Wanderlusting :: Outer Banks, NC

Centuries before the area became a vacation hot spot, the Outer Banks, a long string of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, was the setting for a story unlike anywhere else in the US. In 1585, more than twenty years before the 1607 settlement of Jamestown, a group of English settlers forged a colony in the Outer Banks. By 1587, however, the settlers had inexplicably vanished. In the ensuing years the region witnessed similarly mysterious shipwrecks and sporadic pirate encounters along its extensive coastline...

 

I imagine someone wearing this outfit strolling down the boardwalk on a crisp autumn day. Sometimes I think there is nothing more peaceful than the beach when it's cool outside.

The treacherous seas off the Outer Banks and the large number of shipwrecks that have occurred there have given these seas the nickname Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Before bridges were built in the 1930s, the only form of transport between or off the islands was by boat, which allowed for the islands to stay isolated from much of the rest of the mainland. This helped to preserve the maritime culture and the distinctive Outer Banks accent, which sounds more like an English accent than American.

The islands are home to herds of wild horses which are thought to be descendants of Spanish Mustangs washed ashore centuries ago in shipwrecks.

Nearby was the home base of pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. It is also where the famed pirate was killed.

The rules are different out here. Shaped by nature just like the Outer Banks were swept in from the Atlantic Ocean. The first colonists to settle the Americas only to mysteriously disappear.