About Black Tip Shoals

The Legend of Black Tip Shoals

The fishing town of Black Tip Shoals is eponymously named after an outcropping from the infamous Diamond Shoals. These treacherous sandbars have caused chaos and destruction for centuries along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The pervasive danger to any seafaring craft led to the barrier islands earning the dubious moniker, “The Graveyard of the Atlantic.” Estimates suggest that anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 vessels have met their demise around this perilous stretch of coastline.

Mystery in the Waves

Like the blacktip sharks that migrate to these waters during the warmer months, the town itself remains shrouded in mystery. Black Tip Shoals has a particularly harrowing reputation due to the bizarre nature of its maritime history. There have been numerous eyewitness accounts of ghost ships vanishing into thin air. In the skies above the water dwell the Seneca Guns, thundering their presence at random times throughout the year. There are multiple reports of seafaring vessels being dragged beneath the surf by enormous aquatic beasts — and that’s before you even get to the pirates.

Why Here?

People have been drawn to this slim barrier island for hundreds of years — but why? There are other beaches, other places to fish and work the water. With so much still unknown about what truly happened in this Graveyard of the Atlantic, one has to wonder: why here?

Our Mission

That’s what Black Tip Shoals Maritime Supply is here to explore — to explain what has happened at the edge of the Atlantic, to embody the soul of the town and the essence of the Outer Banks, and to honor what makes this treacherous place so special to us all. Black Tip Shoals will chronicle these fantastic accounts of surf and spray, sand and wind.

We are also committed to ensuring that North Carolina’s coastline and wetlands endure for future generations to explore. A portion of the proceeds from every item we sell will go to local conservation organizations, helping us all coexist with the land, the sea, and the creatures that dwell here.