Moon Coastal Carolinas

by Jim Morekis

  When you see a restaurant set in a really beautiful location, you dearly hope the food is as good as the view. Such is the case at Wrightsville’s Oceanic (703 S. Lumina, Wrightsville Beach, 910/256-5551, www.oceanicrestaurant.com, Mon.-Sat. 11am-11pm, Sun. 10am-10pm, $10-27). The Wilmington Star-News has repeatedly voted it the Best Seafood Restaurant in Wilmington, and it receives similar word-of-mouth accolades right and left. It occupies a big old house right on the beach, with a wraparound porch and a pier. For an extra-special experience, ask for a table on the pier.

  Southern and Barbecue

  Right downtown at the Cotton Exchange, facing Front Street, is The Basics (319 Front St., 910/343-1050, www.thebasicswilmington.com, breakfast Mon.-Fri. 8am-11am, lunch Mon.-Fri. 11am-4pm, dinner daily from 5pm, brunch Sat.-Sun. 11am-4pm, $10-18). In a streamlined, simple setting, The Basics serves comfort food classics, Southern-style. Be sure to try the Coca-Cola cake, a surprisingly delicious Southern delicacy.

  In business since 1984, S Jackson’s Big Oak Barbecue (920 S. Kerr Ave., 910/799-1581, Mon.-Sat. 10:30am-8:45pm, under $8) is an old favorite. Their motto is, “We ain’t fancy, but we sure are good.” Good old vinegary eastern North Carolina-style pork barbecue is the main item, though you can pick from Brunswick stew, fried chicken, and a mess of country vegetables. You’ll get hush puppies and corn sticks at the table, but it will be worth your while not to fill up too fast—the cobblers and banana pudding are great.

  Eclectic American

  Flaming Amy’s Burrito Barn (4002 Oleander Dr., 910/799-2919, www.flamingamysburritobarn.com, daily 11am-10pm) is, in their own words, “Hot, fast, cheap, and easy.” They’ve got a long menu with 20 specialty burritos (Greek, Philly steak, Thai), eight fresh salsas, and bottled and on-tap beers. It’s very inexpensive—you can eat well for under $10, drinks included. Frequent special promotions include Tattoo Tuesdays; if you show the cashier your tattoo (come on, we all know you’ve got one), you can take 10 percent off your meal.

  Boca Bay (2025 Eastwood Rd., 910/256-1887, www.bocabayrestaurant.com, Mon.-Thurs. 5pm-10pm, Fri.-Sat. 5pm-11pm, brunch Sun. 9am-2pm, entrées $11-20) serves a tapas-style menu of sushi, stir fries, and heartier entrées, all very tasty. Vegetarian options are fairly limited, but you can cobble together a meal of tapas, salad, and sides.

  Asian

  Indochine, A Far East Café (7 Wayne Dr., at Market St., 910/251-9229, www.indochinewilmington.com, lunch Tues.-Thurs. 11am-2pm, Sat. 11am-3pm, dinner daily 5pm-10pm, $10-15) specializes in Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, has an extensive vegetarian menu, and has plenty of options for nonvegetarians as well. This restaurant is not downtown, but some distance out on Market Street; it’s worth the drive. Try the vegetarian samosa egg rolls as an appetizer.

  S Double Happiness (4403 Wrightsville Ave., 910/313-1088, daily lunch and dinner, $12-18) is a popular Chinese and Malaysian restaurant known for serving traditional dishes that are a refreshing departure from the standard canon of American Chinese restaurants. The setting is original too, without, as one local food critic wrote, “a buffet or glamour food photos over a hospital-white take-out counter.” You can choose between regular booths and traditional floor seating. If you’re lucky, you might be present when the chef decides to send around rice balls, a sweet dessert snack, for everyone on the house.

