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Articles by Ryan Stancil
The Artist: James Melvin
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. James Melvin gripped his fishing rod, his feet dangling off the tailgate as the warm sun draped over his shoulders.
The Doctor: Walter Holton & Barbara Holton
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. One hundred and ten miles of shoreline, 245,000 acres, 9,300 people. One doctor. When Dr. Walter Holton finished his medical residency and moved his family to Manteo in 1974, Dare County had been without a full-time physician for several years.
The Surfboard Shaper: Scott Busbey
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. “You know … I’ve never had a real job,” says the shaggy-haired 73-year-old, his T-shirt, emblazoned with a surf brand logo, hanging loose at the shoulders.
The Historian: David Cecelski
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. In a second-floor room overlooking Bogue Sound, David Cecelski stands quietly, gazing through a wall of windows, his reflection faintly superimposed on the overcast sky.
The Boatbuilder: Paul Spencer
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. The light spilling from the metal building’s entrance narrows to a sliver before vanishing as the door slams shut. Paul Spencer steps from bright daylight into the windowless carpentry shop, his eyes adjusting. The air inside holds the faint scent of sawdust and varnish.
The Scientist: Sara Mirabilio
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. A stiff, gunmetal-gray dorsal fin slices through the water’s surface as a six-foot spinner shark glides alongside a commercial vessel. The late August air hangs thick, an invisible blanket over the bright blue-green Atlantic.
The Oystermen: Morris Family Shellfish
Old Salts: Whether native or transplant, these folks found their place and passions on North Carolina’s coast, becoming as integral to life here as the sand and sea. Read more about the folks that make the coast thrive. James Morris Jr.’s tall, lanky figure bends at the waist, his head ducking into the cabin of the 25-foot Parker boat as Nelson Bay stretches out behind him. “Let’s head to Owens Bay,” he says to the broad man behind the wheel, his father, Jimmy, who nods in agreement.
The Living Edge | Our State
Wrightsville Beach In this intertidal world, narrow, winding creeks rise and fall at the predictable whim of the tide. Twice daily, a silent encroachment of water from the inlet swells these arteries, and the marsh succumbs to the tide’s watery weight, drinking in its cocktail of Atlantic salt and river minerals. Bald Head Island The mats of peat and fields of spartina that hug the backsides of our barrier islands are more than scenic habitats and recreational havens.
A Snappy Season for Soft-Shell Crabs
Vicki Basnight pulls her faded orange oilskins, marred with scars and swipes of mud, over her tar-speckled boots. “These old rigs have seen some crabs. I got some new ones, but I like my old ones better,” she says with a deep, genuine, infectious laugh. Basnight hoists the suspenders over her shoulders and settles in behind the wheel of Old Red, her 22-foot Privateer. She glances at Shallowbag Bay scrolling past in the distance.
Old Christmas in Rodanthe
On the corner of the stage in the old Rodanthe schoolhouse sits a drum propped on a metal folding chair. The rope tensions stand in contrast to its cracked and peeling hoops and brittle leather ears. The patinated shell scarred by time and its taut head — worn, torn, patched, and repaired — is a lasting artifact of a steadfast Hatteras Island tradition, unique to its northernmost village wedged between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound.
Christmas on Portsmouth Island
It’s 20 days before Christmas, and Gregory Gilgo stuffs the last of about two dozen wreaths into the hold of his boat. The night before, temperatures bottomed out in the 20s, and in the early morning light, ice clung in a thin sheet around the oyster beds along the shore of Cedar Island. Tucking a red bow into the compartment, Gilgo is ready to go home to a place he has never lived to decorate an island village where no living soul remains.
The Stewards of Salter Path’s Fishing Tradition
Neal Smith pulls into the parking lot at the end of Henderson Drive in Atlantic Beach, 10 miles east of his home in Salter Path. He turns the dial to switch off his headlights, plunging the two-door Chevrolet into darkness, and eases the pickup to the dune line. The dashboard lights cast a glow across the lines of his face as he shifts into four-wheel drive and climbs the narrow path onto the beach. It’s mid-November, just ahead of a full moon.
The Diamond City Descendants
Chris Yeomans walks to the 10-by-10-foot shed in his backyard and grabs hold of the combination lock that secures the building. The stainless steel lock has lost its luster from the salt air, but the numbers remain legible. “This lock here was on my high school locker, and it still works. Isn’t that crazy?” Chris says.The retired educator and former school principal, born and raised on Harkers Island, swings open the doors to the shed and reaches into the dark, working a lawnmower into the light.
The Outer Banks’ Unsung Heroines
Along the windswept dunes on the strip of barrier island wedged between Oregon and Hatteras inlets, the ghosts of long-gone Bankers drift among swaying sea oats and the barbed thorns of prickly pears. Steeped in chartreuse cordgrass and rendered flaxen by goldenrod, the marsh shimmers with generations of islanders lost to time.
In Search of Down East
Rising slightly above sea level on the east’ard edge of North Carolina lies a watery part of the world, trimmed by salt marsh, blanketed in needlerush, and molded with wind-sculpted live oaks. It’s the kind of place where sunsets seem more golden and clear days more blue, where light and shadow feel amplified and a hard northwest wind sharper, where the pungent scent of the marsh is as welcome as a gentle southwest breeze.
