Drivers find Hatteras beaches less and less accessible

HATTERAS, N.C.

Confused visitors and tired park rangers marked the Memorial Day weekend on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, where changing closures to protect birds have created broad and sometimes hard-to-define limits on beach access.

Sections of beach north of Avon were closed Monday because of an American oystercatcher. There was a violation of closure in Salvo south of Ramp 23 on Saturday that resulted in an increase in a buffer.

And a s the first holiday weekend of the summer season began Friday, a two-egg American oystercatcher nest was found on Hatteras Inlet Spit about 1.3 miles south of Ramp 55. That made the last of the favored off-road areas in Cape Hatteras National Seashore inaccessible to vehicles.

Under the terms of a consent decree approved last month, the National Park Service must establish large buffers around nesting shorebirds, which has resulted in many of the closures' blocking access to open areas.

At Bodie Island Spit near Oregon Inlet, closures have made it impossible to reach open beaches beyond the buffers. But about two miles of beach at Ramp 2 south of Coquina Beach remained open to off-road vehicles, as well as a short section to the south of Ramp 4.

Park service rangers were posted at the ramps to advise beach drivers about the rules and where they could go.

"They were very friendly and very helpful," said Peggy Byrd with Whalebone Tackle in Nags Head.

"There was an awful lot of people down there. It was like a parking lot, but everybody seemed to be behaving. I was glad to see that," she said.

More than 400 vehicles visited Oregon Inlet on Saturday, said Paul Stevens, park service law enforcement specialist. Because of the narrow corridor, a no-cruising policy had to be put in place.

On Sunday, the vehicle count went up to about 700. For about an hour in the mid afternoon, traffic was limited to one vehicle on for every vehicle that came off.

By Monday, the vehicle numbers had dropped to about 350.

Jon Anglin, the park service Outer Banks Group operations section chief, said that, overall, people were understanding and cooperative about the beach closures.

"It's been confusing, and it is really hard to explain," he said. "Handling all the information that is generated by all this is a nightmare. I know it's frustrating people."

The park service has made the closures available on Google Earth for the public to view, but the site is not in real time.

Because the situation with buffer locations and sizes is a moving target, even the park staff is having difficulty keeping up with which beaches are closed and when, and if pedestrians have access or not.

"It is really tough to explain to people," he said. "These are some of the things that we didn't even think of until we started implementing the consent decree."

The beach closures have also apparently been hard on island businesses, especially tackle shops.

"Normally, on Memorial Day weekend, the whole island will run out of ice," said John Mortenson at Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, which he said has been about 50 percent down in business. "We didn't come close to running out of ice.

"Nobody came. It was a big bust-o this weekend."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com