Three strangers straddle barstools at the Front Street Grill, though in Beaufort, North Carolina, no one stays a stranger for long. Jeff Heatley, sitting two stools to my left, sailed his 42-footer here from Charleston and has been living on it since spring. Sitting two stools to my right is Abe Winslow, who has stopped in Beaufort for a few days before sailing north. Abe is piloting a boat from Florida to Rhode Island. I'm the only one who took the land lubbers' route, driving three hours from Raleigh, North Carolina, across the lush coastal plain to the southern end of the Outer Banks-- the sandy strip of barrier islands that shields the state's coastline from the forces of the sea.

Beaufort is almost as close to Bermuda, 600 miles to the east, as it is to the state's western border. Sailors have long considered this tiny town a good jumping off spot. Some leave here for Bermuda or the Bahamas. Some stop here on their way up or down the Atlantic coast. Others discover the town and don't want to move on.

Former Beaufort mayor John Costlow told me of an Englishman who crossed the Atlantic with intentions to continue along the Eastern Shore then drop down into the Caribbean. But after pulling into Beaufort, he dropped anchor, married a local girl and settled in for good. Beaufort was until recently little more than a small commercial fishing village, but a couple of decades back, the town underwent a drastic urban renewal program to heighten its appeal to visitors.

Today, it's a "wonderful walk-around small town," says Jane Wolff, public information/volunteer coordinator for the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. "People traditionally came here to fish or go to the beach," Jane says. "After the renewal program, people started coming to walk on the boardwalk. The transient sailors, who are very much a part of the town's atmosphere, were encouraged. Slowly Beaufort began to evolve as a place where people wanted to come to."

Aside from feeling the charm of this small town, you'll experience a deep connection with the sea. The sea's influence on Beaufort--and the entire Outer Banks region--is captured well in the cozy, wood-paneled confines of the maritime museum.

The museum contains centuries-old small boats, nautical tools, maps and flags. At the Maritime Museum's Watercraft Center, visitors can watch from a balcony as the museum's boat-builder restores old sailing vessels. The museum offers a range of interpretive field programs that take visitors out to the marshes and natural reserves or for bike rides along the waterfront.

You don't have to spend a lot of time in Beaufort to see why folks would choose to settle here. It's a small town with small town charm. A single row of shops lines the town's main thoroughfare, Front Street. On Anglican-named back streets -- Queen, Ann, Orange -- restored colonial homes date back to the early 1700s.

"Beaufort has history and charm," says Fred McCune, co-owner of Clawson's 1905 Restaurant on Front Street. "It's small, and it's removed. We've not been overrun."

The state's third oldest town, Beaufort was incorporated in 1722. Many of the old homes face Taylor's Creek and, beyond that, the open sea. Early shipwrights built many of Beaufort's cottages; shipbuilders' preference for smooth curves over sharp angles is evident in many homes here.

Each June, Beaufort residents open their doors to guests during the Beaufort Old Homes and Gardens Tour. The oldest home in Beaufort is Hammock House, built in 1709 and reputed to have been the headquarters of the notorious pirate Blackbeard.

Today, it is the private residence of Betty and Gilles Cloutier. "People ask me if it's haunted," Betty says. "I tell them,'Yes, it's haunted.' They say, 'I mean, is it really haunted?' 'Oh yes,' I answer. 'We hear cries during the full moon.' "

There's no doubt that Blackbeard made landfall here. His ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, was found two years ago at the mouth of Beaufort Inlet. What surprises the locals is that the ship was found right beneath their noses, in 24 feet of water. They had sailed and fished over this area for years. Most figure that one of the recent hurricanes shifted the sands, exposing pieces of the 289-year-old vessel.

Following the loss of Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard made his way to Bath, North Carolina's oldest town. There, in 1718, he received the king's pardon from North Carolina's Governor Charles Eden. The pirate, however, soon returned to wicked ways and was eventually tracked down and killed by volunteers from the Royal Navy. Blackbeard's head was strung from the Navy ship as proof that the pirate had been slain.

Langdon House, the bed and breakfast where I am staying, is a mere 265 years old. Hand-forged nails and hand-wrought timbers testify to the authentic charm of this old home. When I arrive, owner Jimm Prest leads me to the front porch, where we sit in rocking chairs for 30 minutes or so, each of us sipping a "Dark and Stormy," a mix of ginger beer and rum. In the background, cicadas chirp rhythmically. Jimm came to Beaufort in the early 1980s.

"It's really a special place," he says. When I ask him why, he replies: "It has something to do with saying hello to people when you walk by on the street, and if you don't know them, taking a little time to get to know them."

Southern hospitality is alive and well. As an innkeeper, Jimm's philosophy is to help his guests wind down so that they can quickly adapt to the town's tranquillity. Those rockers on Jimm's broad porches help achieve that state of mind as do the absence of televisions in guest rooms. "We're out on the edge of the continent without all the day-to-day distractions," Jimm says. "It can be very refreshing, but it can also take some getting used to. I had a guest from New York tell me that he had to turn on his bathroom fan. It was too quiet for him. He couldn't get to sleep."

Beaufort is not for everyone. Those who want fast-paced nightlife would do better four hours south in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. But if your desire is to experience a real sense of place, you'll find Beaufort immensely satisfying.

On the second evening of my visit, I venture out to sea myself -- with the help of captain Ron White, his wife, Janis, and some of their friends. Captain Ron, owner of Good Fortune Sail Charters and Coastal Ecology Tours, makes his living from the Beaufort waterfront, taking folks back to nature. Ron has a pretty good life.

