Aquarium reborn on Bogue Banks

Attraction is expected to boost local economy

PINE KNOLL SHORES -- On coastal North Carolina's Bogue Banks, a touristy 25-mile-long island where condominiums and hotels have squeezed out mini-golf and family campgrounds, the opening today of an expanded state aquarium is a promising rebirth.

For the first time in 2 1/2 years, visitors have a place to watch sharks swim, to touch stingrays and to study shipwrecks. Local retirees again have a place to volunteer. And businesses regain a triple-sized lure for customers.

"I've got a lot of people asking about it -- very many," said Stanley Smith, owner of the beachside, 23-unit Oak Grove Motel in nearby Salter Path. "I think it will make a big impact. It will give families a place to go.

"Me, too. I'm dying to see what it looks like."

Local leaders and the aquarium's managers are counting on that kind of enthusiasm to boost the region's tourism economy, while also teaching children and adults the value of ecology and natural conservation.

Some of the island's venerable attractions are fading, from the Jungleland amusement center at Atlantic Beach to old-style campgrounds farther west, as condominiums and private homes replace public amenities.

That makes the aquarium all the more important for Carteret County's "Crystal Coast," which adorns the middle of North Carolina's long shoreline, about 150 miles southeast of the Triangle.

"We have missed it, yes, indeed," said Joan Lamson, mayor of Pine Knoll Shores. "It will bring tourists in. But it also makes it a nicer place for us to live."

Visitors here crave more than the ocean view, local proprietors say. They also want the fish tanks and wildlife exhibits and underwater unworldliness that are at the heart of the last of the state's three coastal aquariums to undergo an overhaul in recent years. The Pine Knoll Shores aquarium's makeover cost $28 million.

Each aquarium has a different focus. The theme at Pine Knoll Shores is "from the mountains to the sea."

That explains the arresting first exhibit visitors see: a three-story mountain waterfall hundreds of miles from the nearest peak. The other four galleries display water creatures of the state's Piedmont, Coastal Plain, tidal waters and ocean. Just around the corner from rainbow trout are a pair of cavorting river otters, Neuse and Pungo.

"They're adorable -- kids are going to love them," said their keeper, aquarist Meredith Owens.

Beyond swamp scenes is a pool where visitors can touch stingrays with the sting taken out, watch sea turtles dance, marvel at floating jellyfish and learn about sportfishing. They can watch adult tiger sharks glide past divers in a tank that holds a sunken submarine replica and 306,000 gallons of saltwater from Bogue Sound.

On their way out, guests can buy books, toys, T-shirts or ocean-themed kitchenware.

Out back is a boardwalk leading to a marsh linking the aquarium to the sound. There you can spot minnows swarming, crabs scavenging, egrets fishing and songbirds darting from oaks to wax myrtles.

It's an oasis within the oasis that is the aquarium's home, the 298-acre Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area at Pine Knoll Shores.

The aquarium also offers animal encounter programs, ecology lessons, kayaking, canoeing and camping for kids.

"It's a natural pull," said Brian Dorn, the aquarium's husbandry curator. "People love water. And you stand there and look into a fish tank, and just relax. After a long day, it's like ... ahhh."

The aquarium's expansion took more than two years but was planned longer than that.

The General Assembly in the late 1990s allocated money to expand all three aquariums: at Pine Knoll Shores; at Fort Fisher, near Wilmington; and on Roanoke Island, next to Manteo. The Roanoke Island center reopened in 2000; Fort Fisher followed in 2002.

But Hurricane Floyd, which pummeled Eastern North Carolina in 1999, delayed the Pine Knoll Shores expansion. The money for it was diverted to help cover storm recovery costs.

Then the state budget crunch prevented a new allocation.

So members of the aquariums' private booster organization leased the Pine Knoll Shores site from the state, borrowed $25 million to expand it, and arranged to repay the expense through admission fees at all three aquariums. They also raised $3 million in donations for exhibits.

The aquarium's managers expect annual attendance to double to about 500,000 people.

An N.C. State University study estimates the expanded aquarium will contribute about $6 million a year to the local economy.

"This is going to be a big summer, no doubt," said Jay Barnes, the aquarium's director. "We're an economic engine for this part of Eastern North Carolina.

"Every restaurant and store I go into, people ask: 'How much did it cost? When will it be open?' People are into it."

Mayor Lamson's sole concern today is that the traffic might be heavy. "We're hoping everyone will be in a good mood," she said.

If they follow the example of Neuse and Pungo, all will be well.

And fun.