Weekend At Wilmington, NC - - With Photos!

As mentioned in the previous post, my girlfriend Sara and I took a weekend off to go to Wilmington, NC to visit the beach and do beachy stuff.

Sara took Friday off from work; I, who work 3rd shift, start my weekend at 7:30 Friday mornings when I get home. Thus we had most of Friday, all of Saturday, and a few hours on Sunday to enjoy our coastal excursion.

Sara arrived at the house around 8:45; we loaded the car up and got underway. I had a canvas weekend bag and my canvas briefcase; Sara had three bags already in the trunk. We both took cameras. I took along my Eee 1000 netbook computer, hoping that the hotel we had booked would be true to its advertising and have free wi-fi.

The trip down was uneventful, a straight shot down US Highway 74, about 200 miles. The weather in Charlotte the previous week had been miserable, a mixture of rain, thunderstorms and warm humidity. The sky was overcast as we wound our way southeast.

We had decided not to overplan the journey, so meals and itinerary were improvised, although we had a few definite destinations, such as the memorial to the USS North Carolina (BB-55), which is moored (sunk in the mud, actually) beside the Cape Fear River in Wilminton.

We didn't stop for lunch on the way down, neither of us feeling hungry enough until nearly in Wilmington. We arrived around 1:00 p.m. Rather than check into the hotel we decided to continue directly toward Wrightsville Beach, and eat lunch somewhere near there. We also both began getting urges from our bladders, a situation that was resolved when we saw a Harris Teeter grocery store sign, a chain that we are familiar with in Charlotte. Clean bathrooms, conveniently near the entrance. We then continued a search for a mutually agreeable restaurant on the way to Wrightsville Beach. We simply didn't see any we wanted to dine in, so out to the beach we went, over the bridges and onto the island that is Wrightsville Beach. Since it is a small island, you can circumnavigate it in a half-hour's time or even less, depending on traffic. Down at the south end we found a public beach access, paid $1.50 to park, and walked out onto the beach. The weather had given way to sun and hazy blue skies. Most of the beachscape photos from this first beach encounter weren't good enough to post here, but I'll post a representative one so you can see the beach:



I was reintroduced to my favorite gull, the Laughing Gull:



Laughing Gulls are so named because of their laughing call, usually sounded while flying. Their black heads will change color during the course of the year, fading to white during the non-mating season.

Sara and I discovered that walking the sands of Wrightsville Beach was a real chore, the sand being so softly-packed that our feet would sink in up to 6" each step; quite a walking chore for two sedentary (not to say fat) people. We gave up extended beach walking as a bad investment, and thus our haul of sea shells is rather pitiful, indeed. None of the beaches we visited, though, had an abundance of seashells.

After struggling through the Wrightsville Beach sand for a while, we headed back to the car in search of lunch. We finally decided on Smithfield's Chicken 'N Bar-B-Q, a chain that Sara was familiar with. The BBQ was good, pork cooked Eastern-NC style; I had two sandwiches. The hush puppies looked rather like dog turds and were lacking in flavor. Copious quantities of Diet Coke washed everything down.

Satiated we got on the road again, this time to visit the USS North Carolina memorial. It's the actual WWII battleship, moored by the Cape Fear River. We paid our admission fee and went out to the ship. By now the weather was warm and sunny, the sky very blue. We toured the main deck and took the below-decks tour, skipping the topsides tour of the bridge. Going up and down the ladders was more of a chore than when I was 20, unfortunately, and some places (the 16" gun turrets, for example) I was no longer prepared to enter, so I skipped those. Still, I got a few photographs, such as the float plane at the stern of the ship:



Here's the inevitable shot of the 16" guns from the bow of the ship:



The ship was equipped with 9 of these guns in three triple turrets, two forward and one aft. To fire them the ship would normally turn broadside to her target so that all 9 guns could fire, sometimes simultaneously, a tremendous blast that would be felt all around the ship. The shells weighed each as much as a Volkswagen Beetle and had a range of 20 miles.

Smaller than the big 16" guns are the 5" guns, located all over the ship in twin turrets:



These were multi-purpose guns, useful for shore bombardment, ship-to-ship action, and even anti-aircraft, I believe. 5" guns are currently the biggest that the Navy still uses, most other purposes being served by missiles.

