Common Buckeye

A common Buckeye butterfly.  How did it survive this late in the season?

 

Last look

One last look from Beaufort.  

 

Sunset Beaufort, NC

The sun sets over the water in Beaufort.  Not what you usually see on the East coast.  

 

Drift

It's hard to resist taking artful driftwood pictures...

 

Birds on the Bank

The pelicans were feeding on a school of fish.

A sanderling scuttled in and out of the tide.

 

Wild Horses

Wild horses have been on Shackleford Banks for 400 years.  They are believed to be descendants of Spanish horses shipwrecked off the coast.

They seem to spend all of their time eating.  The vegetation is very sparse so I can see why.  Even so they look pretty skinny.

 

Shackleford Banks

While in Beaufort, we took a ferry to Shackleford Banks, a barrier island off the coast.  It is part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore.   

It's a good place to look for shells

And the ones you don't keep, you can hang on the tree at the embarking point for the ferry.

 

Topsail park, Beaufort

This statue in Topsail marine park memorializes fishermen.  Yet the park also memorialized the spot as a known landing point of the middle passage.  African captives that survived the Atlantic crossing disembarked here and then sold at the courthouse in Beaufort.

 

Old Guard

This confederate statue guards the Carteret county government building.  Erected in 1926, 60 years after the end of the Civil War, its purpose was to frighten Black citizens from registering to vote.

Many such statues have been removed yet many more still remain.

 

Beaufort

Beaufort has been a harbor town for hundreds of years.  Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard the pirate, sailed out of Beaufort and the outer islands.  His ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground in Beaufort inlet.  (see here)

 

Beaufort

We took a Thanksgiving trip to Beaufort, NC.  A small city on the coast.  I looked twice before I realized that this was a mural on the back of a building.