Figure Eight Island Figure Eight Island Figure Eight Island is a North Carolina barrier island just north of Wrightsville Beach, widely known as an affluent summer colony and vacation desitination. The island is part of the Wilmington Metropolitan Area, and lies between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. As a private island, Figure Eight can only be reached by boat or via a guarded causeway swing bridge — the only private bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway in the Southeast. The island has been a destination for celebrities and politicians, including former Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Edwards, — and a
Gorgona Agricultural Penal Colony allowed the Italian penal authorities to give prisoners more freedom to move freely around the island. While in most Italian prisons, inmates spend the majority of their time in lockdown, on Gorgona, inmates spend most of their time outside doing agricultural and viticultural work or tending livestock. The prisoners are only required to return to the facility for lockdown in the evening. In the history of the penal colony, only one prisoner is believed to have "escaped" whether or not they survived the long swim to the Italian mainland is not known since they were never found. The only access