Why is the coast off of Cape Hatteras called “The Graveyard of the Atlantic”?
A. It is called the Graveyard of the Atlantic because there has been a substantial number of vessels lost (over 2300 since the early 1500s) in that particular area to the Diamond shoals. From what I have read, two different “rivers” flow right past there. There is the cold Labrador current from the North and the warn Gulf Stream current that flows up from the South. Mariners knew that these currents helped move them along, so depending on which way they needed to go, they would try and get into that prospective current. It just so happens that those current pass dangerously close to the Diamond Shoals.
