New Hanover County is one of 100 counties located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 225,702. Though the second-smallest NC county in land area, it is one of the most populous, as its county seat, Wilmington, is one of the state's largest cities. The county was created in 1729 as New Hanover Precinct and gained county status in 1739. New Hanover County is included in the Wilmington, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which also includes neighboring Pender County.
Bald Head Island, historically Smith Island, is a village located on the east side of the Cape Fear River in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. Compared to the nearby city of Wilmington to the north, the village of Bald Head Island is small and somewhat remote. It is accessible by ferry from the nearby town of Southport and by four-wheel drive vehicle along the beach strand from Fort Fisher to the north. Only government officials are allowed to drive the beach strand route. There are few cars on the island; instead, residents drive modified electric golf carts. Bald Head Island is nationally recognized for its sea turtle nesting activity.
Cape Fear is a prominent headland jutting into the Atlantic Ocean from Bald Head Island on the coast of North Carolina in the southeastern United States. It is largely formed of barrier beaches and the silty outwash of the Cape Fear River as it drains the southeast coast of North Carolina through an estuary south of Wilmington. Cape Fear is formed by the intersection of two sweeping arcs of shifting, low-lying beach, the result of longshore currents which also form the treacherous, shifting Frying Pan Shoals, part of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Cape Bojador is a headland on the west coast of Western Sahara, at 26° 07' 37"N, 14° 29' 57"W, as well as the name of the large nearby town with a population of 42,651. The name of the surrounding province also derives its name from the cape.
Oak Island is located on the Atlantic Ocean coast in Brunswick County, North Carolina near the South Carolina border. A barrier island, it contains the towns of Oak Island and Caswell Beach, Fort Caswell and the Oak Island Coast Guard Station which is co-located with the Oak Island Lighthouse. Almost 13 miles long, the island averages about one mile wide. Approximately 7000 people live on it year-round, a number which can balloon to over 40,000 during the summer
Bald Head Lighthouse, known as Old Baldy, is the oldest lighthouse still standing in North Carolina. It is the second of three lighthouses that have been built on Bald Head Island since the 19th century to help guide ships past the dangerous shoals at the mouth of the Cape Fear river.
Cape Fear Lighthouse was a coastal beacon built in 1903, replacing the Bald Head Lighthouse as the main navigation aid for Cape Fear and the Frying Pan Shoals off the coast of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It stood near the cape on Bald Head Island. It was a steel octagonal pyramidal skeleton frame lighthouse, as opposed to the conical brick lighthouses usually associated with the state. It was painted red and white horizontal stripes: three white and two red and housed a first-order Fresnel lens produced by the Henry-LePaute Company in France.
Billingsgate Island, also sometimes known as Bellingsgate Island, was an island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts in the United States. Originally settled as a fishing and whaling community as part of the town of Eastham, Massachusetts, Billingsgate Island was for a long time the site of a lighthouse used as a navigational aid in Cape Cod Bay. Local historians sometimes call it the Atlantis of Cape Cod.
Cape Forchu is a Canadian fishing community and headland of the same name in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia.
Seal Island is an island on the outermost extreme of Southwestern Nova Scotia, Canada, in the Municipality of the District of Argyle in Yarmouth County. It is approximately 4.3 kilometres (2.7 mi) long and 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) wide and is surrounded on its east, south and west sides by dangerous shoals. It is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and is the biggest of a group of five islands which extend north for 12 kilometres (7.5 mi). It is the second southernmost point of land of Nova Scotia. The southern tip of nearby Cape Sable Island is 250 metres (820 ft) farther south than the southern tip of land on Seal Island.
The White Shoal Light is a lighthouse located 20 miles (32 km) west of the Mackinac Bridge in Lake Michigan. It is an active aid to navigation. It is also the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes.
Frying Pan (LV-115) is a lightvessel moored at Pier 66a in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It served at Frying Pan Shoals, off Cape Fear in North Carolina, for over 30 years.
Frying Pan Shoals Light Tower is a decommissioned lighthouse located on the Frying Pan Shoals approximately 39 miles (63 km) southeast of Southport, North Carolina, and 32 miles (51 km) from Bald Head Island, North Carolina. The tower is currently privately owned and was formerly a bed and breakfast retreat, and is noted for its survival through several significant tropical storms.
On 27 March 2009, at least one boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy capsized. The boat is believed to have been carrying 250 migrants from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine and Nigeria. A rescue attempt involving the Italian and Libyan navies rescued 21 survivors from the boat and retrieved 21 bodies. A further 77 bodies subsequently washed up on the shores of Libya before rescue efforts were called off. Two other boats also went missing between Libya and Italy, carrying around 250 more people between them. A fourth boat, carrying 350 people, was rescued by an Italian merchant ship on 29 March in the same area of sea.
Chincoteague Inlet is found lying between Assateague Island and Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It is 30 miles south-southwestward from the Ocean City, MD Inlet.
USCGC Cape Upright was United States Coast Guard steel-hulled patrol boat of the 95-Foot or Cape class.
The American steamer Ozama, 1028 tons, was the former British steamer Craigallion, built by Ramage & Ferguson in 1881 at Leith, Scotland. She had a colorful history, with a mutiny and gunrunning. She was shipwrecked twice, the first time in 1885 in the Bahamas, and the last in 1894 on the outer shoal of Cape Romain, South Carolina. She was named for the Ozama River in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, which was one of her regular ports of call.
The Ephraim Williams was a sailing ship wrecked off the coast of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, during a late December storm, late in 1884. The rescue of the barkentine's crew by Benjamin B. Dailey and his six oarsmen of the United States Lifesaving Service was considered particularly heroic, and the rescue is celebrated to the present day.
Corncrake Inlet was a historical (channel) located on the Cape Fear region in the Brunswick County of North Carolina just south of Federal Point. The Channel is now closed and the original coordinates for Corncrake Inlet placed it within the 28461 ZIP Code delivery area, and the approximate elevation is unknown above sea level. The presence of this channel dates back to 1938.
Gracie was a 19th-century Boston pilot boat built in 1869 at the Edward A. Costigan shipyard in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The schooner was used by Boston pilots and was sold to North Carolina pilots in 1881.
