaps the spirit of innovation, adaptation and perseverance that it took to get the Ocracoke Express to launch day is rooted in the origins of the ferry system. That’s when Toby Tillett took over a tug-and-barge service in Oregon Inlet that could carry two cars at a time. Not long after, he decided to build a 45-foot-long ferry that could transport two vehicles, and he later expanded to a larger ferry that could carry more vehicles, according to an Outer Banks History Center video.

Considering that Oregon Inlet is one of the orneriest waterways on the East Coast, Tillett proved to be a remarkably skilled captain. In 25 years of running his ferries back and forth across the inlet notorious for its shifting shoals and powerful currents, Tillett not only never lost a vehicle, he was only ever out of service for a total of 15 days, the History Center reported.

Officially, Tillett sold his business to the state in 1951, but North Carolina had been subsidizing the tolls for his customers for years.

Tillett died in a tractor accident seven years after the sale, according to an obituary in the Coastland Times published Nov. 21, 1958.

“At one time or another,” the write-up said, “he had ferried just about every person living on Hatteras Island.”

Before the state purchased the Oregon Inlet service, it had established its first fully owned ferry run from the Dare County mainland at Manns Harbor to Roanoke Island in 1947.

Today, under the umbrella of the NCDOT, the Ferry Division, which operates the second-largest ferry system in the country, has seven routes, 21 ferries and 400 employees, according to the agency’s website. The system also includes a full-service shipyard, a dredge, tugs, barges, and other support vessels.

On average, the ferries annually transport more than 1.1 million vehicles and 2.5 million passengers, crossing the Currituck and Pamlico sounds and the Cape Fear, Neuse and Pamlico rivers. By far, the busiest route is the free Hatteras-Ocracoke service.

In addition to the new passenger ferry, the division also maintains an emergency route between Stumpy Point on the mainland and Rodanthe on Hatteras Island for when storm damage makes N.C. 12, the island’s only highway, impassible.

As part of the state’s transportation infrastructure, the ferry system has more than pulled its weight, Boyette told attendees at the event. In Cherry Point and Aurora, it brings people to their jobs every day. In Knott’s Island, it transports children to their schools. But the ferries are also big helpers after storms and other disasters, he said, transporting emergency workers and food, vehicles and fuel.

And the secretary credited the staff, “the heart of our system,” for its role over its 75 years of existence in helping communities and keeping things running despite challenges.

“This ferry system does a lot,” Boyette said. “It’s been a safe, reliable and efficient transportation system.”

From an Island Free Press Report

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division is seeking a grant to study moving the South Dock ferry terminal for the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicular ferry from the north end of Ocracoke Island to a new site near the pony pens, near the middle of the island.

The Ferry Division requested support during the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ May 2 meeting.

“As part of the grant process, the more letters of support you have shows that the local community supports the (initiative),” said Ferry Division Planning and Development Manager Catherine Peele. “So we have reached out to stakeholders, Dare County, the National Park Service, and anyone in that surrounding area who is affected.”

The 5-mile stretch of highway on the northern end of the island is regularly subjected to ocean overwash and soundside flooding during storms. With a compromised oceanside dune system, and sound and ocean waters adjacent to both sides of the roadway, there are limited options to move the highway in the years ahead.

The potential grant from the federal Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration America’s Marine Highway Program would provide much of the $100,000 needed for an analysis of relocating the terminal, and an additional $200,000 for a similar study on how to improve the Ferry Division’s Cherry Branch maintenance facility in Craven County.

The plan stems from a 2016 NCDOT feasibility study that examined seven possible options to address the Ocracoke Island hot spot, ranging from five-year solutions to 50-year solutions. A 2020 addendum takes a closer look at the proposal to create a new ferry terminal 6 miles north of Ocracoke Village just south of the pony pens.

The initial feasibility study outlined the basic details of moving the terminal, but now, NCDOT says it needs more information to have a clearer picture of the costs and work involved.

“The (initial) study gave a cost estimate for how much it would be to construct, but no information on operations or the impact on the Ferry Division,” said Peele. “We want to look at what kind of dredging would be needed, how long permitting would take, what kind of staffing levels we would need, departure schedules, associated costs with the increase in fuel, maintenance, and general operations. All of these things need to be considered, and we want to make sure that the operational impacts are well documented.”

If the grant is awarded, the more detailed study could begin as early as this year.

“If we don’t win this grant opportunity, we will need to look at other ways to get this (study) funded,” said Peele. “But primarily, our focus is on this grant, which is due June 17.”

The study would take 12-18 months to complete. If the project is feasible, construction of a new ferry terminal would likely take years because of funding, permitting, contracting and other considerations.

“With the increase in storms and sea level rise, and a hot spot on Highway 12 where the road is constantly flooded and washed out, our (South Dock) terminal essentially becomes the terminal to nowhere. You can’t get to Highway 12, which means you can’t get to Ocracoke,” said Peele. “This vulnerability is causing us to think about what we can do going forward, and we are trying to come up with a solution to make South Dock more sustainable in the future.”

Update Thursday:

A scaled-back British Cemetery Ceremony will go on Friday at 11 a.m. and while the preferred location is at the cemetery itself, it may be moved indoors at the last minute, the Ocracoke Observer reported.

Update 2:30 p.m. Wednesday: The North Carolina Maritime Museum announced that members of the Ocracoke community are moving forward with plans for a ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday at the British cemetery there. Rain location is Ocracoke School gym. Contact Sundae Horn at sundaehorn@embarqmail.com.

Update 11:30 a.m. Wednesday: The North Carolina Maritime Museum system has canceled the ceremonies scheduled for May 12 in Buxton and May 13 in Ocracoke due to weather conditions.

Original post:

The annual public ceremonies on the Outer Banks honoring the sacrifice of foreign sailors who died protecting the United States coast during World War II will resume this month after a two-year hiatus.

Two British war graves ceremonies are planned. The first ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. May 12 at the British Cemetery in Buxton and the second at the Ocracoke British Cemetery at 11 a.m. May 13.

Representatives of the U.S. Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary, U.S. Navy, British Royal Navy and National Park Service, visitors and residents will be in attendance.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum system provided information about the two ceremonies.

The Buxton ceremony honors the service of the men who lost their lives in April 1942 when the British armed tanker San Delfino was sunk by the U-203 just off Pea Island. Buried at the British Cemetery in Buxton are Fourth Engineer Officer Michael Cairns of the Royal Merchant Navy from the San Delfino and an unknown soldier.

The second ceremony at the Ocracoke British Cemetery is to pay tribute to the sailors from the HMS Bedfordshire, which was destroyed in May 1942 by German submarine U-558 near the island. The bodies of Sub-Lt. Cunningham and Ordinary Telegraphist Second Class Craig are buried at the Ocracoke site. Additionally, two bodies were found in the ocean north of Ocracoke that were never identified. Assumed to be from the Bedfordshire, the two were interred alongside their shipmates in what is now the Ocracoke British Cemetery.

The ceremonies are organized by the Friends of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, the Ocracoke community, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

For more information call 252-986-0721 or visit graveyardoftheatlantic.com. 

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Even though he says his first attempt at decoy carving yielded “the ugliest bird you ever saw,” the folk-art form grabbed John Simpson back in 1975.

Simpson, who is the featured carver at this year’s Ocracoke Waterfowl Festival from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 23, at the Berkley Barn, is also the president of the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild that he helped co-found in 2018.

This will be the fourth festival, which draws carvers and aficionados from all over the eastern seaboard.

In addition to organizing the event, Simpson will have a booth to show his carvings, many of which these days are shore birds.

But duck decoys are the main heritage of island carvers and that’s where Simpson started as a teenager back in 1975.

“I always enjoyed piddling with wood and my interest in carving took off by hanging out as a young person at Corky’s Store on Down Creek Road,” he said. “Wilbur Gaskill would sit on the steps carving little birds and sold them to visitors as novelty items for $3. He had me sit next to him and showed me how to carve.”

That first attempt at carving was “out of cork from an old coastguard life jacket and it was the ugliest bird you ever saw,” he said. “It was a scaup and I chose it because it was the easiest to paint with just white, gray and black colors.”

But he comes from a family of decoy carvers, so he couldn’t give up.

He is related on his mother Patsy Gaskins Simpson’s side to one of Ocracoke’s carving legends, Gary Bragg (1881-1954).

Since that self-described inauspicious beginning, Simpson has carved hundreds of waterfowl and shorebirds.

Simpson also paints two-dimensional works and even though he has honed that skill, he says painting his carvings is his toughest challenge.

“I know it might seem funny, but I have to be in just the right mood to do the painting,” he said.

A highlight of the Waterfowl Festival is to celebrate a featured carver who gets to choose the festival’s featured species, and Simpson chose the northern pintail.

Previous featured carvers, David O’Neal, Dan Robinson and Nathan Spencer, all attribute their love of the art and their carving skills to mentors, family members and neighbors.

Robinson, who was the chief at the Ocracoke Coast Guard station, took him under his wing, so to speak, teaching his carving techniques.

Simpson’s early carvings might not have been as bad as he describes.

At least one of them was an inspiration for last year’s featured carver, Nathan Spencer.

Some years ago, Nathan and his wife Janet cleaned out a shed for his cousin Patsy, Simpson’s mother. He came across one of Simpson’s carvings of a bird in flight that he made when he was very young.

“I brought it home and studied it and I thought, ‘I can do that,’” Spencer said.

It is not only carving, but Simpson has a love of the history of decoys and has built a personal collection of carvings by visiting many waterfowl festivals over the years.

“My first decoy festival goes back to 1975 in Virginia Beach,” he said. He immediately took to the fellowship of carvers, noting how helpful everyone was by sharing carving techniques.

Two of the most famous master carvers in North America are the Ward brothers, Lem (1896-1984) and Steve (1896-1976), who lived in Crisfield, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore.

Simpson fondly recalls meeting Steve at a decoy festival in Salisbury, Maryland, in 1975, who even at that young age, encouraged Simpson to become a carver.

Waterfowl decoys are now considered Americana folk art and some carvings have skyrocketed in price rising to the six and even seven figures.

Simpson’s island roots go way back.

His great grandfather, Joseph Merritt Burrus, was the second to last light keeper for the Ocracoke lighthouse and the last one to serve under the U.S. Lighthouse Service from 1929-1947.

Recently, thanks to some genealogical sleuthing by Philip Howard, Simpson discovered that he is an 11th-generation descendant of William Howard, the alleged quartermaster for Blackbeard.

Simpson graduated from Ocracoke School in 1978, in a class of seven. The following year, he took a job with the U.S. Postal Service in Elizabeth City, which led him to Washington state in the mid-1980s.

Upon leaving the postal service in 2013, he returned to Ocracoke and soon thereafter started a music show on WOVV, Ocracoke’s community radio station, that he continues today, now called “Classic Cuts and Such with John in the Studio,” broadcast from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturdays and rebroadcast Tuesdays from 2 to 4 p.m.

Simpson also has a thriving island fig preserve business with Trudy Austin. So, it’s not unusual at island events which include vendors, to see him with a large table covered with his artwork, carvings, fig trees and fig preserves.

The Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild’s mission is to pass on the fine art of bird carving to others and it holds monthly meetings to which all are invited to attend.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

The National Park Service is seeking public comment and has scheduled two meetings at the end of the month on an environmental assessment for the rehabilitation of the Ocracoke Light Station at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The Ocracoke Lighthouse, built in 1823, is the oldest functioning lighthouse in the state and the second oldest lighthouse still in service in the country.

A presentation and times for questions about the environmental assessment are planned for the meetings set for 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. March 28 at the Berkley Barn at Berkley Manor, 58 Water Plant Road, Ocracoke. The same information will be presented at both meetings.

The public comment period on the proposed work ends April 13. Comments may be submitted electronically, the preferred method, or mailed to Superintendent, Attn: Ocracoke Light Station, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954.

Buildings in the Ocracoke Light Station complex include the lighthouse, double keepers’ quarters, carpenter’s shop, store house, cisterns, privy, oil house and generator house.

“The Ocracoke Light Station rehabilitation project is needed because historic structures have been damaged from recent storms and, if the buildings are left as they are, it is expected that they will be damaged further by future storms,” officials said. “In the wake of recent storm damage and in consideration of future impacts from climate change and sea level rise, the National Park Service proposes to sustainably rehabilitate the Ocracoke Light Station and mitigate reasonably foreseeable flooding impacts while continuing to provide visitor access.”

The environmental assessment evaluates the following alternatives:

• Alternative A — The no-action alternative that is the current management to repair exterior and interior storm damage.
• Alternative B — Elevate some of the structures at the Ocracoke Light Station and repair storm damage.
• Alternative C — Remove the double keepers’ quarters and replace it with a ghost structure, which would mimic the size, shape and location of the existing building.

Under all alternatives, the Ocracoke Lighthouse would be rehabilitated, which would include the following actions:

• Removing the shotcrete from the exterior of the lighthouse and replacing it with a coating that will allow appropriate protection of the masonry and moisture control.
• Replacing damaged masonry, including replacing bricks and mortar.
• Repairing or replacing all windows with historically appropriate windows.
• Repairing leaks at the top lantern and repainting.
• Recoat interior masonry.
• Exposing the original stone foundation.

The alternatives and a summary of their potential impacts are listed in the Ocracoke Light Station Rehabilitation Project newsletter and the environmental assessment online.

Now that spring is on the horizon, more daily departures are being added between Hatteras, Cedar Island and Swan Quarter ferry terminals and Ocracoke.

The Ocracoke-Cedar Island and Ocracoke-Swan Quarter routes will increase daily departures from two to three from each side per day starting Tuesday and the Hatteras-Ocracoke route will go from 14 to 18 departures from each side per day, state Department of Transportation officials said Monday.

The following is the new schedule effective Tuesday:

Cedar Island to Ocracoke: 7:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m.
Ocracoke to Cedar Island: 7:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 4:30 p.m.

Swan Quarter to Ocracoke: 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m.
Ocracoke to Swan Quarter: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m.

Hatteras to Ocracoke: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., midnight.

Ocracoke to Hatteras: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m.,11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6:15 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8:45 p.m., 10:30 p.m. and midnight.

The Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes will remain on these schedules through May 23, when the routes will go to a full summer schedule.

The Hatteras route will add more departures on April 5 before going to a full summer schedule May 17.

The complete schedule is available online.

Hyde County officials are asking Ocracoke residents, property owners and other stakeholders to complete a short questionnaire on ways for the community to be better prepared to withstand, respond to, and recover from weather or other disruptions.

A public meeting about the Resilient Coastal Communities Program is set for 6 p.m. Jan. 27 in the Ocracoke Community Center or attend virtually via zoom.

The questionnaire can be completed online or participants can download and print the form and return it.

The county, on behalf of the unincorporated Ocracoke Village, is one of the 25 local governments selected for the Resilient Coastal Communities Program administered by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management. The grants are for technical assistance in risk assessment and resilience planning work.

The program helps local governments on the coast set resilience goals, look at the community’s needs, and identify projects to boost community resilience to coastal hazards. The four phases of the program include: Phase 1, community engagement and risk & vulnerability assessment; Phase 2, planning, project selection and prioritization; Phase 3: engineering and design; and Phase 4: implementation.

This first award through the program was announced in March 2021. The 25 local governments can receive up to $675,000 total complete the first two phases.

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

The diamondback terrapin, an estuarine turtle seen throughout much of the Outer Banks, has a special niche in the Atlantic coastal ecosystem, being the only turtle in the world that inhabits exclusively the brackish waters of estuaries, tidal creeks and salt marshes.

But islands such as Ocracoke may not be as welcoming to them as in the past due to a highly aggressive and invasive exotic plant that is eliminating much of their nesting habitat and putting their future at risk.

There may be a way to fend off this threat and help ensure long-term survival for this handsome turtle (Malaclemys terrapin) with its spotted face, striking colors and variable patterns on its shell, but action will be needed.

Terrapins have faced many obstacles to their existence over the centuries. In one case, it took a constitutional amendment to save them from extirpation.

In the latter decades of the 19th century, terrapin “turtle soup” became a popular and trendy gourmet item on menus at high-end restaurants, private clubs and even at the White House.

The demand for this perceived delicacy led to excessive harvesting, and nearly caused the species’ demise by 1920.

In a quirky twist of society’s mores, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that banned the consumption of alcohol during the prohibition era, benefitted the terrapin.

How could teetotaling have had such an impact? The key ingredient in a decent terrapin soup or stew was sherry, which became a banned substance under the 18th Amendment, ratified in January 1919.

With restaurants unable to use this Spanish fortified wine in the recipe, the soup lost its pizzazz and disappeared from the menus. This ended the terrapin soup craze and harvesting became nearly nonexistent, allowing their drastically dwindled numbers to begin to increase. By the time the amendment was repealed, culinary fads had moved on to other delicacies.

Although massive commercial harvesting is long gone, both legal and illegal wildlife trade as pets and food remain a problem and the terrapin has not fully recovered. It is listed both federally and in North Carolina and several other states as a species of Special Concern. The North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan considers it a priority species.

These days, in addition to trafficking, by-catch mortality from commercial and recreational crab pots, road crossing fatalities, pollution, sea level rise affecting coastal marshes and loss of habitat are the main causes of their premature deaths.

Unlike sea turtles, such as the loggerhead and the green turtle that spend their lives in the high seas with females only coming to land to lay eggs, terrapins stay close to shore in narrow Atlantic coastal estuarine habitats of tidal creeks and marshes.

Their range is from Cape Cod in the north, down to the coasts of Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas. Bermuda also has a terrapin population. With philopatric tendencies to remain in the same areas from where they hatched, terrapins do not make long-distance migrations. Females can lay two to three clutches of four to 24 eggs in late spring. The eggs usually hatch in 60 to 85 days, with hatchlings emerging from the nest in August and September. Sometimes hatchlings overwinter in the nest and emerge the following spring. During the cold winter months, they hibernate buried in the mud at the bottom of tidal creeks and marshes.

The bad guy: Phragmites in North America

Of the more than 5,000 invasive plant species embedded in North America’s ecosystems, phragmites, or Phragmites australis, is considered to be the most dominant and destructive. Also known as the common reed, it is highly aggressive and has many adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems, impacting native flora and fauna species. It is now found throughout the world, except for the continent of Antarctica.

The nonnative phragmites first appeared in North America in the late 18th or early 19th century, most likely brought over in ships from Europe, and has spread in wetlands throughout much of the continent.

Although there is a widely distributed but not very common North American native subspecies of phragmites (Phragmites americanus), it does not occur in the Southeast, which includes North Carolina. It is not the native subspecies but the invasive subspecies (Phragmites australis) that is the problem for terrapins and is found in abundance on Ocracoke.

Cassandra Cook cited many examples of this plant’s harmful effects in her College of William and Mary master’s thesis, “Impacts of Invasive Phragmites australis on Diamondback Terrapin Nesting.” Her research focused on Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia.

Cook noted that phragmites reduces marsh habitat quality for terrapins. Its presence has been linked to decreases in the abundance of smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), the aquatic plant found in brackish tidal marshes which hosts the marsh periwinkle (Littorina irrorata), a staple in the diamondback terrapin diet. Less cordgrass means fewer periwinkles for the terrapins to eat, thus making their foraging even more difficult.

Thick stands of phragmites creates an additional problem by lowering surrounding soil temperatures that can also jeopardize terrapins. The reason is that, like many turtle species, terrapins have temperature-dependent sex determination, meaning that the sex of hatchlings is the result of incubation temperatures. Cook found that a phragmites cover of greater than 50% causes a decrease in incubation temperatures of terrapin nests sufficient to produce predominantly male hatchlings. Fewer females mean fewer hatchings.

It is easy to identify phragmites by its height, which can be up to 15 feet. It has long, thin, green leaves and a large purple-brown flower head that turn silver in the fall. Despite its striking appearance, the scary part is subterranean.

Its rhizome stem system creates a root structure that can grow up to 60 feet in length at a depth of more than 6 feet. It spreads very efficiently, with new stalks growing off the roots. New locations can be infected through wind dispersal of its seeds.

In the spring, female terrapins look for sparsely vegetated sandy areas above the tide line to lay their eggs. When phragmites invade these open areas and takes root, the nest site is no longer viable. The plant also spreads rapidly right up to the waterline. This high density creates an impenetrable hedge that prevents terrapins from easily finding a suitable nesting site.

As their habitat diminishes, terrapins must travel longer distances to find a site to lay their eggs. Early one morning a few years ago, I saw one attempting to lay her eggs in the middle of the sandy, busy Southpoint Road on Ocracoke.

The longer terrapins search for a suitable nesting site on land, the more vulnerable they are to predation. Later, an even worse danger occurs for the hatchlings which are exposed for much longer periods on their long, dangerous maiden trek to a marsh or tidal creek. This makes them easy pickings for ghost crabs, gulls, crows, raccoons and other predators.

What can be done

Large-scale phragmites removal can be a bottomless money pit and, once the plant is firmly rooted almost impossible to completely eradicate. It is much easier to remove, or at least control, when detected in its early stages.

One feasible solution is a selective small-scale phragmites eradication process in areas where terrapins would most likely nest near water.

Cook agreed that a phragmites eradication effort could be effective. “Open it up and they will find it,” she said, noting that terrapins have nested on clear, sparsely vegetated dredge spoil islands.

Rob Emens also thinks this is doable. “I’ve been pushing for more phragmites management, just in general in North Carolina because I’ve seen what it does in states like Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia,” he said in an interview.

Emens, the aquatic weed program manager with the state’s Division of Water Resources in the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, assists local governments and other stakeholders with the removal of aquatic weed infestations.

Two herbicides, glyphosate and imazapyr, can control phragmites effectively when used individually or in combination. Careful use of these chemicals is vital to protect nearby native plants. Controlled burning and mechanical plant removal using small mowers, weed whips and brush hogs can be combined with these chemical applications.

By the time phragmites has been removed or greatly diminished, the chemicals are long gone, Emens said.

