File:Coast watch (1979) (20666804351).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_11 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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restaurant along the water, as you wait in line, (you'll see) there are a lot of people who like watching boats," he says. "It's an incredible tourism draw." Besides touting the state as a boating haven, the council plans to offer more accommodations and recreational opportu- nities for boaters, he says. When choosing a destination, boaters look for dock slips or mooring sites close to food, lodging and other services. Fourteen municipalities along North Carolina's sounds and coast could fill these needs, but few do, Bradley says. So most of the boaters traveling the Intracoastal Waterway each year — a figure he estimates at 20,000 — do not stop to visit in the state. "North Carolina is really unique in that we have 3,000 miles of tidal shoreline, and boats on the coast can play in 2 million acres of water," he says. "Right now, with the excep- tion of New Bern, Beaufort and Elizabeth City, there are not many destination sites for the cruising boat." Docking is difficult in Washington, for example. The town has a "massive" walkway along its waterfront but few slips, while Bath has policies preventing construction of marina structures, he says. Wilmington is the largest city on North Carolina's coast with the most downtown waterfront and walking access to 40 restaurants, but it has the fewest slips for cruising vessels, he says. "Wilmington has about the equivalent of three docks with utilities for cruising boats," he says. "What this tourism council wants to do is to educate cities like Wilmington, Bath ... to show the advantages of what the tourism dollar can do both from people who come to watch boats bob and people who come in the boats." With the passage of the Urban Waterfront Law, the path is paved to build the waterfront accommodations boaters seek. The law permits coastal cities to build non-water-dependent businesses along the waterfront and over the water for the next three years. "It all fits together," Bradley says. "We're trying to get the municipalities to appreciate how important waterfront activity is to tourism and to make it easier for private industry to build and operate these support, recreational types of businesses: restaurants, inns and marinas. It's big money, big tourism." If the tide of boaters starts washing in, what may appear new actually will be a return to the old. "We are, historically, a state of boating," Bradley says. "If you talk to the old-timers in all of these little cities — how did they get to town? They went by boat. How did they get their groceries? They went by boat. They went to school, got married, everything was done by boat." "And then for 60 to 80 years, we've turned our back on the water. And we've created obstacles to accommodate the boat. And now we recognize that tourism is the number-one industry along the coastal waterways, and it's time to turn our face to the water and see what we can do to accommodate and
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promote waterway tourism." □ Enjoying the Dismal Swamp's natural beauty COASTWATCH 23

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