They are not much more than narrow strips of land dominated by large expanses of sand and dunes, but the Outer Banks of North Carolina draw more than 4 million visitors each year.
In their role as protectors of North Carolina’s mainland coast, the barrier islands — Bodie Island, or the North Beaches, and Hatteras and Ocracoke islands to the south — provide 130 miles of gracefully stretching land with more than 28,000 acres of beach, natural forest and raw land. A fourth island, Roanoke, is in the Croatan Sound between Hatteras and the mainland.
East of the barrier islands, the Atlantic Ocean meets the shore with gentle waves or raw fury; west of the islands rests the Croatan and Currituck sounds, which separate the islands and the mainland.
At the Banks, ocean, sky, sand dunes, salt marshes, freshwater swales, maritime forests and the sounds of nature combine to create a diverse vacation destination offering something for almost everyone: deep-sea fishing, windsurfing, bird-watching, naturalist excursions or just the chance to unwind while basking under the sun and in the warm ocean breezes.
Airfare charters being provided by Sea Air (www.flyseaair.com) include scheduled services round-trip from Washington, New York and New Jersey using the company’s eight-passenger plane, greatly reducing travel time to the Outer Banks.
For the vacation visitor, lodging on the Banks poses a problem only when it comes to deciding where and how. One option is to rent one of the hundreds of vacation homes, elite private residences built not out, but up, in order to take advantage of views of the sound and ocean.
At the ready to pamper and calm, Sanderling Resort & Spa in Duck awaits visitors staying for a few days, a week or longer. Nestled on 12 acres, the Sanderling’s low-lying buildings with weathered gray wood and cedar-shingle roofs are designed to fit snugly into the land.
From a welcoming bottle of wine upon arrival to the complimentary breakfast basket dropped off at guests’ doors each morning, the Sanderling beckons visitors to stop, relax and enjoy.
The spacious rooms with wicker furniture are comfortable and have private decks, which make perfect settings for morning coffee or enjoying a view of the ocean. High tea is served each afternoon in the main building. The resort also has a conference center.
The Sanderling has three inns — North, South and Main — and the lobby of each contains wood sculptures by Grainger McCoy, whose subject is birds carved from wood. fireplace for tea while appreciating Mr. McCoy’s birds and views of the sea.
It is an easy walk from the Sanderling via wooden walks to some of the cleanest beach on the Eastern Seaboard. Early risers can sit quietly and watch dolphins frolic. Beachcombers may be lucky and find plenty of unique gifts churned out of the ever-moving sea.
Those who seek fishing will find why the Banks are considered by the International Gamefish Association to be among the most likely places “to catch Atlantic blue marlin weighing more than 1,000 pounds.”
The Sanderling’s private 47-foot yacht docks at the Shallowbag Bay Club in Manteo, ready to take guests out for a Hook It and Cook It excursion. This excursion package also gives guests the chance for a culinary expedition as chef George “Rob” Robinson and Christine Zambito, food and beverage manager, prepare their catch. The chef-teachers offer instruction on preparing fresh seafood and share their techniques, followed by a delicious lunch created for the guest.
Mr. Robinson is chef de cuisine of the stylish Left Bank restaurant, so named because of its location on the island’s western side with views of quiet Currituck Sound.
The menu is a culinary surprise in an area where veteran beachgoers were taken aback with its request that men wear jackets to dinner.
The restaurant’s dramatic high ceilings and windows allow diners to watch the sunset or the moon and stars reflecting on the water.
Mr. Robinson creates dishes that are remarkable for their contrasting flavors and textures. His cooking is described as French-inspired contemporary American. A parade of delicacies appears during his tasting menu, such as seared Hudson Valley foie gras with warm banana nut bread, caramelized bananas and mango relish; a remarkable smoked salmon timbale that artfully marries avocado, lemon creme fraiche, New Zealand prawns, micro green salad and osetra caviar; and an asparagus soup with white truffle custard, poached quail egg and a julienne of black truffles.
The intimate restaurant with an open kitchen offers both a three-course ($55) and five-course ($75) menu.
More casual dining can be found at the Sanderling’s own historical landmark, the charming Life Saving Station Restaurant. The restored 1899 U.S. Lifesaving Station also serves as a minimuseum and is filled with nautical artifacts and historic memorabilia.
The menu of contemporary American dishes has an emphasis on seafood and regional produce. Diners delight in Sanderling staples such as eggs Sanderling; a delightful and full-bodied chowder of corn, crab and shrimp; or the Sanderling salad, which is laced with raisins plumped in sherry.
The recently renovated Spa at the Sanderling offers treatments both invigorating and restorative in its program of services designed to envelope senses already heightened by the bracing sea air.
The spa’s menu includes an 80-minute Sea Creations treatment with a breathtaking massage that incorporates seashells combined with therapeutic sounds of the ocean. The Seduction of Senses treatment is a deep-relaxation experience choreographed to classical music. A delightful bonus is the CD and travel bag a guest receives to take home as a reminder of the experience.
Though guests at the Sanderling may find themselves not needing, or necessarily wanting, to leave the property, the Banks offer many enticements for exploring.
It was the Banks’ steady Atlantic winds and soft sand dunes that enticed Wilbur and Orville Wright to North Carolina, where they set out to prove that a power-driven aircraft could be controlled in flight.
