5/16/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 3

In our walks over the dune to the beach and also along the beach we had noticed numerous small tunnels that had been dug in the sand by some sort of animal. This morning, we discovered who the tunnel diggers were - Ghost Crabs. Several of them had their holes under and around the picnic table in our campsite. We watched them going in and out of the holes and picking something up off the ground to eat (ants maybe?).

We went to Ocracoke Village and stopped to see the Ocracoke Lighthouse. It looked like it had recently been painted.

The infamous pirate Blackbeard was caught and killed just off shore of Ocracoke Island.

We had lunch at the Jolly Roger so we could enjoy watching the Pelicans again. We then went back to the campground and went for another beach walk. We came across these strange marks in the sand. Perhaps the bubbles in the sea foam had picked up some sand that had stayed behind when the bubbles burst?

The tide was coming in and we noticed that air was bubbling up out of the sand at the edge of the incoming waves. We decided that the most likely cause was air coming up from the Ghost Crab tunnels that were being flooded by the waves.