Hyde County, spread over the Inner and Outer Banks, is known as "the land of many waters", and is the home of North Carolina's largest natural lake, Mattamuskeet. Our famous Ocracoke Island, once home to the pirate Blackbeard, and now a tourist mecca, is accessible by ferry from our village of Swan Quarter. A 28-car ferry connects Swan Quarter in Hyde County on the mainland with Ocracoke Island, crossing Pamlico Sound in two and a half hours.