For many visitors and residents, the Outer Banks’ real treasure may be the herds of wild horses on the island where North Carolina and Virginia meet. These descendants of horses that 16th-century Spanish explorers left behind run freely over 17,000 acres of land that includes 140 acres developed for private housing.
While island guests are allowed to tour the land reserved for the horses, it is important that they do so with care. The best way to see the wild horses is with one of the tour groups, such as Corolla Outback Adventures, that guide visitors along the remote beaches. The horses can be seen among the area’s old oaks, keeping both visitors and horse a safe distance apart.
Though the Spanish may have been among the first New World explorers, the group lauded as the first to create a home in America are the Colonists sent by England’s Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. They landed on Roanoke Island in 1587.
The area they settled is called the Lost Colony because the Colonists disappeared. An outdoor drama, “The Lost Colony,” has been performed in summer since 1937.
The play explores what may have happened to early Colonists, including Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. Their fate may have come at the hands of American Indians or the pounding winds and waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic has played the major role in shaping the Banks. Its hurricanes and storms have changed the landscape, eroding the band of land that once stretched along the Eastern seaboard into a series of islands.
The fury of the wind and sea also led to the creation of the first Life Saving Stations, a precursor of the U.S. Coast Guard, because many ships wrecked off the Banks’ coast. As an aid to ships traveling near the Banks, some of the country’s first lighthouses were erected.
Toward the south, the black-and-white spiral-painted Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, built in 1803, stands 205 feet tall, making it the tallest in the United States. Today this landmark is about 1,600 feet inland, where it was moved in 1999 to protect it from being claimed by the sea.
On the northern tip, the 158-foot Currituck Beach Lighthouse was built in 1875.
The structure has been left an unpainted red brick, and its original lens still shines, flashing for three seconds, then off for 17 seconds. The Queen Anne-style keeper’s dwelling was pre-cut and labeled before being shipped to the site for assembling.
The Bodie Island Lighthouse is a 156-foot-high horizontally striped lighthouse and the twin of the Currituck lighthouse. The tower that stands today was built in 1872 after two previous attempts to erect a lighthouse at the site failed.
The Bodie Island light also still shines through its original lens, but it is not open for climbing. A keeper’s quarters, however, serves as an information center. Wonderful hiking trails through the Bodie Island marshes offer opportunities for visitors to see glossy ibises, herons, egrets and other wading birds that call this area home from spring through fall.
One of the most famous ships to land on the ocean floor, a scant 16 miles offshore, was the USS Monitor. The Navy’s inaugural ironclad ship sank during a storm on New Year’s Eve 1862, taking 12 crewmen and four officers to their deaths.
The final resting place of the Monitor and more than 2,000 other ships is part of the National Marine Sanctuary, also known as “the graveyard of the Atlantic.”
Artifacts from the Monitor have been collected from the ocean floor and are displayed at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., where a special wing known as the USS Monitor Center is being built and is expected to open in 2007.
The Bodie Island Marshes and the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, also on Hatteras Island, are excellent spots for observing waterfowl. The location is midway on the migratory birds’ Atlantic Flyway and makes the Outer Banks and their marshes an area favored by large concentrations of ducks, geese, swans, wading birds, shore birds, raptors and neotropical migrants.
The almost 6,000-acre Pea Island National Refuge, between the Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe, is home to more than 365 species of birds and has a wildlife list of 25 species of mammals, 24 species of reptiles, and five species of amphibians, a low number because of the salty environment.
Pea Island also provides refuge to a variety of endangered species, including peregrine falcons, loggerhead sea turtles, and piping plovers.
The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke focuses on the aquatic environments of coastal Carolina. Children can explore the coastal freshwaters of the sounds and rivers teeming with largemouth and striped bass, river otters and American alligators plus the ocean’s saltwater habitat.
The aquarium’s touch tanks become educational stops as knowledgeable docents help visitors gently stroke a stingray gliding by or feel the rough edges of the sea star.
Within the 285,000-gallon Graveyard of the Atlantic viewing tank, the sunken Monitor is re-created in one-third scale; fish, sea turtles and sharks swim inches away from patrons standing at the tank’s 35-foot-long viewing window.
Head to Bodie Island to enjoy sunset from the deck of the Blue Point restaurant. Chef Sam McGann and partner John Power opened the fine-dining beach-style restaurant in 1989 and have been busy ever since. The Blue Point features a casual and comfortable glass block, chrome, red, black and blue interior.
Mr. McGann strives to provide guests with the unexpected while serving them the seasonal and regional foods they crave, such as cornmeal-crusted Southern-fried Carolina catfish with scallion shrimp rice, spicy black beans and salsa verde ($18.95) or the garganelle pasta and fresh Carolina shrimp saute with Italian sausage, baby tomatoes, basil butter and Parmesan cheese, all providing a delicious end to a day at the beach.
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Sanderling Resort & Spa: 1451 Duck Road, Duck, N.C.; phone 800/701-4111; www.thesanderling.com
Outer Banks: www.outerbanks.com/duck
Cape Hatteras National Seashore: www.nps.gov/caha
“The Lost Colony”: Waterside Theatre, Manteo, N.C.; 252/986-2995 or www.thelostcolony.org
Blue Point restaurant: Duck, N.C.; 252/261-8090 or www.goodfoodgoodwine.com
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