The lower decks of the ship were hot, with ventilation only coming in at a few places such as the mess decks and laundry area. It wasn't air conditioning, or it didn't seem to be, just ventilator fans, so consequently we both worked up a sweat on the below-decks tour. They had recorded sounds of navy life piped throughout the ship, such as announcements for mail call, VIP's arriving/departing, and even period music playing on the mess decks. There was a lot of vintage gear in some of the cabins, such as nice old baseball mitts/bats/footballs in the officer's cabins, and I saw a genuine old Diver's Knife in the dive locker, it looked similar to this:



I'd love to have one of those.

Here's a last photo from the ship, the sign that told the sailors what time liberty ended and what the liberty uniform was, also any information that might be necessary to know in a liberty port:



It was nice to see an old Navy ship again. This fall I plan to visit Norfolk again, and will probably visit the USS Wisconsin in Portsmouth, she's a tourist ship there now.

After we departed the North Carolina, it was time to check in at the hotel. We did so, finding it to be in a nice area, fairly safe, and close to pretty much everything in Wilmington. It was the Comfort Suites on Market Street, and I can recommend it to anyone staying in Wilmington.

After a rest and a shower, we went to dinner at a Golden Corral. I can't say it was a memorable meal. No hamburgers available, so I ate fish (cold), scallops (overcooked, small), some rolls and some softserve ice cream. Disappointing, but not so expensive as to be tragic.

After dinner we returned to the hotel and bed, early for us at only 9 or so, but I'd been awake since the previous evening and was worn out. Sara was, also. Apparently I began talking and mumbling in my sleep, as Sara reported the next morning. I must have been dreaming of being a judge in old times or perhaps a vivisectionist, because Sara reports that I said at one point, "Go and chop his dick off." She says I then mumbled for a while and finally said "Strange substance. What the fuck is it?" This provoked howls of laughter from both of us, and was a running joke for the rest of the weekend; even on the trip home, I broke out in spontaneous belly-laughter several times thinking about it. Go and chop off his dick, indeed.

*laughs*

Next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel dining room before departing; scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and we split a fresh-made waffle. We then departed for the beach at Fort Fisher, the site of a battle during the Civil War. The trip down took about 45 minutes, I think. We parked in the park HQ parking lot, and walked out to the beach. Pretty day, clear and sunny. Sara, who had drunk two cups of coffee for breakfast, suddenly had an urge to relieve herself so we went back to the HQ building. Although the ladies' room was already unlocked and it was only 5 minutes until opening time, the officious NC State employee would not allow Sara into the ladies' room, instead directing us to one further down the beach. We cursed and grumbled about the malice of government employees as we got back into the car and drove to the other restroom.

There are some wonderfully twisted trees at Fort Fisher, pruned and worked by salt vapor into fantastic shapes:



And:



After wandering the beach for a while, we decided to take the ferry across to Southport and Oak Island, North Carolina. We got to the ferry a few minutes before 10, when the first ferry departed, and watched the antics of the Laughing Gulls while waiting to board. Finally we drove aboard the ferry and it pulled away from shore. The day was lovely by this time, cloudless and blue, with a warm sun.

Along the way we saw a sailing yacht heading out to the open ocean:



We also saw a little island, perhaps an islet, or maybe it's just a sandbar, off to our left; uninhabited, it looked like a fine place for an overnight party:



This little islet doesn't have a name when I checked on Google Earth, although it's probably named on nautical charts, no doubt. Looks like a fun place to bury treasure. Arrrr.

When we neared the Southport ferry terminal, I noticed an old abandoned coastal lighthouse:



I've often wished to have lived a hundred years ago, working as a lighthouse keeper on a screwpile lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay.

After we offloaded in Southport, we decided to visit Caswell Beach and the Oak Island lighthouse. The trip down there took about a half hour, and as we approached and passed the Oak Island light we noticed that people in miltary uniforms were actually rappelling from the top (sorry, no pics of it). We discovered that there was a Military Appreciation Day going on at the lighthouse site, although we decided not to stay for it. Sara liked the looks of the Coast Guardsmen who were directing traffic through the area, they were wearing their blue working uniforms.

Caswell beach was pretty, and by now it was early afternoon. The sky was blue and clear, and the wind was blowing hard from the southwest, directly onto the beach. Rather than go onto the beach itself, we contented ourselves with sitting on a bench on the access walkway and observed the beachgoers. I was wearing a sun hat, Sara was bareheaded and had forgotten her sunblock, so she ended up getting a sunburn on her face, although I offered to let her wear my hat.

