New island appears off North Carolina coast, tourists rowing over despite warnings
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A new island off the coast of North Carolina (not pictured) revealed itself over the past few months. (iStock)
There’s always a new place to be discovered on this little blue marble of ours.
A new island, just off the tip of Cape Point in Buxton, N.C., has practically crept up overnight. The island is approximately a mile long and three football fields wide.
“It was just a little bump in April,” said Janice Reagan to The Virginian-Pilot. Her son, Caleb, has named it “Shelly Island” for the scores of untouched seashells that are found nearby.
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Dave Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which oversees the area of Cape Point, warns that getting to the island is dangerous and that people should not attempt to walk or swim across the current to get there.
Since the area is a popular fishing spot, there can be many discarded fishing hooks on the sea bottom. Bill Smith, president of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, also told The Virginian-Pilot that the five-foot-long sharks and stingrays “as large as a hood of a truck” like to hunt in those waters.
Still, some visitors have been rowing rafts across to the island.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}According to Hallac, Cape Point is constantly changing. The sand moves and expands depending on currents and storms, which means the “Shelly Island” could easily disappear just as quickly as it came to be.
Or it can expand and even connect to Cape Point, making fishing even more of a draw in the area.
If you do happen to visit Cape Point, you’ll never know what to expect.