THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409150180
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 42 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ron Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
There are two ways to best appreciate the beauties of an area ringed by water.
One, obviously, is by boat, which provides an entirely different perspective than the view from a land-locked vehicle. I've traveled often the Albemarle and the coast and the sounds of northeast North Carolina by boat, and on each trip was entranced, far more than I've ever been by car.
The other way to fully appreciate where we live is to take an aerial tour, and a couple of weeks ago I did just that.
The flight in a small plane gave me my first view from the sky of our coastal lands, and it was revealing. As we flew over Roanoke Island, south to Portsmouth Island and north to Currituck County, my reaction could best be summed up by one word:
Fragile.
Oh, there are other words that could be used, such as awesome, or beautiful, or dangerous (that's the word that came to mind as I looked down at the treacherous channels in the inlets providing access from the sounds to the Atlantic).
But fragile is what I thought of most as we skimmed down the narrow strip of land known as the Outer Banks.
In some spots, such as south of Salvo on Hatteras Island, the strand seems so narrow that a single wave could easily cut through the land and create a new inlet.
The narrowness is not so obvious when traveling by car down the highway, but from above it's clear that the road is almost as wide as the land in some threatened areas, where sandbags keep the surf at bay.
A major storm, it would seem, could rend the strand in dozens of places, where only a strip of green separates the sound from the glistening beaches on the oceanfront.
The ocean's relentless hunger to take the land is nowhere more evident than at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which once haughtily stood far back from the sea. Now the striped landmark, the best-known symbol of the Outer Banks, stands with her toes in the water, sandbags keeping her dry.
But she's still a striking punctuation mark for travelers visiting by land, sea or air.
Also striking from the air are the inlets at Ocracoke and Hatteras and Oregon.
The channels change so rapidly that they're not included on charts, and it's easy to see why from the sky.
Desert-like dunes of sand roll hither and yon, just under the surface and out of sight from boats, but easily spotted from above. Some inlets seem almost impassable, and made me marvel at the daring of watermen who make daily runs through the choppy passages. I once thought of sailing the Wind Gypsy through Oregon Inlet - but belay the thought.
Bigger and better boats than the Gypsy have come to a tragic end around the inlets, and from the air it seemed there was an outline of a sunken boat in sight almost all the time.
And as we soared back up the coast after landing at the airport at Ocracoke, another word for the Outer Banks came to mind:
Thankfulness.
The beaches were virtually vacant for mile after mile, thanks to the foresightedness of our ancestors who created national parks out of much of the lovely strand, preventing development and preserving the islands in their natural state for our descendants.
A few fishermen here, a family on a picnic there, an occasional jogger skirting the waves as she runs on the sand which stretches unblemished to the horizons.
The strand is fragile, that is true. But unlike the developers of internationally known resorts, when Mother Nature takes away here, she usually gives back there.
If you've spent much time in Virginia Beach or Atlantic City or Florida, you will appreciate what you see from the air over the Outer Banks. by CNB