Graveyard of the Atlantic

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Graveyard of the Atlantic

Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, Hatteras, North Carolina, June 2007

USS Monitor Historical Marker outside the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, Hatteras, North Carolina, June 2007

Graveyard of the Atlantic is a nickname given to the treacherous waters in the Atlantic Ocean along the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Virginia coastline south of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay at Cape Henry. In this area of the ocean, the cold waters of the Labrador Current, which originates around the Baffin Sea between Greenland and northeast coast of Canada, collide with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream flowing from Caribbean Sea.

The hazards of severe weather, strong currents, and navigational challenges, particularly in the Diamond Shoals area off Cape Hatteras, combined to cause the loss of thousands of ships and an unknown number of human lives. More than 2,000 ships have sunk in these waters since people began keeping records in 1526.

Among the better known shipwrecks was the USS Monitor, a participant in the famous Battle of Hampton Roads during the American Civil War. The Monitor foundered and sank on December 31, 1862 off Cape Hatteras. Survivors of a much earlier shipwreck created the lost town of Wash Woods, Virginia using lumber which washed ashore. However, the extreme weather eventually claimed the town as well.

The term "Graveyard of the Atlantic" is also used to describe Sable Island, Nova Scotia and Cape Cod, Massachusetts^[1].