back to the islands

Heading down to Hatteras Island tomorrow to see the storm, can't wait. I've loved the Outer Banks for the 20-plus years I've lived on the mid-Atlantic and have always enjoyed Hatteras Island (or Hat'ress Island as some of my old-timer friends called it).

You can see it is just a very thin barrier island, about 50 miles long, that separates Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. At the north end is Oregon Inlet, at the south is Hatteras Inlet.

In 1937 someone had the great idea to protect much of the island by creating Cape Hatteras National Seashore. This preserved much of the island. Instead of being lined with tourist hotels and beach houses it is a mixture of beach, dunes and marshes. There are a handful of villages spread out along the island - from north to south there is Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo (all three of those pretty much run together), Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras Village.

I've be staying in Buxton, just a few miles due north of Cape Point, site of the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. But I'll visit just about every village on the islands and will look forward to seeing some of the great friends I have made there over the years.

The photo above is from Hurricane Bill. That was a storm hundreds of miles offshore. I wonder how Earl will look when it is just a hundred miles, or maybe closer, from the beach.

Hatteras Inlet, at the southern end of the island, is where either Bruce or I (we never figured out who) took a great series of sunset photographs as we crossed Hatteras Inlet on the ferry coming home from our first cruise together.

Lots of great memories down there in the islands.

steve