The auditorium houses special exhibits for short periods of time. Exhibits of 5,000 seashells, paintings of coastal subjects, or antique photographs are featured in this space.

The lobby of the museum highlights two of the subjects which are a focus of the museum—North Carolina's natural history and maritime heritage. Models of fish found in coastal waters remind residents and visitors of one of the reasons they are in this area—to fish. Even the enormous great white shark mounted on the wall was caught by fishermen setting longlines for shark. They did not expect, however, to catch a l5 1/2-feet, 2,080 lbs. great white shark.

The menhaden fishing boat model is an artifact of days when menhaden factories and their fleets of mother ships and purse seining boats provided the basis for a thriving economy along the coast. Three factories operated in this area alone. One of the families of a menhaden fish company donated the land on which this museum and the Watercraft Center across the street were built. Menhaden are caught by the millions in nets, gathered into the mother ship, taken to the factory, and cooked until the oil and meat can be separated. The meat is dehydrated and sold as meal for chicken and fish food. The oil is used in the food, paint, and cosmetic industries.

A model of a loggerhead sea turtle introduces visitors to the value of North Carolina beaches for nesting sites of these and other threatened animals, such as the piping plovers and least terns. While natural predators like the fox, raccoon, ghost crab, and seagull still exist, human development of the coastal area has been a major factor in the reduced number of coastal species and their desirable nesting sites. Plastics dumped into the ocean add to the problem by being mistaken for food items or by littering the waters where animals feed and subsequently catching around an animal's neck, bill, or gills.

Entering our exhibit area visitors may see the bones, teeth, and shells of marine organisms that lived in North Carolina's waters millions of years ago. The ocean covered the land many times over the last 60 million years and sea level is in the process of rising again. Fossils found in coastal limestone and phosphate quarries are remains of molluscks, echinoderms, sharks, whales, and dolphins that once roamed the ancient seas, stretching as far inland in Raleigh. Above these marine deposits are fossil remains of land animals such as mastodons, giant sloths, and horses that roamed the coastal area when the sea receded to the continental shelf three million years ago.

Whaling artifacts and whale bones, teeth, and baleen on display help tell the story of a fishery that helped support the coastal inhabitants. A variety of whales and dolphins are still found in coastal waters and excite those who are fortunate enough to have dolphins around their boats or to see a migrating whale swimming just offshore of the local beaches.

Entering the exhibit area visitors become aware of the importance of small boats in the story of coastal people. Boats that could sail in shallow water over sandy and shifting shoals; carry the family to town and to a picnic on the banks; and hold all gill nets, crab pots, or bushels of oysters were one and the same. Many were a flat-bottomed spritsail skiff or a sharpie. A shad boat with a slightly rounded bottom offered open water stability in the northern sounds. These boats were the family transportation and means for making a livelihood. Collards and sweet potatoes from the family gardens rounded out a diet of salted mullet, spot, trout, and other inshore species caught by each family in the spring, summer, and fall.

Waterfowl hunters were able to take advantage of North Carolina's location at the southern end of the Atlantic flyway. Decoys used to attract the species of ducks, geese, swans, and shorebirds that frequented the coastal rivers and sounds were carved by coastal hunters and guides. These decoys are now treasured by collectors and have become the basis for a thriving working and decorative decoy carving trade along the North Carolina coast. Waterfowl hunting is still part of the winter ritual, but rafts of redheads and ruddy ducks that formed the basis of the market hunting era are reduced to small flocks of a few hundred ducks at most. Wildlife refuges have been established to protect many of the waterfowl that overwinter in North Carolina.

The natural wonders of the maritime forests, marshes, inshore and nearshore waters, and barrier islands are introduced in the exhibits of Coastal Marine Life. The dioramas of natural habitats with snakes, birds, and marine organisms allows visitors to see the organism as it can be found along our shores. The aquariums offer a view of fish, invertebrates, and plants as they appear inshore or nearshore in marshes, sounds, and inlets or near piers and pilings.

A brief description of animal adaptations for protection or food gathering is featured in a colorful and time-lighted display. It is easy to visualize the benefits of camouflage coloration and shape. The diorama and explanation of fouling organisms gives an appealing view of life under the pier, and discusses the types of problems these organisms present to man-made structures and marine technology.

Revolving panels offer interpretation of three ecological stories: adaptations of birds for feeding, adaptations of algae for protection, and coastal pollution problems. All three are examples of subjects studied by educators and scientists. The third becomes a concern of politicians and commercial enterprises concerned with coastal regulations and the accommodation of the many people who want to live on the North Carolina coast.

Today, sports and commercial fishermen are battling for the fish that are no longer as abundant as they once were. Fishermen are battling with the federal and state fisheries regulators over the protection of stocks such as flounder, striped bass, mackerel, and shark; and threatened and endangered species such as sea turtles and dolphins. Fishermen who once made a living dredging for oysters in the coastal rivers and sounds from aboard large shallow-draught schooners, like the model on exhibit, must now catch them by tongs or by hand. Shrimpers and clammers must work harder and longer and more efficiently to break even. This is all a result of more population, more efficient fishing gear, and a degradation of the habitat—coastal waters.

