Cape Point, Hatteras: Land of falling stars, blowing sands; where the rising sun is seen along the passing of the tides to its setting. East meets West from one point of view.
The South beach entrance is a hike by foot, and the beach itself is bookended by cars jettisoning out into the sea. This is the closest thing to a massive bay that I have seen on the Outer Banks. To the east, 40 cars follow the curve, and, where shore ends, strange waves crash perpendicular to the shore making that arc of the distant horizon frantic and jagged. To the West lies the end of the Outer Banks, only a ferry allowing for consciousness to march across the waters to Ocracoke. But, if you go at the right time of the year, there is—sandwiched between modernity—a 3 mile stretch of untrammeled beach.
The sea is just as peaceful from shore (and terrifying when wading out) as anywhere else. The beach though is different from the rest of the Outer Banks—a melancholic god made his home here. All the other beaches I have been too are like the land itself, anorexic and furiously fending off the inexorable advance of the sea. Those beaches are alluring for their transient nature, transcendent beauty and wonder that will soon pass, just like ourselves. Cape Point, though, seems purgatory-like, a massively-wide beach which is followed out by many ancient shorelines and appendix dunes. Now the land itself is just as flat as the rest of the Outer Banks, but its immensity, especially when juxtaposed with the rest of OBX, seems liminally eternal.
Anew Principium 