Fishing, crabbing and hunting sustained islanders generation after generation. Eventually, years behind the rest of the barrier islands, Colington natives got paved roads, telephones, and electric service. Now, they have tourism. High, uneven dunes meet dank, brackish swamplands. Thick groves of pine, dogwood, live oak, beech, and holly drip Spanish moss over expanses of sandy shoreline.
Thin creeks widen to unexpected harbors and bays.
In the summer months, soft-shell crab holding pens illuminate strips of scrubby yard along the sounds at night, the naked light bulbs glaring out of the darkness like a Reno casino. Advertisements for waterfront property in pricey new subdivisions are posted not far from where trailers and campgrounds line the twisting road. Mansions are barely evident perched on their sandy shelves overlooking Colington Road, the most heavily traveled secondary road in Dare County. Since Colington Harbour, the island's first subdivision, was built in 1965, at least four other subdivisions have been constructed along canals, marshlands, soundfronts and in woodlands throughout Colington Island. After a year of weighing benefits and risks, newcomers and natives hammered out a reasonable zoning plan.