The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] reported this week that it will lead a research expedition through July 26 to study the wrecks of three German U-boats sunk in 1942 off the North Carolina coast during the infamous Battle of the Atlantic. The battle was not just the longest engagement in the ‘Great War’, it was also the most important.

North Carolina’s rich military history includes this great battle for control of the Atlantic shipping lanes linking Great Britain, the United States and Canada, which allowed the Allies to take the ground and air war to Europe and the heartland of Germany itself.

The NOAA expedition is part of a larger, multi-year project to survey a number of historically significant shipwrecks during WW-II, including British naval vessels and merchant marine ships. Partners in the expedition will be the Minerals Management Service, the National Park Service, the State of North Carolina, East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute.

It’s too late to get in on this expedition, though phase 2 is scheduled for the summer of 2009 and will investigate the many Allied wrecks in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” off the Outer Banks. But you needn’t wait that long, as Wreck Diving is already a regular big business on North Carolina’s coast!

If you’re certified to dive to 150 feet, you can sign on to Wreck Diving Magazine’s Outing in September, and still manage to work in some visits to North Carolina’s storied coastal lighthouses, beautiful beaches, Cape Fear area nightlife, and other coastal wonders.

Make your reservations quick, as this dive project is bound to fill up fast. You can call Wreck Diving Magazine at (864) 244-9861 or email heidi[at]wreckdivingmag[dot]com.

Links:

Wreck Diving Magazine: NC
Surveying German Subs Sunk Off North Carolina
Battle of the Atlantic

16. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Cultural Feast

The cultural and educational offerings in the State Capital area will appeal to even the most sophisticated of visitors. Excellent history and natural science museums, the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke Gardens at Duke University and more great outings can keep interested visitors busy for weeks!


17. Cape Fear Coast

Historic Wilmington and the Cape Fear Coast islands of Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach offers one of the state’s largest historic districts (230 blocks!), uncrowded beaches, natural preserves and a regular watersports paradise. Take a ride on a riverboat, enjoy some fine dining, go beachcombing at sunset, or just enjoy the fresh sea breeze in this relaxing vacation area!


18. Blackbeard’s Ghost

North Carolina boasts some of the most famous ghosts and hauntings anywhere, but the most famous of them all is the notorious pirate Blackbeard. The historic town of Beaufort on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast offers a Ghost Walk Tour that takes visitors deep into the oldest parts of town to see haunted cemeteries and the famous Hammock House where Blackbeard is reputed to have hanged one of his 14 wives. A hair-raising experience!


19. NC’s Outer Banks

America’s first English settlement, the site of the Wright Brothers’ historic flight at Kitty Hawk, the nation’s first designated National Seashore at Cape Hatteras, and the country’s first outdoor drama. North Carolina’s Outer Banks are a true national treasure. This 130-mile long string of sandy barrier islands host wildlife reserves, quiet beaches, the North Carolina Maritime Museum and an outdoor drama telling the story of the Lost Colony at Roanoke Island.


20 – 25. America’s Finest Lighthouses

Currituck Beach, Bodie Island, Cape Hatteras, Ocracoke Island, Cape Lookout, Oak Island… The most famous, the tallest, the oldest, the most battled-over… North Carolina’s wealth of wonderful lighthouses offer photo opportunities to visitors that are unmatched anywhere in the world! And for a freebie, there’s “Old Baldy” too.

Links with historical, technical and visitors’ information for all NC’s lighthouses can be found at Carolina Lights, so don’t forget to put some or all of these on your travel itinerary!

There you have it. 25 – or, 26 with Old Baldy – great reasons to visit North Carolina this year, covering enough ground to keep you coming back year after year!

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Reasons 1 – 5
Part 2: Reasons 6 – 10
Part 3: Reasons 11 – 15
Part 4: Reasons 16 – 25

Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island

In the first installment in a series about North Carolina’s storied lighthouses, the Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island lighthouses were featured. This time, the Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island lighthouses are worth a tour through history.

The dangerous, shifting shoals of the North Carolina coastline were a constant danger to mariners and shipwrecks happened frequently. The U.S. Congress authorized a lighthouse at Cape Lookout in 1804, but the first tower was not completed until 1812. But like the original Cape Hatteras light, the Cape Lookout light was too dim to be easily seen off the coast, and ships were in more danger of running aground while looking for the light than if they just kept going until they could see one.

The 13 original lamps were difficult to keep trimmed, their reflectors were too small, and they often smoked up the lantern room when burning. The keeper had a difficult job keeping them bright enough – and the room clear enough – for the light to be seen beyond the shoals.

In 1856 a Fresnel lens was installed, grouping hundreds of prisms to reflect and refract the lamplight into a more intense beam. Still, the 96-foot tower needed to be made taller to correct the problem for shipping. In 1857 the government ordered a new, 150-foot tower, which was finally completed in 1859 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Within just two years of the new tower’s completion the nation was at war with itself and the lighthouse was vital to supply shipments for the Confederate army that held the ground surrounding it. The Confederates were forced to retreat in 1861, so tried to destroy both the old and new lighthouse beacons (sited next to each other) so they wouldn’t fall into Union hands. They succeeded in almost total destruction of the old tower and light and managed to inflict severe damage to the new lens. In 1862 a new, 3rd order Fresnel lens was installed and it shines to this day.

