For the tiny ghost crab, living on the beach in a wave-washed underground burrow, survival is a matter of adaptation, adjusting to meet the demands of the land and sea. In the protected waters west of the islands you can find excellent opportunities for crabbing and clamming. The ocean also harbors a bounty of life, which includes channel bass, pompano, sea trout, bluefish, and other sport fish. Wintering snow geese, Canada geese, ducks, and many other kinds of birds populate the islands. The best times for observing birdlife are during fall and spring migrations and in the winter.
Salt marshes are a source of food for birds and other animals year-round.
Here sound waters meet the marsh twice each day as tides come and go, exchanging and replenishing nutrients. At the ocean's edge, you are always on the threshold of a new experience. The treacherous waters that lie off the coast of the Outer Banks bear the name Graveyard of the Atlantic . It is a grim, but fitting, epithet, for here more than 600 ships have wrecked, victims of shallow shoals, storms, and war. Diamond Shoals , a bank of shifting sand ridges hidden beneath a turbulent sea off Cape Hatteras, has never promised safe passage for any ship.