Miracles and Mysteries: A year of extraordinary maritime events in the Carolinas
CAPE FEAR REGION, NC (WWAY) — The ocean is vast and as a coastal community hearing about strange happenings at sea is not unusual.
This past year — the Chinese spy balloon landed in the waters just off the coast of the Carolinas.
The balloon first entered U.S. airspace near Alaska at the end of January. It traveled over the continental U.S. for seven days before a U.S. fighter jet shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.
Just hours before it was shot down, the airspace in Charleston, Myrtle Beach, and Wilmington was closed. China claimed it was merely a weather balloon traveling off course … but U.S. officials said it was fitted with equipment that was “clearly for intelligence surveillance.”
Months later, the Pentagon said the balloon did not collect information while it flew over the U.S.
In March, WWAY’s Matt Bennett spent a week Serving at Sea. Bennett traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, for Navy Week. He got the chance to see what it was like to live aboard a submarine, get an up-close look at equipment, and meet hometown heroes from the Cape Fear.
The summer marked a miraculous rescue off the Carolina coast. Four divers went missing on a recreational dive near Frying Pan Shoals on August 13.
The divers relied on one another and their faith as they awaited their rescue. After drifting 27 miles from where they were last seen, they were found alive 16 hours after they went missing.
In October, boaters made another rescue off the coast of Oak Island. This time, it wasn’t four divers, but it was four-legged.
Boaters came across a deer swimming in the ocean about two miles off Oak Island. They pulled the deer inside their boat and brought him back to shore to safety.
In the midst of several unbelievable stories at sea over the past year, the Cape Fear only felt the impacts of one major hurricane — Idalia. The storm first made landfall in Florida as a category three hurricane before reaching North Carolina as a tropical storm.