Unlike sea turtles, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently do not track diamondback terrapins, according to their officials. These two federal services, in partnership with many federal and state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and hundreds of volunteers, have made remarkable progress increasing the number of nesting sea turtles, especially loggerheads, on the Outer Banks in the past 15 years.

Fortunately, there is one ongoing terrapin research project in the state.

For the last seven years in May, volunteers, mostly in kayaks and canoes, have participated in a citizen science project, known as Terrapin Tally, to collect data to better understand terrapin distribution and density.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s North Carolina Coastal Reserve, partnering with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, North Carolina State Parks, Bald Head Island Conservancy, North Carolina Audubon, North Carolina Aquariums, and National Park Service, has spearheaded this important project.

So far, these surveys have taken place in the southeastern part of the state where phragmites does not have the densities of the northeastern region. Sarah Finn, a coastal wildlife diversity biologist with North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said there are plans to extend the range of these surveys to areas farther north and could include Ocracoke if volunteers can be found. Expanding these surveys into areas where phragmites is present or appears to be increasing can help biologists understand the regional populations and determine if loss of habitat is a factor in decreased numbers.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation hosted a workshop a few years ago to discuss the development of a coastwide management plan addressing the spread of phragmites. Any plan should include the needs of the diamondback terrapin.

Losing nesting habitat to phragmites can be threatening to their long-term survival like turtle soup that appeared on menus more than 100 years ago.

Taking effective measures now can go a long way toward avoiding having the diamondback terrapin placed on the endangered species list.

We have a chance to take on the phragmites threat to terrapins in North Carolina and nip it in the bud, to use a terrible floral cliché. If we don’t take action, the consequences could be far worse than groaning at a bad pun.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

Update: Covid/Omicron variant watch. There may be restrictions on participating in these two bird counts, especially for Portsmouth Island. If you are interested in participating, contact the compiler right after Christmas when we will have a better idea of a possible new wave spread.

Following tradition, the Ocracoke and Portsmouth Island Christmas Bird Counts will be held on the last days of the year, with Portsmouth on Dec. 30 and Ocracoke on Dec. 31.

This year, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, now in its 122nd year, is expected to have nearly 80,000 volunteers to tally birds in more than 2,600 locations across the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Each individual count is performed in a count circle with a diameter of 15 miles. The data gathered from these surveys help to track bird populations and can flag declining or increasing numbers of a given species.

The two local counts will be entered into the NC Bird Atlas, in its first of a five-year project to gather information about the state’s bird populations.

Ocracoke has run a count every year since 1981 and Portsmouth since 1988, with a couple of cancellations due to adverse weather. The historical results of these counts can be found on the Audubon Christmas Bird Count website.

To participate or for more information, contact the compiler Peter Vankevich, text/cell 202-468-2871 and petevankevich@gmail.com.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

In 1759, a man named William Howard purchased North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island for the sum of 105 pounds sterling. Through genealogical records and oral histories, he is generally agreed to have been the wellspring of the many streams of Ocracoke’s esteemed Howard family. 

What has been less certain is whether the island owner was the same man as the notorious pirate who sailed with Blackbeard in 1718 and who was Capt. Benjamin Hornigold’s quartermaster in 1716, or whether there were two, even three men sharing the same name living at the same time on the coast of North Carolina.

Perhaps no one studied the enigmatic historical figure of William Howard more than his descendant and family genealogist, Dora A. Padgett of Washington, D.C. Padgett, a fourth-great-granddaughter, lovingly described Howard as her “picturesque ancestor.” Over the years, Padgett was intent on “solving the questions of the place of his origin, his parentage, and his early years prior to settlement in North Carolina.” She was never able to do so.

Padgett’s research, conducted between the 1940s until her death in the mid-1970s, nevertheless enriched the history of Ocracoke and helped to preserve the legacy of the Howard family progenitor. But as a former Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she also seemed determined to cleanse her forebear of any disagreeable associations to piracy.

The genealogist was confident that the paper trail documenting William Howard’s life in North Carolina did not begin before 1750. Despite her best efforts, she wrote, “no documents yet found in any county establish beyond question his parentage and the facts of his early life.”

Yet, to the contrary, records in Beaufort County identify a property owner named Phillip Howard, whose son is proven by deeds to have been one William Howard. Phillip Howard had been an inhabitant of the Bath area since at least 1703, when a silversmith sold him a tract of land 8 miles east of the town. Additional records indirectly reveal that an earlier William Howard, likely the grandfather of Bath’s William Howard — regardless if he was the same William Howard as the pirate quartermaster — arrived in 1663 at what was then known as “ye countie of Albemarle.”

The most pivotal and, perhaps, the most disputed fact about the life and origins of William Howard concerns his remarkably long life. Just how long was it? His age at the time of his death, in fact, is of utmost importance to deducing, as Padgett put it, “the facts of his early life.” 

“The most valuable clue to his age,” she wrote, “is to be found in the ‘Description of Occacock Inlet,’ a book written about 1792 by Jonathan Price and published in 1795.” There were, however, other, more precise clues that the genealogist may have inadvertently missed or intentionally ignored.

Rather famously and often quoted, the surveyor Price wrote a cutting-edge tourism marketing endorsement for Ocracoke: “The healthy spot is in autumn the healthy resort of many of the inhabitants of the main. One of its original proprietors, who has attained his ninetieth year, still resides on it, and does not appear to feel any of the infirmities of age.” Who would not want to live on Ocracoke after reading that?

As Padgett observed, “The reference is undoubtedly to William Howard, who at the time of writing was the one person on Ocracoke who could be considered an original proprietor.”

But from there, Padgett goes on to make a categorical declaration: “Price’s valuable observations lead to the conclusion that William Howard was born about the year 1700.”

The first problem with Padgett’s assertion is that Price did not specifically note when the original proprietor, presumably Howard, had attained his 90th year. For reasons that are unclear, she made an assumption that Howard was born about 1700.

The second problem with Padgett’s statement is that Price did not write when Howard died — she simply supposed that he died between 1794 and 1795. No date of death based on reliable sources has been established for Howard, until now.

How determined was Padgett, the Daughters of the American Revolution Regent, to divorce the legendary pirate William Howard from her “picturesque ancestor,” the historical William Howard?

In her words: “And what of the old tales that William Howard, Blackbeard’s quartermaster, was the same person as William Howard, who in 1759, 40 years later, purchased the Island of Ocracoke? … In 1718, William Howard, who later lived on Ocracoke, was a youth of about 18 years of age, hardly the seasoned villain of wide experience who had been Blackbeard’s quartermaster!”

Despite Padgett’s assertion, according to the meticulously researched book, “The Wooden World,” British seamen went to sea at remarkably early ages, some as young as 5 or 6 and most by the ages of 10 or 12. Furthermore, her argument was based entirely on the unsupported claim that Howard was born around 1700. But what if Howard had been born 10 years earlier?

In 1790, no doubt with his advanced age and uncertainty as to how much longer he might live, William Howard deeded all of his earthly possessions to his son Wallace, including 300 acres, his house and all of his cattle, horses, sheep and hogs.

Padgett wrote with confidence that “William Howard (Sr.) died about 1794/5 while his son Wallace died, unmarried, in 1796.” Once again, however, the genealogist provided no direct, positive evidence that the father died in 1794 or 1795.

On June 25, 1799, an estate inventory for “William Howard, Sr., deceased,” was filed with the court of Hyde County. Among dozens of other items, Howard Sr.’s inventory listed 26 head of cattle, 15 head of sheep, 37 head of old hogs and some pigs. It therefore appears from the evidence that most of the property and livestock deeded to his son Wallace in 1790 must have reverted back to William Howard Sr., after his son’s death in 1796. This further implies that the father did not die in 1795 but, more likely, late in 1798 or early 1799.

Remarkably, there exists another corroborating item of evidence, albeit a secondary source but a reliable one, that addresses William Howard’s age. 

Dr. Hugh Williamson, a highly acclaimed “Renaissance man” who represented North Carolina in the Continental Congress and was later the state’s representative to the U.S. Congress, published in 1812, “The History of North Carolina.”

In an appendix titled “Proofs and Explanations,” Williamson shared his evidence on the health of the citizens of the Old North State writing that “Instances of longevity are not wanting in Carolina.”

Below a list of names and ages under the heading titled, “Persons living anno 1798,” is this extraordinary statement: “William Haward, of Acacoke island, aged one hundred and eight, had lived seventy-seven years on the banks.” Presumably, Williamson was a better historian and physician than he was a speller.

In judging the quality and veracity of this evidence of William Howard’s age, we must take into consideration Williamson’s reputation and his voluminous accomplishments in education, science, medicine and public service. We must ask why he would falsely or mistakenly report Howard’s age on a list featuring 12 other centenarians including a 114-year-old and a 112-year-old living in 1798. 

Additionally, no evidence has been found controverting Williamson’s claim of Howard’s astonishing age. In fact, William Howard’s estate inventory filed in June 1799 seems to buttress Williamson’s statement.

If we accept that Howard was 108 years old in 1798, then he was born around 1690, making him 28 years old in 1718 — potentially a man of seafaring experience and at an age perfectly capable of being a quartermaster leading a ship of hundreds of pirates. Perhaps he was, indeed, the Howard of legend.

Based on Williamson’s statement, Howard likely began living on the Outer Banks in 1721. And as Padgett pondered, what turning point in his life may have led Howard to have become an Outer Banker?

William Howard the pirate

Even behind iron bars with an appointment to meet the hangman the next morning at Hampton, Virginia, 28-year-old William Howard was not frightened. Did he have a premonition that somehow his life would be spared? How could he have ever imagined that he had, not just 12 hours to live but another 80 years to live?

Howard, who five months earlier had received a Royal pardon from North Carolina Gov. Charles Eden at Bath, was arrested at either Hampton or Norfolk after being overheard “conspiring with some sailors to run away with some vessel so to pirate again.” That, alone, was insufficient cause for his arrest. 

But Howard’s reputation preceded him. He was widely known around the wharfs and quays of the lower Chesapeake as one of the most experienced and successful pirate quartermasters there ever was. He freely admitted it — after all, he was a pardoned man.

Howard was, nevertheless, shackled and rowed out to the HMS Pearl anchored in the James River and thrown in the ship’s brig as a vagrant seaman. For the time being, Howard’s two piratically acquired slaves and 50 pounds sterling were confiscated pending the adjudication of his case.

The rest of the story has been repeated many times. Virginia Lt. Gov. Spotswood used Howard’s arrest as a pretext for dispatching an armed naval expedition into North Carolina to capture or kill his former boss, the notorious Blackbeard, and to set an example for any would-be pirates loitering about the port towns of Hampton Roads. 

Believing that he was indemnified by Eden’s pardon, Howard freely admitted during his interrogations that he had participated in at least 12 other acts of piracy after the king’s deadline of Jan. 5, 1718. Had he known that Eden’s pardon was worthless, he may have been more circumspect. 

Howard was convicted by a Virginia Court of Vice-Admiralty sometime in November and sentenced to death. Fortunately for him — and his innumerable descendants — the captains of the Royal Navy frigates HMS Lyme and HMS Pearl and their crews were preoccupied with the mission to apprehend Blackbeard. 

