Haunts and Eats - The Ghosts of the Outer Banks

The Outer Banks are barrier islands at the far northeast shore of North Carolina. They are an old place, wrapped in secrecy for many years because of their separation from the mainland. People who have lived here have done so because they had a strong will to survive - and maybe that's why so many of them have clung to their lives - even after death.

There are many lonely places, forlorn spots that bring a sigh. It's almost as though you can feel the sadness of the island sometimes.

Ghost stories are the norm. Blackbeard the pirate still walks these haunted shores. The lighthouses that protected sailors from the Graveyard of the Atlantic, as the sea is known here, sometimes catch their insubstantial shapes.

Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr,  died here in a stormy sea. Hundreds of others lie with her at the bottom of the cold Atlantic. They say she walks the shores looking for her dead son.

But there are many others. The ghost of an unknown woman walks forlornly around the base of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. No one knows why she's there or who she is.

This is also a place of mystery - we may never know for certain what happened to those first settlers who vanished after writing Croatan on a tree near their abandoned settlement. Even after that, life was hard for settlers who came here. They faced storms, little food and despair.

Now their ancestors live with their shadows across the island, hiding behind 100 foot sand dunes and whispering to them in the night. Ghosts from the past are easy to find here. The problem might be getting away from them.