While we sat on the bench there at Caswell both pelicans and gulls would pass down the beach in front of us, flying back and forth, sometimes quite closely. I did my best to get some action photos of these birds in flight, and had to content myself with one acceptable shot, of a brown pelican:



And here's a beach shot of Caswell:



After about an hour and a half at Caswell we decided to leave and search for a lunch. We decided that we wanted hamburgers, and that if we didn't see a place advertising huge, juicy charcoal-grilled hamburgers we would content ourselves with a Burger King stop. We quickly found that the section of North Carolina north of Oak Island is one huge backwoods wilderness until you get back up to US Highway 74. In fact, it was so backwoods that it made me think uncomfortably of this:



So we didn't find any burger joints on NC 133 until we got back to 74, and when we got there we didn't see anything acceptable either, so we went back into Wilmington and ate at a Burger King on Market Street, not far from the Smithfield's BBQ we had eaten at the day before.

After lunch we made a quick trip to the hotel to clean up a bit and then went to the Cape Fear Serpentarium in downtown Wilminton in the historic district. The Serpentarium is nice, with both an upper level and lower level of glass-fronted exhibiting vivariums featuring a collection of snakes, lizards and crocodiles. We watched the director of the Serpentarium, Dean Ripa, feeding Bushmasters, Gaboon Vipers, a Nile Crocodile and a Reticulated Python. I took a couple of photographs through the glass, and was happy with the results:

Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus Adamanteus)

And:

Gaboon Viper (Bitis Gabonica)

After we finished at the Serpentarium we returned to the hotel to prepare for supper. We decided on Michael's Seafood Restaurant in Carolina Beach for supper, followed by a visit to the fishing pier, also at Carolina Beach. We drove down the same road we had taken that morning to get to Fort Fisher. The evening was clear and warm. When we got to Michael's we had a choice of eating outside immediately or waiting fifteen minutes for a table inside. Since the day was still hot we chose to wait for an inside table.

I had a lobster tail and scallops for dinner, Sara had coconut shrimp. Sara hadn't had lobster in years and had never tasted scallops, so I gave her portions of my plates. She decided that she didn't like either one, and went back to her shrimp. The lobster was a bit overdone and tough to cut; the scallops were cooked correctly, but since I had ordered them blackened, were a bit too spicy to eat until I had dipped them into a horseradish aioli that had accompanied them. All in all, an expensive but rather undistinguished meal.

After supper we proceeded to the fishing pier at Carolina Beach. It was about a half hour from sunset as we made it out to the pier. With me I carried a message in a bottle that I had made up using an empty plastic water bottle, a message typed on the computer in Poor Richard font (a nice touch, I thought) and a $5 bill, both pieces of paper sealed inside a Ziploc bag and placed inside the bottle. The note simply congratulated the finder and awarded them the $5 bill, and asked that the letter be returned to me with finder's information such as date and where the bottle had been found. We went out to the end of the pier, past all the fishermen, and I tossed the bottle overhand into the Atlantic. The pier was pretty long and we weren't in the surf zone out there at the end of it. It appeared to me that the bottle was heading north when I last saw it, rather than headed directly towards shore. I'm hoping that it will make its way out to sea and that I won't get the message back from Carolina Beach with a finder's date of the very next day after I tossed the bottle. Most likely of all is that the bottle won't be found.

Sara and I stayed on the fishing pier until after sunset. A bold pelican, half-tamed from receiving free fish handouts, posed for photographs:



Here's a shot of the Carolina Beach fishing pier, a wooden structure:



Out at the end of the pier the wooden structure was swaying slightly, which made Sara remark that it was making her nauseous.

The return trip to the hotel was uneventful, other than the howls of laughter as we kept saying go and chop off his dick to each other.

After returning to the hotel we ate some of the watermelon, which was rather bland, and went off to bed.

Next morning we packed up our gear for the return to Charlotte, but decided to swing by Wrightsville Beach again and sit on the fishing pier there for a while for a last look at the ocean. Thus, after checking out of the hotel, we found ourselves back on US Highway 74 headed eastward.

The morning was glorious at Wrightsville Beach. Parking that early was free, but a nominal charge was imposed to let us onto the concrete fishing pier. We sat quietly, watching the waves and the beachcombers, taking a few last pictures:

Wrightsville Beach, NC, 10 May 2009

And:



Here is an amusing "litany of NO" that can be found at the Wrightsville Beach fishing pier:



And with that, we said goodbye to our beach weekend.

The trip back to Charlotte was uneventful, other than my temporary panic at not finding my pocket knife in my trousers pocket, and remembering that they were in the pocket of a different pair of trousers. We got home about 1 in the afternoon.

Thanks again, Sara, for a wonderful weekend.