  NORTH OF WILMINGTON

  Topsail Island

  In the manner of an old salt, Topsail is pronounced “Tops’l.” The three towns on Topsail Island—Topsail Beach, North Topsail Beach, and Surf City—are popular beach communities; they’re less commercial than some of their counterparts elsewhere along the coast, but still destinations for throngs of visitors in the summer months. A swing bridge gives access to the island at Surf City (the bridge opens around the beginning of each hour, so expect backups) and there is a high bridge between Sneads Ferry and North Topsail.

  At Topsail Beach is the Missiles and More Museum (720 Channel Ave., 910/328-8663, www.missilesandmoremuseum.org, Memorial Day-Labor Day Mon.-Sat. 2pm-5pm, Labor Day-Memorial Day Mon.-Fri. 2pm-5pm, free). This little museum commemorates a rather peculiar chapter in the island’s history: when it was used by the U.S. government for a project called Operation Bumblebee. During Operation Bumblebee, Topsail was a proving ground for missiles, and the work done here led to major advancements in missile technology and the development of a precursor of the ram jet engine used later in supersonic jet design. Exhibits include real warheads left over from the tests. Especially interesting to lovers of projectiles will be the 1940s color film of missile firings here at Topsail.

  Jacksonville

  Jacksonville is best known as the home of Camp Lejeune, a massive Marine installation that dates to 1941. Lejeune is the home base of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, and of MARSOC, the Marine Corps division of U.S. Special Operations Command. The nearly 250 square miles of the base include extensive beaches, where servicemen and women receive training in amphibious assault skills.

  Camp Johnson, a satellite installation of Camp Lejeune, used to be known as Montford Point, and was the home of the famous African American Montford Point Marines. Their history, a crucial chapter in the integration of the United States Armed Forces, is paid tribute at the Montford Point Marine Museum (Bldg. 101, East Wing, Camp Gilbert Johnson, 910/450-1340, www.montfordpointmarines.com, Tues.-Thurs. 11am-2pm and 4pm-7pm, Sat. 11am-4pm, free).

  S Hammocks Beach State Park

  At the very appealing little fishing town of Swansboro you’ll find the mainland side of Hammocks Beach State Park (1572 Hammocks Beach Rd., 910/326-4881, http://ncparks.gov, Sept.-May daily 8am-6pm, June-Aug. daily 8am-7pm, free). Most of the park lies on the other side of a maze of marshes, on Bear and Huggins Islands. These wild, totally undeveloped islands are important havens for migratory waterfowl and nesting loggerhead sea turtles. Bear Island is 3.5 miles long and less than a mile wide, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Intracoastal Waterway, Bogue and Bear Inlets, and wild salt marshes. A great place to swim, Bear Island has a bathhouse complex with a snack bar, restrooms, and outdoor showers. Huggins Island, by contrast, is significantly smaller, and covered in ecologically significant maritime forest and lowland marshes. Two paddle trails, one just over 2.5 miles and the other 6 miles, weave through the marshes that surround the islands.

  Camping is permitted on Bear Island, in reserved and first-come sites near the beach and inlet, with restrooms and showers available nearby.

  A private boat or passenger ferry (910/326-4881, $5 adults, $3 seniors and children) are the only ways to reach the islands. The ferry’s schedule varies by days of the week and season: in May and September Wednesday-Saturday and in April and October Friday-Saturday, the ferry departs from the mainland every half hour 9:30am-4:30pm, and departs from the island every hour 10am-5pm. Memorial Day-Labor Day Monday-Tuesday, it departs from the mainland every hour 9:30am-5:30pm, and departs from the island every hour 10am-6pm; Wednesday-Sunday it departs from the mainland every half hour 9:30am-5:30pm, and departs from the island every half hour 10am-6pm.

  TRANSPORTATION

  Wilmington is the eastern terminus of I-40, more than 300 miles east of Asheville, approximately 120 miles east of Raleigh. The Cape Fear region is also crossed by a major north-south route, U.S. 17, the old Kings Highway of colonial times. Wilmington is roughly equidistant along U.S. 17 between Jacksonville to the north and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to the south; both cities are about an hour away.

