| Somehow, pirates have found themselves in a fairly romantic and favorable place in the history of America. They sank English ships to speed the Revolution, saved Andrew Jackson’s butt at New Orleans in 1814, and basically enjoy a sort of “Robin Hood” reputation which is pretty far from the true picture. The fact that they were thieving murdering scoundrels is often lost in our Hollywood zeal to paint their hearts as gold as the treasure they never actually buried anywhere.
 Recently, awash in indecision between the Captain Kidd Korndog or the Jack Sparrow Spaghetti in a Nags Head diner, I noticed there were no women so culinarily honored on the menu. “How can this be?” I wondered. There must have been some swashbuckling ladies of the coast, were there not? Surely a first mate or two sailed under those crossed bones and skulls helping to make Roger jolly. Wasn’t there a seafaring gal who made her mark in a man’s world like Amelia Earhart, Clara Barton, or Gertrude Ederle? Burning with curiosity, and indigestion from the Jean Lafitte Lamb chops, I made my way to the far southern end of Hatteras Island to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum to find clues to this and other mysteries.
Bearing a vague resemblance to the bleaching ribs of a stranded clipper, the Museum, which opened in October 2008, is quickly becoming one of the most popular and interesting attractions in the Outer Banks. Inside you will find the secret coding machine and other parts of German U-85, sunk off the coast in 1942.
Ironically, the bell from the lightship Diamond Shoals, sunk by a U-boat in 1918, is on display after being recovered from the deep. Even parts of the Monitor are here to fuel your wonder.
The first Fresnel lens from the original Hatteras light greets you when you come in the door. All around are posters and beautifully presented artifacts of the hundreds of ships that met their fates in the Graveyard of the Atlantic. No Bermuda Triangle enigmas here, this is a simple legacy of big men, big ships, and the sea that was always bigger. Each vessel, each of the dozens and dozens of names on the map, speaks to a desperate hour when the struggles of better sailors than you or I failed to bring them home to safe harbor.
Here is a hatch that a bosun closed for the last time, the signal lantern that blinked its final SOS on a dark and stormy night, and the anchor that dragged with its dismayed crew to an unforgiving lee shore in a Force 10 nor’easter.
And yes, in a special section devoted to the pirates like Blackbeard that really did lurk in North Carolina waters, are the stories of woman freebooters who defied the odds at the helm of a ship under a black flag.
You learn of Irish Ann Bonny who, with notorious Calico Jack, terrorized the coast until their capture in 1720. There’s Mary Read, who it’s said disguised herself as a man to gain a berth aboard a privateer until her capture and death in prison.
They had to have been tough, even tougher than the men they sailed with, to live the marauding life and die the pirate’s death, like buccaneers Rachel Wall and Mary Crickett did, at the end of the hangman’s rope.
 If you go:
The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is at the end of Route 12 in Hatteras Village in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, about 100 yards past the Ocracoke Ferry dock.
Open Monday through Saturday, 10-4, admission is free, donations are accepted. They have a terrific gift shop. Check out: http://www.graveyardoftheatlantic.com/
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