In mid-December 1718, when Capt. Ellis Brand of the Lyme, the senior officer of His Majesty’s ships on the James River, returned from his horseback ride to Bath to supervise the arrest of pirates there, Howard’s execution was scheduled. 

The night before he was to be hanged, a ship from London sailed into the river, dropped anchor, and a boat was launched and rowed over to the Pearl. A packet of mail and papers was brought on board including a wax-sealed parchment tied with a ribbon from the king’s Privy Council  — a second, newly amended and more generous Royal Proclamation of Mercy for pirates from George I.

The new proclamation was worded in a way to encourage more pirates to surrender and return to honest, productive lives, or to seek legal commissions to serve as privateers in the king’s latest war with Spain. There was no specific calendar date after which acts of piracies would no longer be eligible to be forgiven. In other words, every piracy committed before a pirate heard about the new pardon would be expunged from the records. 

And just like that, William Howard’s appointment with the hangman was canceled. It was his lucky day. And, he made the most of it, returning home to Bath.

Yes, home. A dozen or more men among those in Blackbeard’s inner circle of most trusted confidants and slaves were related to, or associated with, plantation owners at or near the town of Bath. They included a property owner named Phillip Howard, whose son is proven by deeds to have been one William Howard. Phillip Howard had been an inhabitant of the Bath area since at least 1703 when a silversmith sold him a tract of land 8 miles east of the town.

In 1707, Phillip Howard expanded his land holdings by patenting 320 acres on the north side of the Pamlico River. His name appeared again that year on another record along with Bath co-founder Joel Martin. Martin was the father of John Martin who would later serve as quartermaster under pirate Benjamin Hornigold and who would return to Bath with William Howard and Edward Thatch, also known as Blackbeard, in 1718.

Three years after he was released from custody aboard the HMS Pearl, retired pirate William Howard was at New Providence, Bahamas, in December 1721, testifying at a trial on behalf of the physician John Howell. Howell had been forced against his will to join the pirate company of Benjamin Hornigold and the doctor wished that his “person and character might be cleared from a certain calumny.”

Under oath, Howard testified “that he (had) known Howell about five years” when he, too, had served as quartermaster under Capt. Benjamin Hornigold in 1716. Howard led a boarding party near Cape Florida with nine others where he “forced said Howell with his medicines to serve on board said Hornigold.” At the trial, Howard was adamant that Howell never asked for, nor received a share from any prize piratically taken. Howell was exonerated, in part thanks to Howard’s efforts.

Because Dr. Howell’s trial occurred in 1721 at Nassau when Howard was said by Hugh Williamson in his book “The History of North Carolina” to have begun his 77 years of residency on the Outer Banks, we can presume that the former pirate was not interested in plantation life on the mainland and must have, in some capacity, continued his life as a mariner — or preferred life at the beach. 

Confirming this are deeds from Bath County (now Beaufort County) proving that William Howard divested himself of his late father’s land holdings in 1730, including the 320 acres Phillip Howard patented in 1707. The deeds were witnessed by William Martin, son of Joel Martin and brother of former pirate quartermaster John Martin.

Yet, one decade later, according to the genealogist Dora Padgett, her ancestor William Howard appeared for the first time in North Carolina, purportedly from Maryland. “The point is sometimes made that William Howard, quartermaster of the pirate Blackbeard, is the same person as

William Howard of Ocracoke,” wrote Dora Padgett. “This is a complete fallacy. William Howard, the pirate, operated in 1718. This was many years prior to the first record of William Howard of Ocracoke.”

Padgett reached her conclusion because, according to her, “no documents yet found in any county establish beyond question his parentage and the facts of his early life.” That does not appear to be true, unless one is willing to believe that there were multiple William Howards : (1) the pirate, (2) the son of the Bath County plantation owner, and (3) the once owner and inhabitant of Ocracoke Island. 

To determine whether or not the island owner was the same man as the notorious pirate, we must consider the following questions:

• Which hypothesis presents more comprehensive facts possessing the greater explanatory scope and strength?
• Which hypothesis is the most plausible?
• Which hypothesis was contrived for a particular purpose?

Padgett wrote that she could find no evidence of a William Howard living in North Carolina prior to the 1740s, yet Beaufort County deeds disconfirm that notion. There can be no disputing the fact that a William Howard lived in the colony prior to the 1740s.

It might be argued that it was possible for there to have been two or even three men with the same name living at the same time in coastal North Carolina in the 18th century. But in this case, the multiple William Howard hypothesis is based on an erroneous assumption that the 1759 owner of the island was too young to have been the pirate Howard. On that basis, that hypothesis is fatally flawed. The facts of Howard’s age established in Williamson’s “The History of North Carolina” and his approximate date of death inferred by his estate inventory are far superior to Padgett’s unsupported guess that he was born in 1700.

How improbable was it that Howard lived to be 108 years old? Williamson’s “The History of North Carolina” named 13 people living in the state during the 1790s who were over 100 years old with the oldest at 114. While there is disbelief among some Howard family descendants, the Ocracoke gravestone of William Howard’s daughter-in-law, Ann, claims that she died in 1841, “Aged 117 years.” Maybe Jonathan Price was correct and Ocracoke was truly a healthy place to live.

It remains a mystery as to why Dora Padgett, an experienced and well-respected genealogist, failed to find or ignored records that would have established William Howard’s lineage and the facts of his early life. We can only speculate that she did not want the pirate Howard to be her ancestor. 

Rarely in history can be found an unbroken chain of evidence providing a clear solution to a mystery, especially in studies of people who play minor roles hundreds of years ago. Further, it has been observed by scholars that while historical descriptions can never be proven to be infallible, they can be accepted as probable, even likely.

Have we met the burden of proof to accept the hypothesis that William Howard the Ocracoke Island owner was the same man as Blackbeard’s quartermaster? Does it merit our belief?

A preponderance of evidence certainly outweighs the lack of a well-supported counter argument to accept that there was just one William Howard who was “a seafaring man of wide experience,” the Colonial owner of Ocracoke Island, and the Golden Age of Piracy’s oldest surviving pirate in America.

Figs are the main ingredient this weekend on Ocracoke.

The sweet treat that has grown on the island for centuries will be celebrated Thursday through Saturday during the eighth annual Fig Festival at the Berkley Barn on Water Plant Road and the Ocracoke Preservation Society museum, which is sponsor of the event. 

The three-day festival will feature the Fig Cake Bake-Off, fig preserves contest, music, storytelling, children’s activities and crafts, talks by local fig experts, and vendors selling fig preserves, fig cakes, fig trees, local cookbooks and other fig-related goodies. A full schedule of music acts, events and activities can be found on the festival’s website.

In addition to being the centerpiece of the annual festival, fig-infused menu items are being offered at island restaurants, and shops are stocking this fig preserves for purchase.

Special guest Vivian Howard, star of the PBS shows, “A Chef’s Life” and “Somewhere South,” award-winning cookbook author, chef and restaurateur, will be on hand during the festival to sign copies of her cookbooks Friday afternoon, for a public Q&A Saturday morning and will help judge the Fig Cake Bake-Off Saturday afternoon. Tickets are sold out for Thursday’s evening event, The Savory Side of Figs, where Howard will be the guest of honor.

“The first thing I did when I moved back home from New York was plant a fig tree. I’m excited to be back on Ocracoke, the capital of fig country. Fair warning, I’ll do my best to abide by the ‘no pickem, the figum’ mantra, but can’t make any promises,” Howard told Coastal Review on Tuesday.

Fig Festival Organizer Sundae Horn told Coastal Review on Tuesday that she invited Howard to the festival after learning about her interest in Ocracoke. Howard sponsored a fundraiser to help out local restaurants after Hurricane Dorian in 2019 “And I knew that she was a friend to Ocracoke.”

Howard was initially going to be guest of honor at the 2020 festival, which went online last year because of COVID-19, but Horn asked again in 2021. “And so we’re really excited to say that Vivian Howard is coming.”

Horn said that the Fig Cake Bake-Off is the main event for the three-day festival and will be held in the Berkeley Barn, which is truly a barn, with sliding barn doors that will be open. While the weather forecast is calling for rain, the festival will be covered but, because the barn is open on all sides, it’s considered an indoor outdoor space.

The fig cake as we know it was invented in the 1950s or early 1960s by Margaret Garrish, who had a recipe for a date cake and decided to substitute fig preserves, Horn explained. Prior to that, the traditional fig cake was many layers of yellow cake with fig preserves between each layer.

“The idea of the traditional cake has also changed with time, but now we think of it as the Margaret Garrish recipe,” she said.

Cakes go on display at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, judging begins at 4 p.m. and winners will be announced and cake will be served at 5 p.m. 

There are three different categories bakers can enter, Horn said.

For adults there’s the traditional category, which is the traditional recipe that most people follow and the innovative category, which is anything goes as long as they’re fig. The third category for 16 and under is also anything goes as long as it’s fig. “And by anything, I mean truly anything. In 2019, the innovative recipe that won was fig crab cake,” she said, which was the second seafood-based winner. A few years ago, Horn said the innovative winner was for their clams casino recipe

Each category typically has 35-40 entrants and has its own judge. After the contest, the cake is served.

Peter Vankevich, copublisher of the Ocracoke Observer, the island’s newspaper, told Coastal Review that the Fig Festival is one of those events that really is for both the visitors and the islanders.

“Also, for these foodie people who go from one food festival to another — it’s a very popular activity, not only in North Carolina but everywhere — I think this is just one more addition to the list of things to do,” he said.

Vankevich’s wife, Mary, was the first-ever winner in the innovative category in the festival’s baking contest back in 2015. Her secret ingredient: maple buttercream.

“I did a little historical research, you know, since I was not a true Ocracoker, and so I looked up old recipes and I found one spice cake that was done by, I think, a Fulcher, and she used coffee,” Mary Vankevich said Tuesday. “I really ramped it up a lot with spice cake spices and made it spicy but it came out dark and it wasn’t as sweet.”

The maple buttercream frosting not only lightened the concoction visually, it also added the needed sweetness.

“I’m really not a baker at all, so it was a huge surprise to me that I won,” Mary Vankevich said.

Since then, the contest has become more intensely competitive, she said, and the festival has become meaningful for both visitors and islanders.

“I do think that this is very much embraced by the locals because figs are so much a part of our long tradition,” she said.

Peter Vankevich noted that once the judging is complete, attendees can sample the entries, adding to the event’s appeal.

“There’s so much of it that you can eat all you want,” he said.

Horn said the festival started off as a fig cake bake-off during the village’s Fourth of July event in the early 2010s, organized by Robin Payne with the Ocracoke Foundation. Payne helped save Ocracoke’s fish house and was looking for other ways to celebrate Ocracoke’s cultural heritage with food. In 2013, Payne handed the bake-off over to Horn, who was the Fourth Of July coordinator.

“In 2014 we had Hurricane Arthur that ruined our Fourth of July event,” Horn said. “We were looking at August, and we thought well, maybe we’ll take some of that money we had to spend on Fourth of July, and have an end of summer celebration and have the fig cake bake-off then.”