  Wilmington International Airport (ILM, 1740 Airport Blvd., 910/341-4125, www.flyilm.com) serves the region with flights to East Coast cities. For a wider selection of routes, it may be worthwhile to consider flying into Myrtle Beach or Raleigh and renting a car. If driving to Wilmington from the Myrtle Beach airport, add another 30 to 60 minutes to get through Myrtle Beach traffic, particularly in summer, as the airport there is on the southern edge of town. If driving from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, figure on the trip taking at least 2.5 hours. There is no passenger train serv
ice to Wilmington.

  Wave Transit (910/343-0106, www.wavetransit.com), Wilmington’s public transportation system, operates buses throughout the metropolitan area and trolleys in the historic district. Fares are $4 round trip.

  The Southern Coast

  From the beaches of Brunswick and New Hanover County to the swampy, subtropical fringes of land behind the dunes, this little corner of the state is one of the most beautiful parts of North Carolina.

  There are a string of beaches here, starting with Carolina Beach and Kure, just south of Wilmington, and descending through the “Brunswick Islands,” as designated in tourist literature. Most of these beaches are low-key, quiet family beaches, largely lined with residential and rental properties. They’re crowded in the summertime, of course, but are still much more laid back than Myrtle Beach, over the state line to the south, and even Wrightsville and some of the “Crystal Coast” beaches.

  You’ll see some distinctive wildlife here. The first you’ll notice, more likely than not, is the ubiquitous green anole (called “chameleons” by many locals). These tiny lizards, normally a bright lime green, but able to fade to brown when camouflage is called for, are everywhere—skittering up porch columns and along balcony railings, peering at you around corners, hiding between the fronds of palmetto trees. The males put on a big show by puffing out their strawberry-colored dewlaps.

  This is also the part of the state where the greatest populations of alligators live. Alligators are nonchalant creatures that rarely appear better than comatose, but they are genuinely deadly if crossed. All along river and creek banks, bays, and swamps, you’ll see their scaly hulks basking motionless in the sun. Keep small children and pets well clear of anywhere a gator might lurk.

  In certain highly specialized environments—mainly in and around Carolina bays that offer both moistness and nutrient-poor soil—the Venus flytrap and other carnivorous plants thrive. To the average fly, these are more threatening than an alligator any day. The flytrap and some of its cousins are endangered, but in this region—and nowhere else in the world—you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see them growing and gorging.

  KURE BEACH

  Kure is a two-syllable name: pronounced “KYU-ree” (as in Marie Curie, not “curry”). This is a small beach community, not an extravaganza of neon lights and shark-doored towel shops. Most of the buildings on the island are houses, both rental houses for vacationers and the homes of Kure Beach’s year-round residents. The beach itself, like all North Carolina ocean beaches, is public.

  Carolina Beach State Park

  Just to the north of Kure is Carolina Beach State Park (1010 State Park Rd., off U.S. 421, Carolina Beach, 910/458-8206, http://ncparks.gov, Mar.-Apr., Sept.-Oct. 8am-8pm, May-Aug. 8am-10pm, Nov.-Feb. 8am-6pm, free). Of all the state parks in the coastal region, this may be the one with the greatest ecological diversity. Within its boundaries are coastal pine and oak forests, pocosins between the dunes, saltwater marshes, a 50-foot sand dune, and lime-sink ponds; of the lime-sink ponds, one is a deep cypress swamp, one is a natural garden of water lilies, and one an ephemeral pond that dries into a swampy field every year, an ideal home for the many carnivorous plants that live here. You’ll see Venus flytraps and their ferocious cousins, but resist the urge to dig or pick them, or to tempt them with your fingertips. Sort of like stinging insects that die after delivering their payload, the flytraps’ traps can wither and fall off once they’re sprung.

  The park has 83 drive-to and walk-in campsites ($20), each with a grill and a picnic table. Two are wheelchair accessible. Restrooms and hot showers are nearby.