The Cape Lookout tower became the design model for all of North Carolina’s refurbished lighthouses after the Civil War, and this 1859 tower has guarded the coast ever since. Because the light is still very important to shipping interests, the Coast Guard operated tower is not open to the public. The National Park Service does maintain a visitor center and museum in the keeper’s house on the property. The lighthouse can only be reached by boat, but there are ferry services available from nearby Harkers Island. Pack a picnic lunch and snacks, be prepared to pack your trash out with you.

Next on our lighthouse list is the Bald Head Island Lighthouse – “Old Baldy” – which was originally built in 1817 and still stands as originally sited and built today, making it the oldest standing lighthouse in North Carolina.

The lighthouse was built to help guide ships through the channels and sand bars of the Cape Fear River estuary as well as to help vessels avoid the Frying Pan Shoals that extend more than 20 miles into the ocean. The lighthouse replaced North Carolina’s first lighthouse, located on the southwest point of Bald Head Island and built in 1795. Severe erosion along the Cape Fear River led to its destruction.

Old Baldy is a octagonal tower of brick and covered by cement. It is not painted in the black and white of other of North Carolina’s lighthouses, and is no longer in service. It hosts visitors who arrive by ferry from Southport. The ferry is people only, but bicycles can be rented on the island. Visitors can climb the stairs to the light chamber, the keeper’s house has recently been rebuilt, and there is a museum, a chapel and gift shop.

If you’re planning to visit during the winter, give the keepers a call first to check hours and ferry availability for both sites. For more information, check the links below.

Links:

Outer Banks: “Old Baldy” Lighthouse

Outer Banks: Cape Lookout Lighthouse

Cape Lookout Lighthouse

Bald Head Island Lighthouse

Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island

North Carolina’s coastline juts well out into the Atlantic Ocean with serious attitude. It claims the distinction of owning the easternmost point in all of the United States, and catches more than its share of hurricanes and nor’easter storms.

The beautiful Cape Hatteras lighthouse is the most famous lighthouse in America, and originally sat right on that eastern most point of sand. Back in 1793 when the nation was still in its infancy, funds were released by the U.S. Congress to build a mighty lighthouse to mark the notorious Diamond Shoals sandbar, graveyard to more ships than anyone cared to count.

Diamond Shoals marks the meeting place of the two great Atlantic currents, the cold water Labrador current and the warm north-bound Gulf Stream. Their meeting creates shifting sandbars just beneath the surface, making for some very dangerous waters. Illness in the building crews delayed the completion of the lighthouse until 1803, when it was lit for the very first time. The original light consisted of 18 oil lamps with 14″ reflectors, providing a beam that could be seen from 12 miles offshore.

That simply wasn’t enough light to mark the shoals, so in the mid 1800s the lighting system was modified and additions to the octagonal tower were made, raising it to the height of 150 feet. Yet it was still inadequate to light the cape and shoals, so a new location was chosen and a new lighthouse was built in 1870, and its height of 198 feet makes it the tallest lighthouse in America as well as the world’s tallest brick lighthouse. It boasted a 1st-order Fresnel lens and served mariners well until erosion again became an issue, and a skeletal tower was built about a mile inland in 1936.

In 1999 the lighthouse was moved to its present location, and it’s still shining to warn mariners of the dangerous shoals. It’s a very popular North Carolina tourist attraction, and is open to the public. A small fee will allow you to climb the 257 steps to the light and catch a breathtaking view of the ocean, the outer banks strands, and the piedmont stretching toward the west.

Lighting those dangerous shoals was very important to maritime trade as well as travel in the days of the tall ships. Another of North Carolina’s storied lighthouses is the Currituck Beach Light, the last of four beacons placed at intervals from Cape Henry, Virginia to Cape Hatteras. To grasp the importance of lighting this entire stretch of coast, consider the text of a letter written to Congress for consideration of the matter:

“…the earnest attention of Congress (is) called to the importance of establishing this needful lighthouse. The distance from Body’s Island ( early spelling of Bodie Island ) to Cape Henry is eighty miles, of which there is an unlighted space of forty miles. The land along the coast in this vicinity is low and in many places without trees, so even in daytime there is a danger of vessels getting into unsafe proximity to the coast before becoming aware of it. The danger is enhanced by the fact that vessels bound around Cape Hatteras from the northern and eastern ports keep well to the westward, in order to avoid the strong current of the Gulf Stream, and for the additional reason they have a favorable current of about a mile an hour, nearly as far as Hatteras, and a smoother sea in bad weather; but in the absence of powerful sea-coast lights sufficiently near each other to give warning of approach to danger, many vessels laden with valuable lives and cargoes are in danger of being lost between these points.”

Congress did approve building this lighthouse in the 1860s, but the Civil War intervened in its actual construction. It was begun in 1873 and completed in 1875, when it was first lit in December. Because all the lighthouses along the Outer Banks looked alike, it was ordered that they all be painted different patterns in order to make them recognizable to mariners. Currituck was left in its original unpainted brick state, and remains unpainted to this day.

The tower was granted to the Outer Banks Conservationists in 2003, and the light station has been restored along with the grounds. The historic Whalehead [hunt] Club was built nearby in the 1920s, and has also been restored for the public. The tour costs $7 and is well worth the expense.

Links:

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Currituck Beach Lighthouse