Cape Lookout - A Great Stop

Continuing with our quest to visit places we’ve not seen before, we decided to spend a couple of days at Cape Lookout National Seashore. It is a 56 mile section of North Carolina’s Southern Outer Banks. It is comprised of 3 barrier islands, along with Portsmouth Historic Village and Cape Lookout Light. The islands are not commercialized at all – not even any place to leave garbage – you must take it out with you. One of the islands (Shackelford) has wild horses. There are numerous beaches with lots of shelling and a variety of birds and other wildlife. Linda got Gerry to walk the beaches four times in the two days we were there – probably a record. Although it is not known as a seaglass beach, Linda did find one good amethyst piece. Our two days were very peaceful with beautiful sunrises, beach combing, bird and turtle watching, capped off with gorgeous sunsets. This is definitely a place we would revisit.

Arriving at Cape Lookout - we worked our way through all
the fishing boats and entered into the protected cove of Lookout Bight

Our anchorage -- a little threatening the first night,
but nothing materialized

We had a great view of the lighthouse -- here's
the light flashing at night

Morning at the beach - the dinghy with Monk's Vineyard
in the background



A couple of American Oyster Catchers



Sea birds in the sea grass

These are Eastern Willets (I think)



A pair of Laughing Gulls



Cape Lookout Light



Another shot of the lighthouse as we
walked by it



Gerry - just hangin'



Birds doing a flyby



At sunset



Sun sinking fast



New day -- this is just before sunrise



Here comes the sun



Boats aground -- people anchor their boats at
the beach and then set up camp on the beach overnight. 
In the morning they have to wait for the tide to come
in before they can leave



Lots of shelling on the beach - starfish 1



Starfish 2



.. and starfish 3



Now a couple of shots of the beach

As the tide went out it left little pools of water and lots of shells



This is our electronic chart showing where we were.
Shackleford, Harkers and the Core Banks,
along with the area where we were
(a little north of Catfish Point in Lookout Bight)
make up the Cape Lookout National Seashore