July 2008: Outer Banks, North Carolina

The Whalehead Club, a 21,000 sq.ft. private residence built by a Depression-era northern industrialist as a cottage for waterfowl hunting, offers commanding views of both the Currituck Sound and the Atlantic Flyway.


Rising out of the surrounding freshwater marsh, the Curituck Beach lighthouse was built in 1875 to fill the "dark spot" on the North Carolina coast between the Cape Henry lighthouse to the north and Bodie Island lighthouse to the south.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Ocracoke Island Lighthouse

Once frequented by the infamous Blackbeard, today, Ocracoke's Silver Lake provides harbor for many small, locally owned fishing fleets.

One of dozens of "screwpile" lighthouses that used to sit atop a series of metal legs drilled into the Pamlico, Abermarle, and Croatan Sounds, the Roanoke River lighthouse was the only structure that survived the move ashore. Since 2007 it has sat deserted and dilapidated on a small penisula in Edenton, NC.


Long silent Revolutionary War era canons serve as sentinels, looking over the wide mouth of the Chowen River to the Barker House and to a resilient grove of bald cyprus.

Under the fern-laden canopy of ancient live oak trees, weathered tombstones chronicle the rich history of Beaufort, NC.

At Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and Eestuarine Preserve, descendants of shipwrecked Spanish horses populate one of the few remaining undeveloped coastal barrier island systems in the world.