We sail along Shackleford Banks, where wild ponies run about. More than 100 wild ponies roam freely there, let loose, so the locals say, when a Spanish galleon ran aground here in the 17th Century. We follow trawlers, close enough to see the pale underbellies of dolphins who also trail the fishing vessels. A number of operators offer tours from the Beaufort waterfront to Shackleford Banks and Carrot Island for horse sightings, bird-watching, shelling and self-guided tours along the Rachel Carson National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Biff Mahoney, editor of the town's weekly newspaper, The Beaufort Gam, sails with us. He leans on a railing and tells me how he found this place. On leave from a job up North in 1995, Biff came down to explore the region with his son. They visited one coastal town after the other, all very much alike. But when they turned the corner onto Front Street, Biff knew he had come home. This wasn't just another seaside resort, he says. This was a place where he could hang his hat.

Heading east from town takes you to Down East, a region rich in taletellers, boat-builders and fishermen. You could toss a rock from Beaufort to the Down East community of Harkers Island, but the road that eventually takes you there runs 22 miles. Generations have grown up and lived in Harkers Island. Their relative isolation -- the bridge connecting island and mainland was erected only about 50 years ago -- has preserved their way of life and their Elizabethan dialect.

To hear this unique 17th century dialect, I visit David Yeomans, who grew up on Cape Lookout, just across the water from Harkers Island. David pronounces "high tide" as "hoi toid." He tells wonderful stories about growing up on Cape Lookout and about the felling of the lighthouse. The story goes that a man charged with taking down the old lighthouse figured he could do so by knocking out some bricks at the base. He needed a fast runner, though, who could swing the hammer and outrun the tumbling structure.

"He needed someone who could run 35 miles per hour," David says. "Less than that, and the lighthouse would fall directly on top of the fellow."The man went to the island's fastest runner, who said he was confident he could run fast enough to get out of the way of the falling lighthouse. The day came, and the runner stood there with the mallet. He drove a few bricks out, and the old lighthouse began to give way. The runner, though, had cut his foot and had to get down on his hands and knees to crawl to safety. He barely made it. "So we laid claim to having a fellow who could crawl 35 miles per hour," David says.

Down the road from David's house lives James Allen Rose, a model-boat builder who traces his ancestral roots back to Norway, Scotland and England. Across the road, at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, a couple of old-timers carve duck decoys from blocks of wood known as tupelo. Self-sufficiency on this relatively remote island has given the folks here a real knack for making things, from duck decoys to boats to quilts and candles.

From the easternmost point on Harkers Island, I ferry over to Cape Lookout. Here, I encounter Sonny Williamson, who runs the Cape Lookout Mule Train, which provides the only guided tours of the Cape. He appoints Chris Yeomans, a local schoolteacher who works summers with Sonny, to show me around in the "mule train," which turns out to be Chris' four-wheel drive truck.

We pass the towering Cape Lookout Lighthouse, sentinel to the often treacherous sea. We drive by a few homes, none of them permanently occupied, sitting on sandy dunes. Chris tells me that the island's only permanent inhabitants are loggerhead sea turtles, which waddle to shore to bury their eggs, and birds -- 7,200 species of them, including piping plovers, peregrine falcons and Arctic birds migrating south. We drive out to the point of Cape Lookout, where the chilly Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream with such force that it sends plumes of sea mist soaring skyward. These powerful currents wreak havoc on the ocean floor. They shift sand and shoals so that sailors and sea captains can scarcely navigate. I watch as a sailboat rounds the bend making its way to Beaufort Inlet.

From here, it's easy to see what draws sailors to the tiny maritime town. Its safe harbor provides a welcome bounty of pleasures not far from the restless sea. And for weary travelers, a respite from the busy world. 

Sidebar: The Road To Raleigh

If you've got a couple of days to spare, it's well worth the drive along the Outer Banks. The thin ribbon of barrier islands is historically rich and abundant with nature, particularly along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It's only about an hour's drive from Beaufort to Cedar Island. From here, ferries depart regularly for Ocracoke Island, where the national seashore begins. Ocracoke Lighthouse, the oldest beacon still operating in the state, leads boats safely to picturesque Silver Lake Harbor.

It was in the tiny fishing village of Ocracoke that volunteers from the Royal Navy beheaded Blackbeard following a brief but bloody battle on November 22, 1718. It was also in Ocracoke that four Royal Navy sailors were torpedoed offshore in 1942 and put to rest in the town's British Cemetery.

From Ocracoke, Highway 12 begins its ascent up the Outer Banks. Fourteen miles up the road, a ferry crosses over to Hatteras Island, where the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States rises 208 feet. Cape Hatteras lighthouse's 268 steps lead the way to panoramic vistas of the sand-fringed national seashore and of the treacherous seas that collide with such ferocity that sailors dubbed this region, the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

The drive from Cape Hatteras passes marshes where Egret, heron, glossy iris and a variety of wading birds make their homes spring through fall. At Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, 265 species of birds populate the 6,000-acres of protected nature reserves.

Continuing on Highway 12, cross the bridge at Oregon Inlet and head west for Roanoke Island (or continue into Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial, site of Wilbur and Orville Wright's first powered flight on December 17, 1903.) The focal point of Roanoke Island is Manteo, site of the first English Settlement in America. Here, America's oldest outdoor drama, The Lost Colony, depicts the epic unsolved mystery of how 117 colonists vanished with scarcely a trace. At the north end of Roanoke Island, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site makes the site where Sir Walter Raleigh's explorers and colonists established a settlement in 1585.

Manteo's a good place to overnight. The next day, a three-hour drive on Highway 64 takes you back to North Carolina's capital city, named in honor of Sir Walter Raleigh.