Happy as Clams | Our State
As the sun retreats from its summit, inching down toward the horizon line separating the dark blue water around Ocracoke from the Carolina blue sky, Ruth Toth lowers a bright orange fishing basket and well-worn aluminum clam rake into the boat. From under the brim of her sun hat, she glances back at her cedar-shingled home overlooking Pamlico Sound and Teach’s Hole Channel. She checks her watch: The tide is dropping.
Lighthouse Folks: John Havel
“Honey, why don’t we just sell our house and move to the Outer Banks to be close to the ‘other woman’ in our marriage?” suggested John Havel’s wife, Aida, 14 years into her husband’s “tryst.” “I had never noticed her up close until Aida and I saw her together in 2003,” Havel admits. “She was absolutely amazing.” That other woman? She is the tallest, most recognizable, and regarded by some as the most beautiful in America — the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
Buxton Village Books
In the heart of the village of Buxton, a haven for readers awaits. The bookshop — an 1860s kitchen house built from shipwreck timbers — is a dream conjured by its caretaker, Gee Gee Rosell. When she landed on Hatteras Island in the 1970s, the then 22-year-old with a forestry degree found the idea of committing to a career path daunting. Rosell got a job at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where she helped to prepare for seasonal visitors.
Lighthouse Folks: Dale Mutro
Dale Mutro’s pink-and-teal Hawaiian shirt is a bright spot behind the check-in desk at The Anchorage Inn overlooking Silver Lake Harbor. The bold shirt suits the colorful postmaster turned hotel receptionist. “I love local history,” he says.
Lighthouse Folks: Heber Guthrie
Every year, a couple hundred thousand Coppertone-smeared visitors board the Island Express Ferry at the end of the road on Harkers Island. Their journey across Back Sound and past the grazing horses of Shackleford Banks culminates in the shadow of Cape Lookout’s reigning queen, the Diamond Lady. As flip-flops and tennis shoes hit the dock, visitors step back in time to a sacred place that’s more than the sum of its picturesque parts.
Lighthouse Keeper: Meghan Agresto
The first couple of times Meghan Agresto came to Currituck County, she didn’t visit the lighthouse. “When I came in 2002, it was $6 to climb,” she says, “but I didn’t have six bucks.” Twenty-two years later, Agresto climbs the 220 steps daily and calls the Currituck Beach Lighthouse home. Her contagious personality shines as bright as the tower’s original Fresnel lens. “I have a voice that sounds like a mad cigarette smoker because I talk too much,” she says.
America’s Lighthouse
On a quiet autumn evening nearly five decades ago, the bride turned around inside the station wagon and gazed through its rear window into the black night. The gentle beam of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse swept across the marsh and spilled into the car before vanishing east over the dunes. On one of the happiest nights of the newlywed’s life, a deep melancholy, as thick as the fog hovering inches above Pamlico Sound, permeated the car as it sped north up NC Highway 12.
Shifting Sands of the Outer Banks
Along the thread of sand that seems to dangle suspended between an expanse of Carolina blue sky and the vast indigo of the Atlantic, there is certainty in the uncertain. On North Carolina’s barrier islands, what is here today can be gone tomorrow. A strong northeast blow can render the tangible ethereal. This sliver of land, whose resiliency is often mistaken for fragility, is unyielding and inflexible in its will to transform. It bows only to the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
The Tides That Bind on Hatteras Island
The sun hangs low in the sky as the parking lot at Hatteras Harbor Marina fills with spectators — some perched on golf carts, others in lawn chairs, still others standing. All eyes are on the procession of boats floating solemnly in the water. The hum of diesel engines quiets, giving way to the prayer that echoes over the fleet’s VHF radios. Pastor Toni Wood’s voice rings out, her pitch rising and falling: “Father, thank you for this beautiful place that we call Hatteras Village.
Soup from the Sound
A mesh bag of clams lands with a thud at the edge of the avocado green sink inside Fred Miller’s family cottage, tucked in Buxton’s maritime forest. The palm-size shells clank against the enameled, cast-iron basin, and Miller, an 86-year-old descendant of Hatteras Lighthouse keepers and grandson of the famed U.S. Life-Saving Service hero Baxter Benjamin Miller, begins to reminisce. “Growing up, my grandmother in Buxton always had a pot of Hatteras clam chowder on the stove,” he says.
A Storied Stay in the Old Marshall Jail Hotel
Between craggy cliffs and riverside train tracks, the 1905 Marshall Jail has borne witness to the ebbs and flows of a beloved Appalachian town. The legends that the building holds and the stories etched into its patinated walls are part of what attracted Josh and Emily Copus to the property. With the help of three partners, they bought the nearly condemned building in 2016 and have since restored it as a boutique hotel, market, bar, and restaurant.
Prescribed Burns Bring New Life
The late morning temperature has reached 85 degrees, and the humidity hangs as heavily as the smoke-scented yellow Nomex jacket that Carla Edwards wears over her shirt. She squints at her map of Carolina Beach State Park, bleached white in the sun’s glare. This park, situated on the Cape Fear River, is where she’s been a ranger for 12 years of her nearly three-decade career.
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