Most people think of the East Coast as facing… well… EAST. Ocean Isle Beach is a very unique island on the East Coast of the United States. It is a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina that faces due South into the Atlantic. Because of this we talk about the East End of the island and the West End of the island. The East End is much larger (thicker from North to South). It also has a lot of boat canals that were cut before it was illegal to fill in marsh land. Most of the houses on this island are on the East End, as well as most of the full time residents. We live on the West End.
Our house is an easy 20 minute walk to Tubb’s Inlet at the West End of Ocean Isle Beach. One nice thing about living on the West End is the really pretty sunset walk after dinner most times of the year. All of the beach pictures that I typically post are from the West End.
I have been wanting to take a walk to the East End for a while now. We rarely get down there, except when we ride our bicycles. When we do that we don’t really get to take a good look at the erosion on the beach near Shallotte Inlet because it isn’t accessible by road anymore.
We knew it was going to be a long walk. We figured that it would take about 3 or 4 hours round trip, depending on how often we stopped to pull out the camera or the binoculars. The island itself is about 7 miles long. By bike from our house to the East End it is a 10 mile round trip, but we figured it would be a little shorter walking on the beach.
Yesterday the weather was sunny and in the low 60′s so it was going to be a perfect day for a long walk. The tides also lined up nicely for taking a walk all the way to the other end of the island and back. High tide was at 11:09am. We decided to leave around 1pm when the tide was just low enough for us to avoid walking on soft sand. It also assured that we’d be arriving at the East End while the tide was still going out. This is important as you’ll see by the pictures.
Here’s a picture of the far East End past all of the houses. Shallotte Inlet is filling in with sand and this picture faces the inlet.
The houses in the distance are on Holden Beach. As usual, click on the picture if you want to see a larger image.
This view looks back at the last set of houses on Ocean Isle Beach. This picture is taken from the far end of the island. As you can see, it is quite a ways to the houses. The very tip of the East End has a lot of sand and a lot of sand dunes. Unfortunately, the island is slowly shifting to the North here.
These houses used to be a few rows back from ocean front. They are on Fourth Street. On most of the island First Street has houses that back up directly to the sand. That tells quite a story, there are a lot of “missing” houses down here. These guys are hoping that the sand bags will save them until the proposed terminal groin gets approved and installed.
I really feel for the people who own this house. It is the last one left on the row of houses that most recently surrendered to the sea. Take a close look at the pilings. They have been extended to keep the house level. Also notice the water level. This is about 4 hours after high tide. You know where the water goes when the tide is high, right? I’m not sure if they will be able to save this one, but they are still enjoying it. I saw someone on the deck with their little dog enjoying the sun.
I had to include this house more from the curiosity factor than anything else. Excuse the finger in the shot, I was too lazy to crop it out. This house is surrounded by telephone poles. What else can those supports be? They are ROUND. Most houses are situated on 8″x8″ square posts at the beach. This is just plain weird. It almost looks like they were an afterthought. I think that they might have been added later to keep the house from leaning over because it was sitting on shifting sand. Very strange.
