Ocracoke is not a place that rushes you. The island's pleasures are mostly outdoor and unhurried: cycling the flat back roads, walking the National Seashore beaches, watching the wild ponies in their pen at the north end, and climbing around the lighthouse. History runs deeper here than the pleasant surface suggests — a pirate was killed in these waters in 1718, and the village has been shaped by centuries of isolation and self-reliance.