Ocracoke Island is the southernmost island of America’s first national seashore and offers access to Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Reaching the island by boat takes effort, and the ferry from Hatteras Island follows a roundabout route because Hatteras Inlet is shallow and its channel is always shifting. Ocracoke Island was once connected to Hatteras Island until a storm in 1846 created the inlet. The island is home to hundreds of bird species, including permanent residents such as the brown pelican, and each spring and fall small groups of endangered North Atlantic right whales migrate past the Outer Banks. A segment of the skull of a sixty-foot whale that washed ashore in 1988 remains there, and the mailboat Aleta once arrived at the Ocracoke Island dock to crowds eagerly awaiting the mail.