Since the 1950s, surfers have come from around the world to ride Buxton’s legendary waves near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. A group of island youths learned to harness waters that had sunk ships and stranded mariners on the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” with the early core of Hatteras Island surfers including teenagers John Ochs and Buddy Hooper, later joined by Stewart and John Couch, Ray Gray, Elvin Hooper, Shelley Rollinson, and Asa Gray. In the 1970s, Buxton’s Johnny Conner began renting surfboards from an abandoned mobile home that grew into J.C.’s Surf Shop, and other surf shops soon opened in an old post office and a burger joint while boards were built in garages and a tanning salon. Drawn by the island’s consistent surf, some surfers relocated to Hatteras Island and supported themselves as commercial fishermen, photographers, a screen repairer, real estate agents, servers, restaurant owners, a writer, carpenters, and contractors. Buxton’s surf also attracted accomplished surfboard builders, including Ted James and Scott Busbey, both honored in the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, whose families founded surfing-related businesses on the island that continue today. Over time, traditional surfing also led to wind surfing, kite boarding, and stand-up paddle boarding along Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks.