By Sarah Friday Peters 



It's almost midnight. Your plane 

 from New York is ready to land in 

 Raleigh, and the pilot's voice comes on 

 the intercom. 



"I'm sorry to report that the airport 

 tower and lights are out," he says. 

 "Please remain calm while I try to land 

 in the dark." 



CALM? 



Any second now the plane, its 

 cargo and you might smack the runway 

 like a hundred tons of brick! 



Now you know how navigators felt 

 before lighthouses guarded North 

 Carolina's coast. 



Early mariners sailed along the Tar 

 Heel barrier islands like seamen in 

 blindfolds, dodging unmarked capes, 

 currents and shoals. Except for occa- 

 sional fires set on high dunes or in 

 crude towers, no markers signaled the 

 hazards along the Carolina shores. 



But the shifting sands and the lack 

 of markers didn't stop mariners from 

 skimming the state's coastline. 



Many who passed were north- 

 bound on an offshore highway of 

 current that today we call the Gulf 

 Stream. Spanish explorers carried home 

 Caribbean treasures on its path. Sir 

 Walter Raleigh once considered it a 

 shortcut to China. And later Colonial 

 ships carrying coffee from South 

 America and molasses from the West 

 Indies rode the current northward. 



At Hatteras, the warm waters of 

 the Gulf Stream collided with the cold, 

 southbound Labrador Current, creating 

 constant turbulence and shifting 

 underwater sandbars such as Diamond 

 Shoals. Winds, too, pushed ships north 

 of the cape, stalling them for days. 



Even the light of day didn't keep 

 ship captains from running aground on 

 shallow shoals, where they were at the 

 mercy of the ocean's pounding waves. 

 And night was even more perilous; the 

 only warning of impending danger was 

 the crashing breakers. 



Shifting sands, fickle winds and 



battling currents took their toll on 

 vessels such as the Tiger, the Tyrrel 

 and Betsy. More than 2,300 vessels met 

 their demise, earning North Carolina 

 maritime distinction as the "graveyard 

 of the Atlantic." 



Inshore hazards posed problems 



too. 



Without stable landmarks, mari- 

 ners rarely knew where to enter Cape 

 Lookout, Cape Fear, Beaufort Inlet and 

 other harbors. Shallow inlets and inland 



EARLY MARINERS SAILED 

 ALONG THE TAR HEEL 

 BARRIER ISLANDS LIKE 

 SEAMEN IN BLINDFOLDS, 

 DODGING UNMARKED 

 CAPES, CURRENTS 

 AND SHOALS. EXCEPT FOR 

 OCCASIONAL FIRES SET 

 ON HIGH DUNES OR 

 IN CRUDE TOWERS, 

 NO MARKERS SIGNALED 

 THE HAZARDS ALONG 

 THE CAROLINA SHORES. 



shoals such as Royal Shoals at the 

 Pamlico River created other road- 

 blocks to coastal trade. 



"Commerce was frustrated and 

 adversely affected by the treacherous- 

 ness of the inlets," says David Stick, 

 an author and chronicler of Outer 

 Banks history. "We had no major 

 ports. That was our trouble. The only 

 reliable port of entry was Cape Fear, 

 and even that had its problems with 

 Frying Pan Shoals." 



But colonists needed to trade. The 

 livelihood of a growing province 

 depended on its commerce. 



Roanoke Inlet near Roanoke Island 

 and Currituck Inlet at the Virginia 

 boundary marked early entrances into 

 the Carolina colony. But by the 1700s, 

 Ocracoke and the Cape Fear River had 

 become the largest ports. 



As early as 1730, the colony's river 

 and port pilots asked for buoys and 

 beacons at Ocracoke Inlet to aid 

 navigation. But the British weren't 

 interested in safeguarding Colonial 

 shores, despite the heavy exchange of 

 goods between the mother country and 

 colonists. 



After the Revolutionary War, few 

 goods came and went from England. 

 But trade between the new state ports 

 increased. 



"It wasn't lucrative or easy to trade 

 with North Carolina," says Connie 

 Mason, a historian at the N.C. Maritime 

 Museum. "Because of that, North 

 Carolina was economically on the 

 downside." 



The South had only a few impor- 

 tant ports of call, Charleston and 

 Savannah being the largest. Clearly, the 

 North was the center of commerce for 

 the young nation, and consequently, the 

 country's first lighthouses were placed 

 at Boston; Nantucket, Mass.; Sandy 

 Hook, N.J.; Plymouth, Mass.; and five 

 other points north. 



The lighthouses were built and 

 maintained primarily by the cities' 

 merchants and shippers. But the South 

 was dominated by farmers who saw 

 little need for lighthouses and beacons. 



All that changed by 1784. 



North Carolina made attempts to 

 erect lighthouses at Ocracoke and the 

 Cape Fear River. The state proposed 

 that the first lighthouse be built on the 

 southeast side of the mouth of the Cape 

 Fear River at Bald Head Island. 



Benjamin Smith donated 10 acres 

 of his island to the state, and a tax on 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 3 



