On the southern end of Bodie Island, just west of the bridge, there is a National Park Service small-boat basin operated by a concessionaire and the Oregon Inlet Coast Guard Station. A channel, marked by lights, buoys, and daybeacons, leads east-northeastward passing through Walter Slough, ending at the small-boat basin. A 150-foot radio tower at the Coast Guard Station can be seen from the approach. In 2011, the controlling depth was 3.2 feet in the channel with 4.4 feet in the basin.
Navigation:
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Oregon Inlet, about 2.5 miles southward of Bodie Island Light, is entered over a shifting bar. A lighted whistle buoy marks the approach; other buoys, not charted, are frequently shifted in position to mark the best water. A fish haven is about 4.5 miles southeast of the lighted whistle buoy. The inlet, used by local fishing vessels, but not recommended to strangers, requires continuous dredging; it deepens with northwest winds and fills in with northeast winds.
Bodie Island Light (35°49’07″N., 75°33’48″W.), 156 feet above the water, is shown from a conical tower, with alternate white and black horizontal bands above the granite base, about 2 miles northward of the southern end of Bodie Island, and 36 miles southward of Currituck Beach Light. A water tank 1.2 miles north of Bodie Island Light is prominent.
Tidal currents in the inlet are reported to be as much as 5 knots, but with southwesterly winds as much as 6 to 8 knots.
The Herbert C. Bonner (State Route 12) highway bridge crosses the inlet; the fixed channel span has a clearance of 65 feet over the main channel. Oregon Inlet Jetty Light (35°46’26″N., 75°31’30″W.), 28 feet above the water, is shown from a pile with a black and white diamond-shaped daymark.
Three marked dredged channels with a Federal project depth of 12 feet lead from Oregon Inlet into Pamlico Sound. Oregon Inlet Channel leads westward from the inlet to a junction with Old House Channel, which then leads southwestward into Pamlico Sound. From the junction, the inlet channel continues northward to a junction with Roanoke Sound Channel, which continues northward to a turning basin at Manteo. A side channel of the same project depth leads westward to a turning basin at Wanchese at the south end of Roanoke Island. A connecting channel with a project depth of 6 feet continues northward into Albemarle Sound from the north end of the Roanoke Sound Channel.
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