As visitors approach the lifesaving exhibit the small lighthouse lens draws their attention. These sturdy but elegant angled-glass objects of varying sizes served to warn mariners of dangerous waters, shoals, or points of land. This section also features a life car that is mistaken by most visitors to be a submarine. The car and breeches buoy hung in the corner were two types of equipment used by the lifesavers to rescue people from ships usually caught on shoals and in distress near shore. The exhibit diorama depicts the lifesaver alongside the Lyle gun setting up the lifesaving apparatus for the breeches buoy or life car. If the ship was in distress further than 600 yards, the lifesavers rowed to the rescue. The panels along the border of the exhibit tell a story of each branch of service of which many Carolininans were a part. These joined to become the U.S. Coast Guard in 1915.

A view of the navigational instruments, set against the constellations background, introduces the idea that navigators use accurate clocks and instruments to measure the distance of stars from the horizon and therefore interpret a ship's position at sea. For thousands of years, mariners used the stars to steer their ships at sea. From the time that ships first left sight of land, the sun and stars were their guiding lights. Today satellites and electrical equipment can pinpoint a ship's location, but the sextant remains a challenge to operate for any sailor who ventures out of sight of navigational aids and does not use modern technology.

Exhibition emphasis is on the interrelationship between people and the marine environment. Contemporary environmental issues are featured in exhibits such as "The Fouling Community," "Beach Sweep," live aquaria, pollution, over-fishing, commercial and recreational fishing, and a hands-on "Discovery Cart" in the exhibit gallery.

Exhibits are designed to reach children and adults through multi-layer interpretation. Physical construction offers a young person's view of exhibits with varied levels of platforms. Included are participatory and interactive exhibitions such as open aquaria, Watercraft Center hands-on, "Discovery" hands-on, and "Beach Sweep" comments. All exhibits are accessible to the physically challenged.

All museum exhibitions are mission-driven and all are inclusive of race, creed, and gender. Primary, permanent exhibits are grounded in North Carolina cultural and natural history but their themes embrace national and universal marine and environmental issues.

"All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by" is an interpretive exhibition of the museum's nautical collection. Artifacts reflect the early Age of Exploration, including the Roanoke voyages which established the first English colony in America.

"Soldiers of Surf and Storm" and "The Sea Shall Not Have Them" are interpretive exhibitions of the U.S. Lifesaving Service, the U.S. Lighthouse Service, and the U.S. Coast Guard. All three branches of government marine rescue services have a rich history on North Carolina's famed Outer Banks. The museum collection is rich in uniforms and ephemera of the services. The exhibits also treat the marine history of the Gulf Stream along the Carolina coast; the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," shipwrecks; and rescues. These include the unique all-black Pea Island U.S. Lifesaving Service crew on Bodie Island. A rare life car and a Fresnel lens are exhibit centerpieces.

"Chasing the Leviathan" documents the history of whaling along the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. The on-shore whaling from Core and Shackleford Banks began with the first royal license in 1723 and ended about 1917. Whale oil and baleen were important exports from the whaling communities of Diamond City and Cape Lookout in the nineteenth century. Fossils and whaling implements bring visual excitement to this exhibit.

"And Throw Away the Oars!" interprets the transition from sail to power boats. The exhibit features a large selection of early outboards, a facsimile of a pre-1950 engine shop, and a 1950 boat showroom that displays a 1958 Silver Clipper Barbour skiff. The Barbour Boat Works has a long history in New Bern, North Carolina. Some of the engines are mounted on bases that revolve, thus adding a sense of dynamics to the exhibit.

"North Carolina Working Craft" is a permanent exhibition based on primary research that treats the evolution of indigenous work boats from pre-contact (Native American craft) to the twentieth-century paddlewheelers. The interpretive exhibit includes a diorama of canoe building, a pre-Civil War split-log canoe, boat models, and other artifacts. A publication, "Traditional Work Boats of North Carolina", interpretive panels, and photographic support accompany the exhibit. Educational model kits are available in the museum bookstore for school-age visitors.

The James Lewis Decoy Collection (coming soon) of more than 100 decoys represents the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century hunting culture on the Outer Banks. Following the Civil War, much of the Outer Banks was purchased by hunt and gun clubs for recreational hunting of waterfowl. The infusion of northern capital lured "Bankers" away from their traditional livelihoods, took thousands of acres of land away from residents who had used it communally for generations, and almost succeeded in pushing several species of waterfowl to extinction. This exhibit identifies sensitive issues of environmental stewardship, barrier island ecology, and sociopolitical divisions of the Outer Banks.

"Marine Life of North Carolina" features a hard-hitting interpretative exhibit on water pollution, farm run-off, industrial waste, and commercial development. It contains a section on an underwater fouling community, sea-life adaptations, coastal ecology, and estuarine issues. It also includes a ten-tank aquaria display holding live specimens from North Carolina coastal waters, all of which are identified with interpretive panels.

"Commercial Fisheries" details the origins and history of commercial fisheries along the North Carolina coast; including the oyster, menhaden, shrimping, and "porpoise" industries. African Americans played a large role in these industries and will be strongly represented. The exhibit deals with the demise of subsistent fishing and the rise of processing houses.

Exhibit Planning
The museum maintains a standing committee for long-range exhibition planning. The committee members are the director, curator of exhibits, curator of education, maritime curator, business manager, and three senior curators. Meetings are called monthly to update long-range plans and to discuss exhibits-in-progress. Outside consulting firms are used occasionally for professional and objective perspective.

Once exhibit topics have been chosen, the Exhibits Committee reviews progress of script and fabrication. Upon final acceptance by the committee (after necessary revisions), a complete set of elevation drawings and blueprints are developed, reviewed, critiqued, and refined. Research is assigned and developed into a story line. Finally, a scale model of the exhibit is built. At this point, the committee gives final approval to script and design, and the exhibit is fabricated.