The bake-off was so popular, Horn said they decided to continue to have the Fig Cake bake-off in August and turn it into its own event. By 2015, it kind of became its own entity. Since then, the festival has grown “and it found its rightful home under the awning of the nonprofit Ocracoke Preservation Society.”

 Horn said when she moved to Ocracoke from Ohio in 1992, “I’d never seen a fig. I thought they came in Fig Newtons.”

Her landlord when she first moved to Ocracoke brought her figs to show her, and then the house she and her husband bought in 1994, has a fig tree right by the back door.

“I had one of the older ladies on the island kind of talk me through making my first fig preserves, because that’s how you make the traditional fig cake is with the fig preserves,” she said. “Figs don’t have a long shelf life so that’s what the local people would do with them, put them into preserves.”

Horn said most of the older homes on the island had a fig tree in the yard, which grow really well on the barrier island.

“Our climate is similar enough to the native climate of the Mediterranean, Middle East that they do really well. The early settlers brought them here. There have been fig trees here since the 1800,” she said. Adding the popular varieties are the sugar fig, pound fig, lemon fig, blue fig and brown turkey fig.

MARGARET GARRISH’S FIG CAKE

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup salad (vegetable) oil
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoon. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup fig preserves
• 1 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Beat 3 eggs; add sugar and oil. After sifting dry ingredients, add to egg mixture alternatively with buttermilk. Add vanilla and fold in figs and nuts. Pour into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes, or in a greased and floured bundt pan at 350 degrees just a little longer. You can also add a second cup of fig preserves and bake a little longer, approximately one hour.

Mark Hibbs contributed to this story.

With the opening Tuesday of the Ocracoke Island Discovery Center, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has another venue to help visitors plan their trip and display educational exhibits.

The Ocracoke Island Discovery Center will be open from 9 a.m.-noon. and 1-4 p.m., seven days a week.

The Ocracoke Island Discovery Center is the new name for the renovated building that formerly served as the Ocracoke Island Visitor Center at the southern end of the village.

Inside the building, visitors can experience exhibits that include a slideshow of historic photographs, a children’s activity corner, touch-and-feel table and information desk.

Some of the exhibits in the are temporary while permanent, more interactive exhibits are designed and installed over the following year.

In spring 1942, the nation and its military leaders faced a dire disaster worse than Pearl Harbor.

German U-boats operating within the nation’s territorial waters were sinking Allied merchant vessels at an ever-increasing number and killing an appalling number of helpless noncombatants — more than 5,000 in fewer than six months, including some women and children. The largest concentration of losses to U-boat attacks occurred off the coast of North Carolina. Cape Hatteras was ground zero.

A late-March conference of naval officers formulating plans to implement protective convoys in U.S. waters determined that it would require 31 destroyers and 47 smaller patrol craft. On the day that their report was submitted to Adm. Ernest J. King, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Navy, there were but three destroyers on duty in the Eastern Sea Frontier and only eight other patrol craft.

Meanwhile, at any given time, there were as many as 140 unescorted ships headed northward between the Florida Keys and New York; an equal number of vessels were, at the same time, headed in the opposite direction. It has been estimated that, each day, there were 60 or more ships making their way north or south in the waters immediately off the North Carolina coast.

The protection of so many merchant ships from the onslaughts of what seemed to be phantom German U-boats was a daunting and nearly impossible task. But the inability of each ship’s cargo to reach its destination safely directly impacted the planning and preparations for an Allied invasion of Europe. A solution was imperative.

Lacking a sufficient number of warships to establish large coastal convoys in the first five months of the U-boat peril, naval authorities attempted to shuttle small groups of merchant ships up the coast during daylight in an operation called “Bucket Brigades.” Northbound ships were ordered to stop for the night at anchorages at Jacksonville, Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, the west side of Cape Fear, and the west side of Cape Lookout.

From Cape Lookout, tankers and freighters raced across the deadly 225-mile U-boat gauntlet in the Graveyard of the Atlantic before arriving at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Slower merchant ships unable to keep up with the Bucket Brigades were to stop for the night in an artificial offshore harbor established on the southwest side of Cape Hatteras and Diamond Shoals, encircled by a mined anchorage much like the British minefield guarding the Thames estuary.

In the month of May 1942, 2,635 Mark-6 Naval Contact Mines were anchored in place along a 35-mile-long semicircle extending from Diamond Shoals to a point off the beach about 4 miles east of Ocracoke village. Each mine was chained to ride a few feet below the ocean surface. The Mark-6 contained an explosive charge of 300 pounds of TNT that would be triggered by a contact pistol when the mine was bumped by a vessel. The problem was that a mine did not know the difference between an enemy U-boat or an Allied vessel.

On the western perimeter of the minefield, a few miles southeast of Ocracoke village, an opening wide enough for tankers to pass in and out of the protected anchorage led to a designated 36-square-mile box directly south and east of Hatteras Inlet where the ships were to drop anchor for the night.

When an inbound ship approached, a U.S. Coast Guard pilot boat guided the ship through the minefield opening and to the anchorage off Hatteras Inlet. At dawn on the following day, the routine would be repeated in reverse. On paper, the operation seemed simple enough, but plans on paper often don’t take into account the vagaries of weather.

Seventeen days after the Cape Hatteras protected anchorage opened for business, the Standard Oil tanker F.W. Abrams lost contact with its pilot boat while departing in poor visibility and struck a mine. The ship’s captain thought that they had been torpedoed. The anchor was lowered but the ship began to drift in the heavy rain and fog. In less than an hour, two more explosions rocked the ship, finally sinking it.

The captain and crew abandoned the tanker and made it safely to shore at Ocracoke Island. They were certain that they had been relentlessly attacked by a German U-boat. Instead, they had run into three, American-made, Mark-6 contact mines. The Cape Hatteras minefield had claimed its first victim. Two months later, the minefield sank two more Allied vessels and damaged another. The Navy’s minefield was doing the German’s work for them.

During World War I and after, Great Britain devised, tested and installed numerous technologies for anti-submarine detection at many of its strategic ports, harbors and outlying anchorages. One of the more intriguing and highly secret British technologies proved its effectiveness in 1918 — an underwater magnetic indicator loop.

Even when a U-boat’s magnetic field was degaussed, the steel hull continued to emit a small electric current that could be detected by electromagnetic induction via an underwater stationary loop of cable connected to sensing equipment on shore. By such a method in 1918 the British Navy detected the incursion of a German U-boat, UB-116, into the mined anchorage of the naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.

In support of the Cape Hatteras minefield, the U.S. Navy established in the summer of 1942 a magnetic indicator loop station on Ocracoke Island. The Navy chose a site atop an ancient sand ridge, about halfway between the village and the beach.

The ridge, 30 feet above sea level in places, overlooked a vast and barren tidal flat that separated the island’s beach and the village, but which has long since been covered by dunes and vegetation. The sand ridge provided a relatively high vantage point for the buildings and towers that would be built there; the setting also made the secret station plainly visible to the nearby island residents who were prohibited from venturing beyond the limits of the village during most of the war.

The well-guarded complex at Ocracoke was surrounded by a barbed wire fence and comprised an area of about 11 acres. As many as eight structures linked by wooden walkways and sandy paths were eventually built at the site, including odd-looking towers and peculiar rotating antennas. The Navy referred to the installation as a “loop receiving station.” Ocracokers called it “Loop Shack Hill.”

“They wouldn’t let nobody but a special certain people go into the enclosure out there,” former World War II Coastguardsman Ulysses “Mac” Womac told me in an interview in 2000. Womac was assigned to overnight beach patrols and often passed the station. “They had guards out to where nobody could get up to where they was at. They stood watch out there on the hill. In fact, they lived out there, a few of them did. And they stood watches and listened on earphones for what was offshore. Now, where they had the cable offshore I don’t know. But we saw it on the beach, or I did before they buried it.”

In late May and early June 1942, a Navy net tender from Norfolk laid at least two indicator loop arrays on the ocean bottom beneath the approaches to the entrance of the mined anchorage. The loop arrays were anchored to the bottom at a sufficient distance from the minefield to allow advance warning that a submerged U-boat was approaching the area. Each array consisted of a 1.3-inch-diameter, lead-sheathed, single-core cable that was configured in two rectangular-shaped loops.

At other U.S. Navy indicator loop installations, the average length of a single loop field was 2 to 3 miles; the longest could be up to 6 miles long . The cables forming the two loops were spliced to a tail cable, which connected the array to the receiving station on shore. Tail cables could be many miles long depending on the distance from the receiving station to the location of the indicator loops offshore.

When a vessel, either on the surface or submerged, crossed over the indicator loop array, an induced voltage was produced that was detected on an instrument called a fluxmeter at the receiving station, and the result was recorded on a paper chart. The watchstanders on duty would interpret the electronic signatures on the chart and then use a telescope to determine if a surface vessel was crossing the loop field. If no surface vessel could be seen, it would be assumed that a submarine was approaching, and appropriate action would be taken by patrolling vessels.

At Ocracoke’s loop receiving station, a concrete casemate housed the operations building that contained all the facility’s detection equipment including fluxmeters, chart recorders, communications gear, telescopes and furniture for four men. The Ocracoke station also was equipped with an early version of a microwave surface-search radar system, which was erected on top of the operations building.

Other cutting-edge detection technology included radio sonobuoys and high-frequency radio direction finding, also known as HF/DF or “Huff-Duff.” In addition to the “Huff-Duff” hut at Ocracoke’s loop receiving station, similar HF/DF receiving stations were located at Coast Guard Lifeboat Stations at Cape Lookout and Poyners Hill, which was south of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.

When the Navy finally got done building, equipping and manning Ocracoke’s top-secret loop receiving station, it was one of the more complex, state-of-the-art defensive installations on the East Coast. But by the time the installation was operational, there were few, if any, U-boats operating off North Carolina’s coast for the station to detect.

The tide turned in the war zone in the western Atlantic when the first, fully escorted coastal convoys began transiting the middle-Atlantic states in mid-May. By then, the skies were patrolled by military and Civil Air Patrol aircraft. Small patrol vessels armed with two-way radios crisscrossed the sea lanes. Shorter periods of darkness also limited the time that German U-boat could safely recharge their batteries on the surface.

Between April and July, four U-boats were sunk by Navy and Coast Guard warships and an Army A-29 bomber off the Outer Banks. Germany began redeploying its U-boats to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters in mid-July 1942. For the remainder of the year, 160 coastal convoys were conducted between Galveston and New York. During that time, only three Allied merchant vessels were sunk, and one was damaged by U-boats while the ships were shepherded in convoy.

Ocracoke’s Loop Shack made no contribution whatsoever to the effort to defeat German U-boats in the war zone off North Carolina’s coast. Not once at Loop Shack Hill did the fluxmeter’s paper plotter record the signature of an enemy U-boat, nor did the Navy’s surface search radar system register a U-boat’s blip. It succeeded, however, as a valuable experiment and training facility — the lessons learned were later applied to detection of Soviet submarines during the Cold War years.

