Fun Facts about the Outer Banks

It took Orville and Wilbur only 6 months with to build a "flying machine" in 1903. Costs were estimated at $1,000.00. 100 yeares later, it took several craftsmen over a year to construct a replica of the infamous 1903 "flying machine". The cost were approximatley $500,000.

Duck was ranked as one of the "Top Beaches" in America by the Travel Channel.

Jockey's Ridge is home to the largest sand dunes on the East Coast.

Wild Ponies still run wild along the coast of North Carolina. These are the descendants of Spanish Mustangs which survived early shipwrecks. Historical research records the horses here as early as 1523. Today, with the increasing development in their habitat, they are under the pressure of encroachment of their range --particularly from vehicle traffic.

First Cape Hatteras lighthouse was built in 1802 and lit in 1803. The current Cape Hatteras lighthouse is America's tallest lighthouse at 198 feet high. It is also the worlds tallest brick lighthouse. The Cape Hatteras lighthouse. has 257 steps leading to the top. The beacon light can be seen for 20 miles out to sea It took 1.25 million bricks to build the tower and if you laid each brick down, one-by-one, they would extend from Corolla to Ocrcoke Island - over 100 miles!

A 400 year old mystery haunts Roanoke Island. Here, 117 men, women, and children lived for a short time - then vanished without a trace, leaving historians with a mystery that has never been solved. What happen to those colonists? The Lost Colony is their story, told summer nights in a dazzling song, dance, and drama, beneath the stars at Waterside Theatre.

Ocracoke Island is 16 miles miles and ranges from a half mile to 2 miles in width.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse has stood guard over Oregon Inlet since 1848, but it has a chequered past. The first light started tilting to one side so much that the light stopped flashing. The second light in the lighthouse was blown up by Confederate troops in 1861. The third one is the present one, and stands 150 feet tall and is still fully operational.

The most famous pirate of all, Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, used to scour these waters looking for lightly armed merchants to rob. Many wouldn’t even put up a fight once they knew who he was. He used to put wicks laced with gunpowder in his huge black beard to make himself more fearsome. Blackbeard was powerful enough to blockade the whole town of Charleston, South Carolina for a whole week in May 1718. Seven months later, in November 1718, Blackbeard eventually died in a fierce battle at Ocracoke Inlet. His flagship, the ‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’ has only recently been found off the coast and is now being excavated. But his treasure, rumoured to be buried on Ocracoke Island, has never been recovered.

The cemetery on Ocracoke island is officially located on British soil. It contains the graves of British sailors washed ashore after the wreck of the HMS Bedfordshire during WW2.