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Aug 23, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Lynn Wells |Hannah Lee Leidy |Brad Campbell
Rising slightly above sea level on the east’ard edge of North Carolina lies a watery part of the world, trimmed by salt marsh, blanketed in needlerush, and molded with wind-sculpted live oaks. It’s the kind of place where sunsets seem more golden and clear days more blue, where light and shadow feel amplified and a hard northwest wind sharper, where the pungent scent of the marsh is as welcome as a gentle southwest breeze.
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Jun 25, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Robyn Smith |Genie Safriet |Katie Schanze
As the sun retreats from its summit, inching down toward the horizon line separating the dark blue water around Ocracoke from the Carolina blue sky, Ruth Toth lowers a bright orange fishing basket and well-worn aluminum clam rake into the boat. From under the brim of her sun hat, she glances back at her cedar-shingled home overlooking Pamlico Sound and Teach’s Hole Channel. She checks her watch: The tide is dropping.
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May 27, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Todd Dulaney |Katie Schanze |Brad Campbell
“Honey, why don’t we just sell our house and move to the Outer Banks to be close to the ‘other woman’ in our marriage?” suggested John Havel’s wife, Aida, 14 years into her husband’s “tryst.”“I had never noticed her up close until Aida and I saw her together in 2003,” Havel admits. “She was absolutely amazing.”That other woman? She is the tallest, most recognizable, and regarded by some as the most beautiful in America — the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
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May 27, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Kim Grizzard |Molly Harrison |Jimmy Tomlin
In the heart of the village of Buxton, a haven for readers awaits. The bookshop — an 1860s kitchen house built from shipwreck timbers — is a dream conjured by its caretaker, Gee Gee Rosell. When she landed on Hatteras Island in the 1970s, the then 22-year-old with a forestry degree found the idea of committing to a career path daunting. Rosell got a job at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where she helped to prepare for seasonal visitors.
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May 27, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Todd Dulaney |Katie Schanze |Brad Campbell
Dale Mutro’s pink-and-teal Hawaiian shirt is a bright spot behind the check-in desk at The Anchorage Inn overlooking Silver Lake Harbor. The bold shirt suits the colorful postmaster turned hotel receptionist. “I love local history,” he says.
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May 27, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Todd Dulaney |Katie Schanze |Brad Campbell
Every year, a couple hundred thousand Coppertone-smeared visitors board the Island Express Ferry at the end of the road on Harkers Island. Their journey across Back Sound and past the grazing horses of Shackleford Banks culminates in the shadow of Cape Lookout’s reigning queen, the Diamond Lady. As flip-flops and tennis shoes hit the dock, visitors step back in time to a sacred place that’s more than the sum of its picturesque parts.
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May 27, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Jo Grey |T. Edward Nickens
The first couple of times Meghan Agresto came to Currituck County, she didn’t visit the lighthouse. “When I came in 2002, it was $6 to climb,” she says, “but I didn’t have six bucks.” Twenty-two years later, Agresto climbs the 220 steps daily and calls the Currituck Beach Lighthouse home. Her contagious personality shines as bright as the tower’s original Fresnel lens. “I have a voice that sounds like a mad cigarette smoker because I talk too much,” she says.
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May 14, 2024 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Rebecca Woltz |Kim Grizzard |Molly Harrison
On a quiet autumn evening nearly five decades ago, the bride turned around inside the station wagon and gazed through its rear window into the black night. The gentle beam of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse swept across the marsh and spilled into the car before vanishing east over the dunes. On one of the happiest nights of the newlywed’s life, a deep melancholy, as thick as the fog hovering inches above Pamlico Sound, permeated the car as it sped north up NC Highway 12.
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Oct 24, 2023 | 
ourstate.com | Ryan Stancil |Jeri Rowe |Brad Campbell
Along the thread of sand that seems to dangle suspended between an expanse of Carolina blue sky and the vast indigo of the Atlantic, there is certainty in the uncertain. On North Carolina’s barrier islands, what is here today can be gone tomorrow. A strong northeast blow can render the tangible ethereal. This sliver of land, whose resiliency is often mistaken for fragility, is unyielding and inflexible in its will to transform. It bows only to the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