A year after it was established, the Cape Hatteras minefield was swept by the Navy to remove the Mark-6 mines. Fewer than half of the mines moored in 1942 were recovered. Overall, it has been estimated that the U.S. Navy placed 20,000 mines in United States waters for defensive purposes during the war. Not a single German U-boat or Axis vessel was ever sunk by the mines, but three Allied vessels were destroyed by the Cape Hatteras minefield. And even to this day, a few of the rusty, barnacle encrusted contact mines wash up on a North Carolina beach.

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Many talented musicians have stepped forward over the years to help those in need.  George Harrison and Ravi Shankar did in 1971 with their Madison Square Garden concerts for Bangladesh.

One of the most famous and successful was Live Aid in 1985, a world-wide effort that raised money and conscientiousness to the famine in Ethiopia. The concert has been immortalized in the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The musical trio Craicdown, in conjunction with the Carolina Theatre in Durham, has organized a benefit concert to support the Ocracoke community that was ravaged Sept. 6 when Hurricane Dorian struck the remote island.

The fundraising concert is at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14, in the historic theatre’s Fletcher Hall. Tickets, $27.50, went on sale Tuesday and are available at the venue’s box office, at carolinatheatre.org and at Ticketmaster.com.

Proceeds from ticket sales will be given to the Outer Banks Community Foundation disaster relief campaign for Hatteras and Ocracoke Island.

Performers include Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys, Chatham Rabbits and Joseph Terrell and Libby Rodenbough of Mipso.

“We’re just really thrilled that we have a time open, that it wasn’t too far off,” said Rebecca Newton, the theater’s executive director.

Craicdown’s Rob Sharer came up with the idea for the concert after hearing from those on the island and seeing news reports on the damage the hurricane wrought. For several days, the island was without power and the water had to be boiled before drinking. Most homes, businesses and vehicles were badly damaged or destroyed when a seven-foot storm surge suddenly overtook the village after dawn.

“Friends of mine were in their upper stories, watching their yards, and their houses completely fill up with water,” Sharer said. “It was physically painful to watch. Livelihoods and homes and possessions getting destroyed in real time. It was almost like I could feel the water coming in my own house.”

In particular, he was concerned about a beautiful 1908 Steinway piano that Marcy Brenner and Lou Castro had on the first floor of their house on Sunset Drive that he is love with and plays every time he visits.

“I waited a day or so because I didn’t dare ask, and when I did, Marcy said it got wet and the keys are swelling together, so that might be it for the piano,” he recounted. “She sent some pictures, and I just started freaking out.

“The piano just seemed so emblematic of what was going on down there. You know, things that I love, were getting destroyed. And I wrote to her and I said, ‘Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come down and bring you a dehumidifier, or anything like that?’ And she said, ‘Oh, sweetheart, just play some music.’

“What could that mean? That could mean lots of different things. I mean, just sending vibes out there. No, let’s do something more. So really, that was the genesis of this benefit concert.”

Sharer and the trio’s other two members, David DiGiuseppe and Jim Roberts, have a spiritual connection to the island. Craicdown has performed at the Ocrafolk Festival for the past 11 years. The festival, which began in 2000, takes place annually on the first full weekend in June. Craicdown has also given musical workshops at the school over the years.

“So, it really is like the spiritual home of the band,” Sharer said. “It’s our home away from home. We’ve written songs and made great friends out there. And it’s just a magical, enchanted place that I look forward to going to every year.

“The very thought that something terrible has happened to the place and to the people that we love so much, how could you not do something? So, this was thing that I thought I could do. You know, I can’t hold the waters back, but I can organize a concert.”

On the stage that night will be Jonathan Byrd, a seventh-generation Carolinian. He is a preacher’s son and sang “Amazing Grace” solo in church when he was a young boy. He has recorded many albums, with his most recent “Pickup Cowboy.” His songs are about strong characters, tough times and filled with powerful lyrical imagery.

The performers Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, Chatham Rabbits and Joseph Terrell and Libby Rodenbough of Mipso have all performed at the Ocrafolk Festival in the last several years.

Will Ridenour is the percussionist for Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba, a high energy rhythmic dance band that can also do soothing story songs.

“Every time we go to Ocracoke, we’re just met with a really amazing community,” he said. ”And so, yeah. When I found out that they were hit hard by Hurricane Dorian, you know, the first thing you as a musician to think is ‘I want to put on a benefit because I to share my music to help raise money.’ So when Rob asked us, it was hands down, ‘Yes, right away.’”

Diali Cissokho (first name pronounced “jelly”), originally from Senegal, West Africa, is the band’s lead singer and master of the kora, a 21-string instrument. He has taught students about African music during arts week at Ocracoke school that takes place every spring for the past several years.

Chatham Rabbits are a husband and wife duo, Sarah Osborne McCombie and Austin McCombie. From Bynum in Chatham County, they took their name and music inspiration from the original Chatham Rabbits, a local mill string band of the early 20th century.

Joseph Terrell (guitar and vocals) and Libby Rodenbough (fiddle and vocals) are part of the music group Mipso. Defined as an indie Americana quartet, their music has been described as “full of wistful beauty, hopeful undercurrents, and panoramic soundscapes,” and combining classic folk-rock and modern alt-country sounds mingling easily with Appalachian tradition.

Also on stage will be Marcy Brenner, who with her husband Lou Castro, are the recording artists, Coyote. She is a former director of the Outer Banks Community Foundation. In addition to the piano casualty, their Coyote Den, located on the dock at the Community Square also suffered substantial damage.

Not listed officially as performers, it wouldn’t be surprising if Craicdown, in some fashion makes it to the stage.

If you cannot  attend and still want to support the musicians’ efforts, you can donate directly to the Outer Banks Community Foundation. In the donor information line, add Music Folk for Ocracoke.

OCRACOKE ISLAND – For more than a century, the iconic, peaked-roof “Greek Revival” structure, which most know as the Island Inn, has played an important part in Ocracoke history. It has served many roles and changed hands many times, with new additions and additional buildings added along the way.

In recent years, however, deterioration and uncertain ownership have left its fate in question. It was not certain if the cost of restoring it was feasible, nor who would take on the challenge. Some feared that when the property was sold, the new owner might decide to tear it down and build a new structure. Now, a nonprofit group is working to preserve the main structure’s historical significance and create an attraction for island visitors.

Last winter, the Ocracoke Preservation Society, which oversees the Ocracoke Museum and several other historic preservation projects on the island, began looking into the idea of purchasing and restoring the Island Inn. On May 7, the group, after much deliberation and soul-searching, bought the property for $850,000. Much of the structure, along with some outlying buildings, were determined to be past restoration, so it was decided to focus on saving and restoring the original building, formerly the Odd Fellow’s Lodge, demolishing the two deteriorating wings and creating separate public restrooms and green space.

On July 16, the demolition work began, bringing heartbreak and anguish to those who loved the grand old lady. Even though saddened, most accepted the necessity of the plan and applauded the decision to restore the original building.

The original part of the Island Inn was built in 1901 by an island native, Charlie Scarborough, on land deeded by Janus and Zyphia Howard. It was at the junction of the main road, now N.C. 12, and the road leading to the lighthouse.

Its purpose was to serve as the headquarters for the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 194, a fraternal order whose mission was printed on a poster displayed inside the building: “We command you to visit the sick, educate the orphan, relieve the distressed, bury the dead.”

The second floor became the Odd Fellows’ meeting room, with as many as 62 men attending weekly meetings. M.L. Pyland, whose idea the project had been, became the lodge’s grand noble and chairman of the bylaws committee. The lodge thrived for 20 years.

The first floor of the building served as a school for Ocracoke’s children, who attended classes there until a new school was built in 1917. Ocracoke native Chester Lynn remembers his grandmother, Annabelle Fulcher O’Neal, talking about going to school there.

After the lodge closed, Ben Neal bought the building and had it moved 600 feet across the street, a task which, because the road was made of deep sand, was quite an undertaking. The Neals used it as their home until they moved back to Morehead City.

It was sold in 1940 for $700 to Stanley Wahab, an islander who had gone off island to become a successful businessman. He turned it into the quite popular Wahab Coffee Shop, with a soda fountain and an ice cream bar.

In 1942, World War II turned the Outer Banks into a war zone, with German U-boats targeting merchant ships that sailed along its shores. As a result, the United States began building a Navy Base on Ocracoke, and Wahab rented the upper floor to construction crewmen working on the base. After the base was completed, the building became an officers’ club, going by the name of the Crow’s Nest, until 1946.

After the war, when the base was decommissioned, Wahab bought some of the old barracks and moved them to the property to use as a dance hall and later as apartments. Later he added to the original structure a second story with dining room, kitchen and more bedrooms, and dubbed it the New Silver Lake Inn. He hired Liz Styron and Muzel Bryant as its first cooks, and advertised “a complete restaurant and excellent cuisine.”

Wahab, who still resided away from the island, hired a Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey to run the place for him. Mrs. Godfrey was on the mainland when she was found mysteriously murdered, and visitors to the inn have reported ghostly sights and sounds ever since.

Stanley Wahab eventually sold the establishment to Doward Brugh, who employed Della Gaskill to cook for the restaurant. Gaskill, author of the book “A Blessed Life; Growing up on Ocracoke Island,” said she enjoyed her job. She recalled preparing fish and all kinds of seafood, cornbread and hush puppies. Before that she washed dishes under Liz Styron when Wahab still owned the inn.

The Island Inn changed hands several times before being bought in 1970 by Bill and Helen Styron, who hired the popular artist Joko to decorate in a nautical or piratical theme. The walls were stained to look like the inside of a ship, nets and buoys were hung from the ceiling, and a large picture of Blackbeard the pirate holding his head was hung on a wall.

When Ocracoker Larry Williams and his partner Foy Shaw bought the place, they added an aviary on the porch with plants and vines, a parrot, parakeets and peacocks. They spent the next 20 years improving the Island Inn and built a swimming pool and an additional 19 rooms on the opposite side of the road.

During the years that the Styrons and later Larry Williams and Foy Shaw owned it, Chester Lynn worked in and later leased the restaurant. He has shared fond memories of the place, including years when, during hurricanes, the restaurant crew would cook all their food to distribute to people on the island.

He still has the old converted pan used to drain hush puppies, of which, he said, there were enough cooked there over the years “to soak up all the water in Silver Lake Harbor.” He also recalled that “every single person who cooked there learned to flip eggs, tossing them up and catching them in the cast-iron skillets. No one ever used a spatula to turn an egg. And,” he added, “for all that clam chowder made there all those years, no one ever opened a can. It was all made with fresh clams.”

It was a popular place, and one day in the ’80s they served 250 for breakfast and 259 for lunch.

In 1992, the Island Inn changed hands again when Cee and Bob Touhy purchased it. They decided not to renew Chester’s lease but took over running the inn and restaurants themselves.

When it went on the market recently, John Giagu, owner of Island Golf Carts, suggested to County Commissioner Tom Pahl that the property needed to be in community hands. Giagu and Pahl formed an ad hoc committee, the Island Inn Preservation Committee. Also on the committee were then Hyde County Manager Bill Rich and Ed Norvell, a Salisbury attorney specializing in nonprofits and preservation organizations.

They approached Phillip Howard, then president of Ocracoke Preservation Society, about becoming the steward of the project. After much deliberation under the society’s new president Ken DeBarth, the group created a committee to oversee the project.

