Visitors come to slow down, to take a breath, to be the only ones on the beach and to reconnect with their families and friends and themselves. ![]() And they come for the beach, to drive their 4x4s onto the sand and find an isolated spot where they can surf cast and watch pelicans dive for their dinner. Anglers also head to the inshore waters of the Pamlico Sound and the marshes and creeks there. Anglers come for the charter fishing fleets at Oregon Inlet and in Hatteras Village, and with the Gulf Stream only 15 miles offshore, they come for sportfish within easy reach. Folks come to climb the lighthouses or to paint them or find the perfect angle for a jaw-dropping photograph. There’s no shortage of things to do on Hatteras Island, but by that same token, you’ll be hard pressed to find the arcades and mini golf and go karts and boardwalks of other beach towns. Through it all, the island and its people have persisted and today Hatteras Island is a haven for those seeking the unspoiled nature of the Outer Banks, for surfers looking for that perfect break, for anglers looking to avenge the one that got away, for families building generations of memories in a cherished place, and for the locals who love this island like no other. Hatteras Island has seen shipwrecks (so many that this part of the coast is called The Graveyard of The Atlantic), pirates (including Blackbeard), the ravages of the Civil War and later the German U-Boats of World War II. ![]() They saw the Hatteras Lighthouse tower above the trees, withstand grapeshot and musket ball in the Civil War, and, much later, in 1999, move inland, away from the encroaching sea. They saw each of the Bodie Island Lighthouses rise from the sand, shine their lights into the sea swept night, and the dim as their replacement rose even higher and more sturdily built. Families here worked the water for a living, hauling nets full of fish to shore, gathering oysters and clams by the barrel, risking their lives to save the lives of those shipwrecked on the sandbars and shoals just offshore, and for generations their lives remained relatively unchanged. ![]() That’s a secret many Hatteras Islanders kept to themselves for years. Within Cape Hatteras National Seashore you’ll find all seven of the island’s villages, but also woods, dunes, marsh, and beaches so pristine as to border on perfect. Established in 1937 to preserve the integrity of this thin barrier island, the National Seashore limited growth, virtually freezing the villages in time and limiting their ability to grow into the wild woods and dunes of Hatteras Island, instead these small, tight-knit communities remained relatively isolated and their cultures, which developed over more than a century of life on the Banks, distinct. Hatteras Island is unlike anywhere else thanks in part to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the first of its kind.
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