shore. The winds die, but the past 

 clings to this sliver of coastal North 

 Carolina like barnacles to a boat hull. 



These days, anyone east of Raleigh 

 with a business card and a marketing 

 budget will claim to be from Down 

 East North Carolina. But the original 

 Down East, the real Down East, begins 

 where most people's geographic 

 knowledge of the state ends: east of 

 Morehead City, east of Beaufort, on the 



far side of the North River. It is the 

 soggy eastern half of Carteret County, 

 a fat finger of marsh and tangled forest 

 reaching into Pamlico Sound, bounded 

 by the tidal flow of the Neuse River to 

 the west and Core Sound's shallow 

 waters to the east. U.S. 70 and N.C. 12 

 skirt the soundfront shore, passing 

 through prodigious marshes and coastal 

 communities, and Route 1 335 veers off 

 to Harkers Island, separated from the 



mainland by a narrow channel known 

 as "The Straits." Fish houses crowd the 

 highway; crab shacks edge the water. 



Down East ends where dry land 

 and the highway stop abruptly at Cedar 

 Island, the final destination of the 

 Ocracoke ferry. Most folks who drive 

 through Down East are hotfooting it to 

 the ferry landing, eyes on the road. 

 They never wander through the decoy 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 3 



