We departed the Outer Banks crossing the five mile long Melvin R. Daniels Bridge on I64 in bright sunlight.  The bridge arched over the water ahead of us.  We approached Alligator Island, I could see the marina below with a row of big (and expensive) ocean fishing craft at rest.  These looked to be boats for charter.  You could contract with a captain to convey you and your friends into deep water to drink beer and maybe catch a yellow fin tuna.  Those few moments of viewing the boats caused me to think about the presence of humans on the 200 mile long string of barrier islands, — particularly from the late 20th century to the present. 

According to Wikipedia:

Before Europeans came to the Albemarle Sound, the Pamlico lived in the region. They traveled the sound in dugout canoes, and trapped fish.  In 1586 the first European explorers sailed up the fifty-five-mile (89 km) length of the Albemarle Sound.

Fishing was a major industry in the Albemarle Sound. In late spring, plantation farmers would fish for shad, striped bass, and herring. Nets used by these fishermen were sometimes enormous, with some more than a mile (1600 m) long, and were frequently staffed 24 hours a day. Herring was cut and salted for export to Europe, while shad was packed in ice and shipped up the Chowan River to be sold in northern colonies. Regional striped bass tournaments attracted sports fishermen to the area, and it was considered by many to be the greatest striped bass fishery in the world.

I thought about what the “American pursuit of happiness” has meant for this area.  In the Nags Head community we were informed by several that property values have skyrocketed.  It is difficult to believe “working class” Americans could afford to live in the area.  Many properties appear to be for commercial income-generating purposes.

“Development” a term increasingly to mean to maximize the future financial return on cost, no matter the consequence to natural beauty, or to the preexisting vegetative and ocean life.  Acceleration, compression of space-time, with no lingering for contemplation or delay to consider the external effect of our development plans — is the rule-of-thumb.  “This is us,” a 21st century American “family portrait.”

Water pollution and development in recent years have depleted the fisheries of the Albemarle Sound by seventy percent.

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The image of the steam locomotive passenger train crossing the Sound in the moonlight causes me to pause in thought.  Is there a more apt symbol of the application of materials science, of mechanical engineering to create a machine which reduces the barriers of space and time, to allow convenient population expansion, development, and domination of the environment…?

There isn’t.