Cape Lookout!

Cape Lookout is a short day trip from Oriental. It took about 2 hours total to get there and this includes 2 ferry rides.  The first ferry was from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Point.  This is a car ferry across the Neuse river.  The second ferry is a passenger ferry from Harkers Island right up to the Cape Lookout lighthouse.
You pack in what you want for the outing and pack it back out.  There are no trash facilities or food on the island.  This is great because it makes it more of an adventure.  There are some nice paths through the dunes and sea oats on the island.  It is about 1/2 a mile wide where we landed.  After a couple of hours on the Atlantic side, we got some of the last tickets to climb the lighthouse for the season.
The current lighthouse was built in 1859 and is quite impressive. It is solid masonry construction with a 10 foot thick wall at its base that tapers on the exterior down to 2 feet at the top.  It is 163 feet tall and very windy at the top!

Here is a link to the Google Map of the area...