“I am in awe of the organization that OPS just became with this decision,” said Tom Pahl. “It was tough for them to get to that point, but with this, they are really, truly pursuing their mission of island preservation.”

The project is now on its way, with the down payment coming from the simultaneous sale of land across the road to a condo association and to Hyde County. The county purchased the open lot beside the pool to build a new building to house the island’s EMS operations.

In May, the society began payments on the five-year mortgage. The Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board and the Tourism Development Authority have committed to helping cover the mortgage payments for this year with the expectation that they will re-commit next year. During mortgage period, the society plans to seek grants and do fundraising to make a balloon payment of the mortgage balance and pay for the restoration.

The goal is to create a visitor center with office spaces for nonprofits and an outdoor green space, to be called Odd Fellow’s Park, with parking and picnic tables. The society said it is willing to dedicate part of the property for public restrooms with the hopes that the Occupancy Tax Board will provide funding to build them.

DeBarth, the society president, said the organization is “excited  to become the steward of this historic project. We realize that it will be a long-term process, and we are committed to preserving this piece of Ocracoke history.”

Donations for the project are appreciated.  Checks can be sent to OPS, P.O. Box 1240, Ocracoke, N.C. 27960, with “Island Inn” in the memo line.

OCRACOKE ISLAND – Blanche Howard Joliff was a young teenager when her father, Stacy Howard, decided in 1934 that he needed another boat. He commissioned a master boatbuilder, Tom O’Neal, to begin building him a fine skiff.

The work was finished by another island boatbuilder, Homer Howard, who added a rounded cabin near the prow. Proud of his well-designed craft – a traditional deadriser with a V-shaped hull at the bow that’s flatter toward the stern – Howard gave it the name of his daughter, Blanche.

Blanche, who died in April at 98, always remembered how happy she was when her father named the boat for her, and how she loved going fishing with him. She bragged, “One day I caught 57 bluefish, and I thought I had done something.” The boat that carries her name is now an outdoor exhibit at the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum.

Born in 1919, Blanche was delivered at home by Ocracoke’s renowned midwife, Charlotte “Miss Lot” O’Neal. She lived in her parents’ house on Howard Street until the early 1950s, when she met a young man who was looking to build a highway on the island. Upon their marriage she moved to the mainland, coming back once a month to see her family. After her husband’s death in 1994, Blanche moved back into the home on Howard Street where she grew up, where she stayed until shortly before her death.

Blanche’s father was an island fisherman. Blanche’s mother, Elizabeth Ballance Howard, also born on the island, had family connections to Hatteras Island as well.

Blanche liked to talk about what life was like back then for her and her three sisters, Leila, Etta and Lois, as they were growing up.

“Momma kept chickens,” she once said. “They ran around free, and sometimes they’d get into trouble – scratch up someone’s garden. Sometimes when we were young, Etta and I would chase them around and get them squawking. It was the best fun, but then we’d get in trouble.”

Her family ate fish, clams, turtle, chicken and vegetables. You couldn’t get fresh meat because there was no refrigeration.

“Papa had a big garden out back, with cabbage, string beans, collards and sweet potatoes. My mother made the best sweet potato pie,” she said.

One of Blanche’s favorite foods was turtle. She recalls that before they were listed as an endangered species, fishermen in the village would catch sea turtles in their nets and bring them back to the fish house at Mace Fulcher’s Community Store. They would quarter them and give each quarter to a family, who parboiled it.

“You had to cook it a good while, ’til it was tender, and then you cut the meat off the bone,” Blanche explained. “You cooked it with onion, potatoes and a little bit of salt pork. We called it turtle hash, and you had to have baked cornbread with it. You never tasted anything so good.”

The foods they did not grow came mostly from Fulcher’s Community Store, but there were other stores on the island, too. Back then, there were two or three fish houses, which also sold big blocks of ice in the days before refrigeration.

Blanche remembered the ponies that wandered around freely in the village. “Sometimes folks would ride them to the store, tying them outside while they shopped.”

Blanche played hopscotch with neighboring children, and they played in make-believe houses and kitchens, using broken dishes and making pretend desserts with red sand. She recalled pretending a piece of cedar was chicken. They also filled the tops of coffee cans with mud, let them dry, and put them together to make pretend layer cakes.

In Blanche’s early years, nearly all transportation was by water.

She recalled, “There were two freight boats, which went to little Washington (in Beaufort County) or Morehead City, and two mailboats, which came out of Beaufort, and after that from Atlantic (in Carteret County).”

Blanche’s uncle had a horse and cart, and he’d give the girls rides.

“Once, when I was about 5, I went out across the beach with my uncle and aunt to see where the ship, the Victoria S, had fetched up on a shoal,” Blanche recalled. “The ship was still in water, loaded with lumber, but it could not get off the shoal.”

The owner of the lumber, she explained, had it unloaded and stacked on the beach. He wanted to get it shipped to the mainland. Two island men got the idea that they would each buy a flatbed truck and haul the lumber from the beach to the docks where it could be shipped.

“But there wasn’t a road the whole way, so they got permission to cut through the oak and myrtle in front of Blanche’s house and make one. It wasn’t very wide, and there was deep sand. In order to get through the sand, they had to gun their engines and try to plow through it fast. One day the two trucks met head-on at the sandy stretch. This was the first road wreck on the island.”

Meanwhile, the boat her father had named for her was put to good use. For nearly 80 years, the Blanche plied the waters around Ocracoke, passing through many owners and uses. In 2006, the Blanche’s most recent owner, James Barrie Gaskill, donated the boat to the Ocracoke Preservation Society, and the work of restoring the skiff and telling its story began.

The Blanche’s history was compiled by talking to islanders and fishermen who remembered and worked on the boat.

Maurice Ballance recalled when Blanche’s father, and his uncle by marriage, had the boat built. He said that Howard used the Blanche to long-haul, a fishing method in which two boats drag a long net to shore and another boat circles around to bail the fish, for trout, spot and sea mullets.

He also did sink-netting in the ocean for bottom fish and, according to Ballance, “One time, Stacy and Murray Spencer, who was fishing with him, like to got swamped coming in. They were running before the sea. A breaker swamped her and she was half-full of water.”

Stacy later took out fishing parties – visitors to the island who wanted a real fishing experience – on the Blanche.

“That boat’s been through a lot,” mused Ballance. “It was wrecked up some during the storm of ’44, when it broke the stake it was tied to in the harbor and went into a piling. Preacher Dixon and I waded out and cut her loose and retied her, but some boards were damaged.”

After Howard died, the Blanche passed through the hands of several owners until Gaskill’s father, Lum Gaskill, took ownership and rechristened it the “Candyjoe” in honor of his grandchildren, Candy and Joe.

Vince O’Neal, who now owns the Pony Island Restaurant, remembered swimming around the Candyjoe when the boat was tied up near Lum Gaskill’s dock.

“Yeah,” admitted Vince, “we snuck up on her sometimes at night when no one was watching and jumped off. We were kids, you know.”

When Lum Gaskill died in 1975, Ballance took the Blanche to Qwawk Hammock, where he planned to use her for long-hauling. There, someone stole the battery and anchor, so Ballance abandoned his plan. The Blanche sank to the bottom of the creek, and it looked as if the boat would meet the same sad ending as many other old wooden boats.

Instead, Anthony “Moose” Mutro bought it, pulled it up from the bottom and, with his uncle, Irvin Styron, started putting the Blanche back into working shape. In 1977, Mutro transferred ownership of the Blanche to Styron, who installed a rebuilt Chrysler marine engine and added a new cabin and deck. He then put the boat to work mulleting and crabbing, always accompanied by his black Labrador retriever, Pisces.

Ocracoke fisherman Rex O’Neal recalled going crabbing with Styron. “He would go out when other fishermen couldn’t, she was such a seaworthy boat.”

 Capt. Rudy Austin added that “a lot of them would be out crabbing on the other side of the Lehigh, back in the ’80s when crabbing was good. When it got rough and the rest of us were having a hard time in our flat-bottom boats, Irvin would be riding along, crabbing at ease.”

 Irvin’s daughter, Ava often worked with her father. “I ran the boat and he pulled the pots,” she said. “One day while we were fishing pots, I looked up and there were two waterspouts out on the sound. They sat down on the water and it got real rough. I wanted to go in, but Daddy said, ‘We’re going to finish the pots – there’s only 25 left.’ Well, the waves started breaking over the boat and it stalled the engine. The boat was filling up with water. We were scrambling around, trying to get her started again. We got her running and we finished the pots, but I quit when we got back.”

She chuckled as she recalled the incident, adding that she’d quit quite a few times but always went back to work with her father.

Styron’s son, Ray inherited the Blanche upon his father’s death in 1986. He re-named her the “Shoestring,” and with the addition of a short mast and removable outriggers, used her for shrimping.

Eventually, James Barrie Gaskill acquired the Blanche, planning to use it as a pleasure boat. But instead he asked the Ocracoke Preservation Society if they would like to have the boat, and on April 29, 2006, the old deadriser officially became the property of the museum. The Blanche was placed in a cradle, a shelter was built and restoration work began.

The Blanche is now a museum exhibit, honoring both Ocracoke’s commercial fishing tradition and Joliff, the boat’s namesake.

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• Ocracoke Preservation Society

HUBERT – The North Carolina Department of Transportation is touting its first passenger-only ferry, a high-speed, aluminum-hull catamaran being built here, as a way to provide a higher level of service to coastal travelers and boost tourism on the state’s Outer Banks.

State and company officials hosted last week an open house for media at US Workboats’ manufacturing plant on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in Hubert, an unincorporated community in Onslow County near Swansboro. The company is building the 92-foot-long, 26-foot-wide Ocracoke Express passenger ferry that will operate from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island’s Silver Lake Harbor. Officials expect service to begin by mid-summer.

“Our goal is to get those tourism levels back to where they were,” White said.

In 2013, shoaling in Hatteras Inlet prompted the Ferry Division to switch to a longer, deeper route between Hatteras and Ocracoke, the most heavily used route in the state’s ferry service. What was once a 35- to 40-minute, 4.5-mile crossing for the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry is now about an hourlong, 9-mile trip.

The effects of the change were “dramatic,” according to the state’s feasibility study. Daily crossings in each direction were reduced from 53 to 36, and fuel and labor costs increased by more than $7,000 each day. The change also created long queues at the ferry terminals, making it difficult for visitors to the Outer Banks to make a day trip to Ocracoke. Local business owners blamed their lost business revenue on fewer day-trippers.

“The projected loss of between 31,000 and 50,000 visitors to Ocracoke in the peak months could be attributed to the lower levels of service caused by the longer route,” according to the study.

Almost all Ocracoke business owners surveyed for the study said that long wait times at ferry docks were a major challenge to their business.

Plans call for the 100-passenger ferry to use Rollinson Channel to access the Pamlico Sound and Big Foot Slough to access Silver Lake, making four round-trips daily with the first departure from Hatteras at 10 a.m. and the last departure from Ocracoke at 8:30 p.m., May through September. The round-trip fare will be $15 per passenger.

