May 1 – Wrightsville Beach

Another day, another beach, so it is a short post.

The original plan for today was to head north a short ways to Wrightsville Beach and take a tour boat over to one of the barrier islands. Unfortunately they were not running that tour today. It was also very windy, which meant some big waves so we probably wouldn’t have had a fun trip anyway.

So we just ended up walking on the beach.

As we drove up looking north and once we were on the beach, the weather looked nice and sunny.

Then we looked back south.

Sure looks like rain and the wind was blowing strongly from the south so it was coming our way.

It turned out that we only got grazed. There were a few sprinkles, enough for me to put the camera away, but it never went beyond that. It did circle past us out to sea.

Looking north later.

For the rest of the day we had a mix of sun and cloud. The constant wind kept it very pleasant. If we were ever sheltered, it got very hot.

A line of brown pelicans.

I noticed that there was a lot of salt spray so I put away the good camera and brought out the little waterproof one. I am never happy with the quality of its pictures but it has its uses.

The town of Wrightsville Beach only has a few hotels right on the beach. It is almost all, I assume, rental homes. Therefore the beach was very empty.

The beach also has a reputation for very warm water which we can attest to. Most of our walk was in the surf. It was very pleasant but the only thing you had to worry about was when a large wave came in, it could knock you off balance.

Jennie had her back turned and was surprised by the strength.

Proof that even I went in.

My story is that I would have gone all the way in but we didn’t have a towel, the wind was a bit cool and those waves were somewhat scary. I am sticking to it.

We walked about a kilometer up the beach just past this concrete pier.

We had lunch and then walked back past the car for around another 1/2 km. Therefore we only ended up doing about 3 km but it took us 3 hours because there was a lot of shell collecting and watching of the crashing waves going on. A very enjoyable and relaxing day.

We are moving a short way farther north tomorrow.