Carolina Beach: The Importance of Beach Days

In Hawaii, we live in a tiny house on a wee backyard lot and pay an astronomically high mortgage for the privilege of doing so because our home is a seven minute walk to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

We love the beach.  We need beach days.  Everyone needs beach days.  At home, the beach has been a surefire cure for everything.  When we are feeling down and in a funk, the beach takes that away.  When we are fighting and bickering, the beach dissolves all animosity.  When we need to stretch our legs or move our bodies, the beach is the perfect place to do so.   When we want to play with friends, we go to the beach.  When we want to be alone, we go to the beach.  When we want to just BE, we go to the beach.

Luckily, beaches don't always have to be like ours back home with white soft sand and warm, crystal-clear blue water.  We have had some of our best beach days on wind-swept, cold beaches with rocky bottoms and water that we can't go into unless we pee in our drysuits to create enough warmth.

We've been making some serious miles down the ICW and spending long days on the boat.  Along the way, we've been passing a ton of perfect beaches, so it was time for us to stop and enjoy one of them.

It was almost like home, just a little bit colder in the water.  Thanks, Carolina Beach, for a perfect beach day!

Great waves for body surfing. 

Phoenix made me a shell necklace!

The kitchen in the house we made for our Smurfs.  Lots of shell-f and counter space!

I love the beach!

So peaceful.

There's always something to do.

The pelicans surf the draft created by the waves.

These huge birds are remarkably elegant in flight.

We wish all of you many beautiful beach days!

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WHERE WE ARE: Carolina Beach Bight.  We started off anchored, but started dragging in the middle of the night, so we grabbed a mooring ball.  The mooring master described the anchorage holding as "15 feet of mayonnaise."  The anchorage is notorious for having poor holding, and Jamey knew that he should have let out more rode.  He was suspicious of the possibility of dragging and was up almost anticipating it. Mooring balls are $20 per night. 

CAROLINA BEACH:  The beach stretches for many miles, and the sand packs down hard enough for bicycles to move along it easily.   Trucks can drive out on the northern stretch of beach.  It was a twenty minute walk from where we were to the part of town that had several shops, restaurants and fast food establishments (McDonald's and Hardee's).   There was a grocery store on Cape Fear Blvd. one block off of Lake Park Blvd. 

A couple on one of the other boats told us that it was about a mile walk to the Carolina Beach State Park where they found out that this park is the only place where the Venus flytrap grows as a native plant.

We had a cool encounter with another couple on the beach.  We found out that they had just moved from Kauai in Hawaii.  It was interesting to hear about their travels all over the world and about how much they love Kauai.  "We'll give it a year here and see how it goes," they said.  It's a small world sometimes, or is it just that like-minded people gravitate to the same places. 

There is a public dinghy dock at the far end of the bight, but also this beautiful new one close to the mooring balls. 

The dinghy dock is a floating dock that goes up and down with the tide. 

In between the dinghy dock and the beach there is a public restroom with outdoor showers on the side.  It is closed for the season. 

Wheee!!

We love food stores!