Spanish mackerel just wouldn't work, she adds. "Many of our important 

 fisheries are based on volume." 



WATERFRONT RESOLUTION 



In May, the Dare County Board of Commissioners passed a 

 resolution petitioning the N.C. General Assembly to establish "present- 

 use" assessment and taxation of waterfront land that is used for 

 commercial fishing activities. Property owners would apply to pay lower 

 taxes through a proposed program like one in place for agriculture, 

 horticulture and forests in North Carolina. 



"We are asking the General Assembly to give tax breaks to 

 fishermen like they do for farmers," says Dare County Commissioner 

 Allen Burris, who introduced the resolution. "We want to save what 

 waterfront is left." 



The commissioners also set up a Working Waterfront Committee 

 for Dare County. 



"The Dare County Board of Commissioners would like to have 

 the first right of refusal and be able to buy waterfront property so that 

 property remains used in a traditional way," Burris says. 



Legislation in the General Assembly would establish working 

 waterfronts across the state as a special class of property subject to 

 present-use value for local property taxes. 



COLORFUL HERITAGE 



The Hatteras community's history dates back to a violent gale 

 that opened the current Hatteras Inlet, along with Oregon Inlet, on Sept. 

 7, 1846. "The new 

 Hatteras Inlet was a 

 strategic connection 

 between the Atlantic 

 Ocean and the Pamlico 

 Sound," according to 

 the "ICW.Net/Coastal 

 Guide," a tourism site 

 that focuses on coastal 

 North Carolina. "A 

 fishing and shipping 

 village arose near the 

 inlet." 



Twelve years 

 later, a post office was 

 established at Hatteras. 



With the onset of the Civil War, the Hatteras area fell to Union 

 forces in 1 86 1 . That same year, the fall of the Confederate's Fort Clark 

 and Fort Hatteras resulted in the loss of the inlet for Confederate use. 



After the war, the Hatteras community began to grow. In 1878, the 

 Durants Lifesaving Station was built. By the turn of the 20th century, a 

 station for the U.S. Weather Service was constructed in the middle of the 

 village. 



A turning point for the commercial fishing fleet was when the U.S. 

 Army Corps of Engineers dredged a channel in the mid- 1930s, allowing 

 better access from the Pamlico Sound to Hatteras Inlet. 



"Before the harbor was cut for deep-water boats, 

 there was nothing but small boats here," says Eph 

 O'Neal, an island resident who still fishes at age 86. 



CHARIER FISHING 



In the heart of the Depression, Ernal Foster and 

 his brother, Bill Foster, took a gamble. They had the 

 first sportfishing boat built in Hatteras for recreational 

 fishing groups, as well as commercial fishing. In April 

 ,^Jf 1 937, Foster launched the Albatross. 



"My father decided to make charter fishing his 

 first priority, and commercial fishing his second priority," says Ernie 

 Foster, who now manages the charter fleet. "He had four charter trips 

 the first year." 



During World War n, Ernal Foster and others left the fishing 

 business to join the armed services. At the time, the area became 

 known as a 'Torpedo Junction," because of the heavy loss of ships by 

 German submarine attacks. 



Following World War U, a private ferry began operating across 

 the inlet to connect Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. The state took over 

 the ferry in 1957, and has continued its operation. 



14 Coastwatch I High Season 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 



