City: Buxton, NC

Category: Tours & Attractions

Address: In the Atlantic Ocean, off Cape Point

Description: You can only visit this attraction in private boats, but you can see this unusual light tower from the eastern shore of Cape Point and from the top of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Its bright beacon blinks every two seconds from a steel structure set 12 miles out in the sea. Diamond Shoals once held a lighthouse, but waves beat the offshore rocks that held the structure so badly that federal officials gave up the project. Three lightships have been stationed on the shoals since 1824. The first sank in an 1827 gale. The second held its ground from 1897 until German submarines sank it in 1918. The third beamed until 1967, when it was replaced by the current light tower. Diamond Shoals, the rocks around the tower, are the southern end of the treacherous near-shore sandbars off Hatteras Island.