restaurant along the water, as you wait in line, (you'll see) there 

 are a lot of people who like watching boats," he says. "It's an 

 incredible tourism draw." 



Besides touting the state as a boating haven, the council 

 plans to offer more accommodations and recreational opportu- 

 nities for boaters, he says. 



When choosing a destination, boaters look for dock slips 

 or mooring sites close to food, lodging and other services. 

 Fourteen municipalities along North Carolina's sounds and 

 coast could fill these needs, but few do, Bradley says. So most 

 of the boaters traveling the Intracoastal Waterway each year — 

 a figure he estimates at 20,000 — do not stop to visit in the 

 state. 



"North Carolina is really unique in that we have 3,000 

 miles of tidal shoreline, and boats on the coast can play in 2 

 million acres of water," he says. "Right now, with the excep- 

 tion of New Bern, Beaufort and Elizabeth City, there are not 

 many destination sites for the cruising boat." 



Docking is difficult in Washington, for example. The town 

 has a "massive" walkway along its waterfront but few slips, 

 while Bath has policies preventing construction of marina 

 structures, he says. Wilmington is the largest city on North 

 Carolina's coast with the most downtown waterfront and 

 walking access to 40 restaurants, but it has the fewest slips for 

 cruising vessels, he says. 



"Wilmington has about the equivalent of three docks with 

 utilities for cruising boats," he says. "What this tourism council 

 wants to do is to educate cities like Wilmington, Bath ... to 

 show the advantages of what the tourism dollar can do both 

 from people who come to watch boats bob and people who 

 come in the boats." 



With the passage of the Urban Waterfront Law, the path is 

 paved to build the waterfront accommodations boaters seek. 

 The law permits coastal cities to build non-water-dependent 

 businesses along the waterfront and over the water for the next 

 three years. 



"It all fits together," Bradley says. "We're trying to get the 

 municipalities to appreciate how important waterfront activity 

 is to tourism and to make it easier for private industry to build 

 and operate these support, recreational types of businesses: 

 restaurants, inns and marinas. It's big money, big tourism." 



If the tide of boaters starts washing in, what may appear 

 new actually will be a return to the old. 



"We are, historically, a state of boating," Bradley says. "If 

 you talk to the old-timers in all of these little cities — how did 

 they get to town? They went by boat. How did they get their 

 groceries? They went by boat. They went to school, got 

 married, everything was done by boat." 



"And then for 60 to 80 years, we've turned our back on 

 the water. And we've created obstacles to accommodate the 

 boat. And now we recognize that tourism is the number-one 

 industry along the coastal waterways, and it's time to turn our 

 face to the water and see what we can do to accommodate and 



promote waterway tourism." □ Enjoying the Dismal Swamp's natural beauty 



COASTWATCH 23 



