I was doing a story for Cruising World. We (me and my now wife) had borrowed a 30-foot steel sloop from a friend and attempted to do the circle -- Alligator-Pungo, Pamlico via Ocrakoke to Roanoke Island and back to Portsmouth. We got to Ocrakoke and an extratropical storm brewed up offshore so we skedaddled back to River Forest. We stayed in the 13-window room -- bathtub bigger than our boat (boat didn't have plumbing . . .)
A couple of other boats were huddled in there and we had a "hurricane party" spaghetti dinner in the "new" dining room. (Wasn't a hurricane but it was the first extratropical storm to get a name from the National Hurricane Center -- Gustav? memory fading.)
Axson was worried about the docks -- they had had 5 tropical storms in 4 years and FEMA was paying for people in the town to raise their houses onto built-up foundations.
With enough bucks thrown in, and a little imagination, that place could be a winner.