After our usual slow start (familiar to John & Denise) Marcia and I were off to explore Cape Hatteras to the south and take the ferry to Ocracoke Island – famed as a pirate refuge and attack point – arrrgh, Black Beard himself.
Many miles of the outer banks are protected by either the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge or the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Where unprotected, villages naturally develop, with small unattractive stand-alone buildings or equally unattractive strip malls. In the residential areas there has been a lot of expensive development in the last decade or two; as we drove south from our campground in Waves, the homes seemed to become fancier and larger, often four-stories with a false first floor, on half-acre and larger lots.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, at 208 feet, is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. It was built in 1870 but shifting sands caused it to be closer and closer to the water, to the point that in 1999 the Park Service literally moved it on rollers a half-mile to its present spot.
More than 600 ships have wrecked off the Outer Banks, a good percentage at the hands of German U-boats: 10 in WWI, and 80 in WWII. That fact doesn’t relate much in context, but I found it interesting. Later I read that along the entire eastern seaboard over 400 ships - both freighters and warships - were sunk by German U-boats in just eight months of 1942.
Traffic south of the lighthouse thins out and at the town of Hatteras the road ends. Those adventurers wishing to go farther south must take the ferry.
Most people don't remember/know that we lost quite a few ships to the nazi devils close to our shores.
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