White said the Ocracoke Express will offer guaranteed boarding, with less wait time at the ferry terminals, compared to vehicle ferries, which will also continue service after the passenger ferry runs begin. The new ferry will also offer amenities such as an air-conditioned passenger cabin with open-air seating on the top deck, concessions and bike racks for passengers wanting to bring their bicycles to Ocracoke.

“You can do the entire thing without a car,” White said, adding that the plan has already sparked private business investment in Ocracoke Village. Some locals are buying golf carts to make available for rent to visitors, she said.

“Entrepreneurs in Ocracoke are seeing this as a wonderful way of experiencing Ocracoke,” she said.

The state in June 2017 awarded the $4.15 million contract to build the ferry. It’s part of an overall $9 million passenger ferry project that also includes parking improvements and visitor facilities at the Hatteras and Ocracoke-Silver Lake terminals. Money for the project is from a grant from the Federal Lands Access Program and an appropriation by the North Carolina General Assembly.

In addition to a faster crossing, the Ocracoke Express will arrive at Silver Lake Harbor in the heart of the village, rather than at the north ferry terminal about 20 minutes and 13.5 miles away, where vehicles from Hatteras Island arrive.

Unlike the vehicle ferries, the shallow conditions in Hatteras Inlet and Pamlico Sound won’t be a problem for the Ocracoke Express. Speed and a shallow draft were the basis for the new ferry’s catamaran design, which drew inspiration from a ferry the division tested in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said Ferry Division spokesman Tim Haas.

“The catamaran hull is perfect for the environment it’s going to be operating in,” Haas said.

The new 95-ton ferry will feature water jet propulsion and four 803-horsepower Caterpillar C18 ACERT marine engines that are advertised as meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 Tier 3 emissions standards.

Sheila Pierce Knight, executive director of Jacksonville-Onslow Economic Development, said at the media open house that US Workboats has been “a great success story for eastern North Carolina.”

The Port Angeles, Washington-based company, formerly known as Armstrong Marine, specializes in welded aluminum boat manufacturing. The company in late 2013 announced it would invest more than $8.4 million in the facility in Hubert. Originally a Tiara Yachts manufacturing plant, the site was most recently owned by Brunswick Corp., which built Hatteras Yachts here from 2005 until 2008.

Armstrong Marine completed its first boat made entirely in North Carolina in 2015, a search and rescue boat made for Sullivan’s Island Fire Department in South Carolina.

US Workboats has 24 employees and is adding about three each week, depending on work and space for workers on the vessel, said the company’s Tracy Gable.

Securing the state contract to build the ferry in Onslow County is a source of pride for the community, Knight said.

“It makes sense to have a boat being built for North Carolina Citizens by North Carolina citizens,” she said. “It keeps our tax dollars at home.”

The passenger ferry is one of two builds underway for the Ferry Division. The other vessel is a new river class ferry being built in Louisiana and slated for launch in 2020. The addition of two new vessels is intended to reduce delays and travel times, Haas said.

“Hopefully, we’ll get summer wait times down to a reasonable level,” he said.

The state in October 2017 awarded a $9.7 million contract for construction of the new river class vehicle ferry. That vessel will be 183 feet long and have room for 38 regular-sized vehicles.  It will serve as a replacement for the 22-year-old M/V Thomas A. Baum, a Hatteras-class ferry that carries 26 vehicles.

Once built, the new vessel will be the Ferry Division’s first new car ferry since the M/V Sea Level was christened in 2012.

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• US Workboats

The state spent $7 million renovating the old Coast Guard Station on Ocracoke into a teaching center, which the N.C. Senate now wants to close. Photo: NCCAT

OCRACOKE — Not quite six years ago, North Carolina officially opened the eastern campus of the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching at the beautifully restored Coast Guard Station on Ocracoke Island. The N.C. Senate now wants to shutter the place up.

Islanders were thrilled that the $7 million state-funded renovation maintained the station’s authentic appearance and was being used for the innovative teacher enrichment programs, preserving its historic character while attracting more business to the island.

In 2011, the N.C. Coastal Federation helped restore the eroding soundfront shoreline at the station. Several acres of wetlands were built, protecting the state ferry channel and passage for the Coast Guard, which has maintained docks at the station.

Now, with no money for the center’s two campuses included in the proposed state Senate budget released last week, the fate of the coastal campus is up in the air.

“It’s a great resource for Ocracoke as well as North Carolina,” said Alton Ballance, an island native and center staff member, who has conducted popular seminars at the site.

The professional development program, available at no-cost for teachers statewide, offers numerous week-long seminars on the arts, humanities and science and provides advanced educational tools and coping strategies for contemporary challenges. Established by the N.C. General Assembly in 1985, at the encouragement of then-Gov. Jim Hunt, the mission of center is to retain high-quality teachers in K-12 public schools by keeping them engaged and challenged professionally.

Alton Ballance

“It’s a program that does not exist anywhere else in the country,” Ballance said. “We have always been proud that North Carolina is a leader in this kind of development.”

Ballance conducted the first seminar taught at the Ocracoke campus, “Salty Dogs and the Lore of the Sea.”

Elaine Franklin, NCCAT’s executive director, said that she understands that the western campus in Cullowhee, opened since 1985, would become part of adjacent Western Carolina University. But she does not know what lawmakers would want to do with the Ocracoke site.

“I’m not sure what they’re thinking,” she said.

The Coast Guard vacated the three-story, 17,000 square-foot Ocracoke station in 1996, and it sat empty for years. The 1.55-acre property and the buildings were transferred from the federal government to the state five years later, with the understanding that the site would be used for educational purposes. The National Park Service and the Coast Guard still have rights to portions of the property.

Ten years after it was abandoned, the renovation of the building began. The interior was remade into 24 bedrooms and spaces for seminars and dining. It opened for its first seminar in 2007.

Situated between Silver Lake and the Pamlico Sound, the center boasts a spectacular view of the fishing village and the Ocracoke Lighthouse. The handsome building, painted gleaming white and meticulously maintained, today looks like a Hollywood version of the original 1940 Coast Guard Station.

Teachers helped restore the marsh at the Ocracoke center.

When the state took over the site, the shoreline along the Pamlico Sound was eroded to the point that the building would be at risk during a storm. It looked unkempt, ragged and unhealthy.

With a grant from Restore America’s Estuaries, secured though the federation, the center and the federation partnered in conducting seminars for educators about the local ecosystem. Participants and local volunteers then planted the new wetlands on the re-graded shoreline, which also had newly-constructed breakwater sills to protect the plantings from waves. In the process of securing the shoreline, the $1.5 million wetlands restoration also has created wildlife habitat and nursery area for fish.

“It’s in great shape,” Ballance said. “It’s another access point. The shoreline and its marsh are doing their job.”

But Ballance, a former English teacher at the Ocracoke School and the owner of a bed & breakfast on the island, said that the center is so much more than its gorgeous coastal or mountain locations. The real value of the program, he said, is what it ultimately gives to the state’s K-12 students through the quality of the alumni’s teaching. Teachers are immersed for a week in a supportive, enriching environment to learn about a broad range of topics and issues that they then bring back to their classrooms.

Some programming is specifically focused on helping beginning teachers across the state; some of it is focused on enriching understanding of culture, history and arts; and some of it is focused on contemporary issues in the classroom and beyond. All of it helps prevent burn-out and helps keep teachers excited about teaching, Balance said.

“There is no other organization that can put teachers together for a few days and really feel the pulse of what’s going on,” he said. “It’s much more about technology and it’s about critical thinking and ultimately preparing these students to be better prepared for the workforce.”

The program also helps educators meet the Common Core State Standards and offers interdisciplinary seminars in STEM, teacher jargon for science, technology, engineering and mathematics teaching, as well as leadership, communication and the arts.

“This was some of the most solid development that teachers have ever received,” said Darcy Grimes, the 2012-2013 N.C. Teacher of the Year.  “It allows teachers to collaborate, to create connections and to network with other teachers.”

Grimes, a third grade teacher at Bethel Elementary School in Watauga County who has participated in seminars at both campuses, said the stimulating environment and shared insight and knowledge ultimately makes a better teacher.  If the program closed, she said, the impact would be felt statewide.

“It’s going to be hurting students,” she said.

Teachers explore the animal life of the marsh in a seminar that the federation helped lead.

The seminars are offered to all public K-12 teachers in the state, including those at charter schools. According to information provided by the center, in 2010-2011, more than 2,500 teachers and administrators were served in 105 seminars. About 200 first-year teachers also attended special induction programs, providing about 30 contact hours –typically over four days-per person, resulting in more teachers staying in the profession.

After cutting its budget by $2 million in 2008, the legislature in 2011 slashed the center’s budget 50 percent to $3 million. Thirty full-time and 11 hourly positions were cut in Cullowhee and two were cut in Ocracoke, and 75 percent of the professional development seminars at both campuses were eliminated. Of them, six of Ocracoke’s nine fall seminars were cancelled.

In a 2009 article in the Carolina Journal, which referred to the center as a “teacher paradise,” state Sen. Pro Tempore Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, then the Senate minority leader, said that education funding should address core needs, and that the center was not one of them.

“It’s something we shouldn’t be spending a whole lot of money on when we have shortages in the budget and are looking at raising taxes in a recessionary economy,” he said in the article.

The Carolina Journal is a publication of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Raleigh.

Seminar costs, including food, books and lodging, are paid for by the state for qualified educators whose applications are accepted. Recent figures were not available, but in 2006, a five-day seminar cost about $1,800 a person.  That same year, it also cost the state about $12,000 to replace a teacher.

Elaine Franklin

But Franklin said that the center does much more than offer seminars. Over the years, the mission has diversified, including serving as an intermediary between business and the state’s school systems.  The center is also a resource for educational groups looking for solutions for issues they are confronting, saving the state the need to hire a private consultant.

“We really have worked at transforming NCCAT,” she said. “After we had to make those cuts in staffing, we really looked at how we can be responsive to what teachers have to do right now. We’re looking at multiple ways we can serve teachers that are not campus-based.”

Programming is focusing on the “teach-the-teacher” model, drop-out prevention, leadership skills and blended face-to-face and online learning opportunities. Staff also goes to the school districts and communities directly.

“We are really looking at helping teachers be 21^st –century teachers,” she said. “We are looking at ways we can reach a larger audience.”

Franklin said she is hopeful that the state House budget will restore center funds. The center has asked businesses and groups in the state to sign on to a letter to House leaders requesting that funding be restored in that chamber’s budget. Some teachers have started a petition in support of the center.

But now that its budget has been eliminated by the Senate, Franklin is finding that nearly all fundraising has come to a skidding halt.

Pending grant proposals include The Development Foundation of NCCAT Inc., for $402, 421, she said. The center also has a confirmed continuing contract of about $180,000 from the state Department of Public Instruction for NCCAT’s Data Literacy Initiative.

For fiscal year 2012-2013, NCCAT received a total of $412,869 in contracts, and $270,000 in grants.

“What is happening is it’s preventing us from having a lot of outside funds come in, and I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she said about the budget snub.

“When funders and donors see that, unfortunately, it makes them extremely reluctant to give.”