We are anchored in a creek about 150m wide that separates the old part of Beaufort and an Estuarine Sanctuary named after Rachel Carson. She was a famous marine biologist and environmentalist who visited here many times for both business and pleasure.  It is still an important research site for understanding how to maintain the health of this ecosystem. Her work on pesticide run-off led to the US ban on DDT and her book ‘Silent Spring’ is attributed with advancing the global environmental movement. She was also hugely influential in the development of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

North Carolina has over 10,000 miles of coastal habitat that include the marine forests where ‘Live Oak’ grow (famously used in the construction of the USS Constitution or ‘Old Ironsides’). They are a strange looking tree with a small, straggly canopy of dark oily leaves on top of what looks like dead branches.  It is an extraordinarily peaceful place, with the wild horses grazing in the distance and the promise that we may have learned just in time of its importance in protecting us all.