8:00am Breakfast at your hotel or visit one of our local family restaurants and savor a good ole southern breakfast.
9:00am Bodie Island Lighthouse (30 minutes). This 156-foot beacon began operation in 1872. The Original Fresnel Lens is still in use today.
10:30am Chicamacomico Life Saving Station (1 hour). View the historic building and boathouse that housed the service that was the predecessor to the United States Coast Guard. Hear the history of daring ocean rescues by brave men who dedicated their lives to the sea.
12:00pm Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (1 hour). Visit the tallest brick beacon on the American coast, standing at 208 feet high. Learn the marvelous history, which includes its half-mile move in 2000 away from the ocean.
1:45pm Arrive at the Hatteras-Ocracoke Ferry Terminal. Before getting in line, quickly visit the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. Located at the ferry docks, this museum is still a work in progress. Exhibits now on display include artifacts from historical shipwrecks, unique beach finds and locally carved ships’ models. This is a great spot for a bathroom break before embarking on your ferry ride to Ocracoke Island.
2:00pm Catch the ferry to Ocracoke Island. Enjoy a 45-minute free ferry ride to historic Ocracoke Island. This is where the famous pirate Blackbeard plundered many a ship and was eventually beheaded by a British naval captain in 1718, in a slough off of the island. Reservations are recommended, but not required for this free ferry.
3:15pm Arrive at the Ocracoke Island Visitor Center Tour to be arranged in advance with a National Park Service interpreter who will give the Ocracoke history and mystery of this quaint fishing village.
Stop at the Ocracoke Lighthouse (Windshield Tour). Nestled in this quaint fishing village along Silver Lake, this whitewashed tower is the oldest and shortest. Built in 1823 it is the oldest operating lighthouse on the North Carolina Coast and the second oldest in the nation. It was the beneficiary of the first Fresnel lenses. Other points of interest on Ocracoke Island:
Teach’s Hole – Blackbeard Exhibit and Pirate Specialty Shop, British Cemetery – located on Howard StreetBanker Ponies – pins are located on NC 12 on the way to village Ocracoke Preservation Museum
5:00pm Catch the free Ocracoke/Hatteras Ferry back to Hatteras Village. If time did not permit on your journey over to Ocracoke Island, stop at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum on your way back.
6:00pm Dinner on Hatteras Island. On your way back to your hotel stop and enjoy fresh seafood from the Atlantic Gulf Stream waters in one of our many locally owned restaurants.
9:00pm Arrive back at Hotel