  Fort Fisher State Park

  At the southern end of Kure Beach is Fort Fisher State Park (1000 Loggerhead Rd., off U.S. 421, 910/458-5798, http://ncparks.gov, June-Aug. daily 8am-9pm, Mar.-May and Sept.-Oct. daily 8am-8pm, Nov.-Feb. daily 8am-6pm, free). Fort Fisher has six miles of beautiful beach, a less crowded and commercial alternative to the other beaches of the area. A lifeguard is on duty from Memorial Day to Labor Day daily 10am-5:45pm. The park also includes a 1.1-mile hiking trail that winds through marshes and along the sound, ending at an observation deck where visitors can watch wildlife.

  This is also a significant historic site. Fort Fisher was a Civil War earthwork stronghold designed to withstand massive assault. Modeled in part on the Crimean War’s Tower of Malakoff, Fort Fisher’s construction was an epic saga in itself, as hundreds of Confederate soldiers, enslaved African Americans, and conscripted indigenous Lumbee people were brought in to build what became the Confederacy’s largest fort. After the fall of Norfolk in 1862, Wilmington became the most important open port in the South, a vital harbor for blockade-runners and military vessels. Fisher held until nearly the end of the War. On December 24, 1864, U.S. general Benjamin “The Beast” Butler attacked the fort with 1,000 soldiers but was repulsed. A few weeks later, in January 1865, Fort Fisher was finally taken, but it required a Yankee force of 9,000 soldiers and 56 ships in what was to be the largest amphibious assault until World War II. Without its defenses at Fort Fisher, Wilmington soon fell, hastening the end of the war, which came only three months later. Thanks to the final assault by the Union forces and 150 subsequent years of winds, tides, and hurricanes, not a great deal of the massive earthworks survives. But the remains of this vitally important Civil War site are preserved in an oddly peaceful and pretty seaside park, which contains a restored gun emplacement and a visitors center with interpretive exhibits.

  Also at Fort Fisher is a branch of the North Carolina Aquarium (910/458-8257, daily 9am-5pm, $8 adults, $7 seniors, $6 under age 17). Like its sisters at Roanoke and Pine Knoll Shores, this is a beautiful aquarium that specializes in the native marine life of the North Carolina waters. It’s also a center for marine biology and conservation efforts, assisting in the rescue and rehabilitation of sea turtles, marine mammals, freshwater reptiles, and other creatures of the coast. While at the aquarium, be sure to visit the albino alligator.

  Accommodations

  The beaches of the Carolinas used to be lined with boarding houses, the old-time choice in lodging for generations of middle-class travelers. They were sort of a precursor to today’s bed-and-breakfasts, cozy family homes where visitors dined together with the hosts and were treated not so much like customers as houseguests—which is just what they were. Hurricane Hazel razed countless guesthouses when it pummeled the coast in 1954, ushering in the next epoch, that of the family motel. The Beacon House (715 Carolina Beach Ave. N., 877/232-2666, www.beaconhouseinnb-b.com, from $150 high season, breakfast not included, some pets permitted in cottages with an extra fee) at Carolina Beach, just north of Kure, is a rare survival from that era. The early-1950s boarding house has the typical upstairs and downstairs porches and dark wood paneling indoors. (Nearby cottages are also rented by the Beacon House.) The price is much higher than it was in those days, but you’ll be treated to a lodging experience from a long-gone era.

  BALD HEAD ISLAND

  Bald Head Island, an exclusive community where golf carts are the only traffic, is a two-mile, 20-minute ferry ride from Southport. More than 80 percent of the island is designated as a nature preserve, and at the southern tip stands “Old Baldy,” the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina.

  Sights

  The Bald Head Island Lighthouse (910/457-5003, www.oldbaldy.org, spring-fall Tues.-Sat. 10am-4pm, Sun. 11am-4pm, call for winter hours, $5 adults, $3 children) was built in 1818, replacing an even earlier tower that was completed in 1795. Despite being the newcomer at Bald Head, the 109-foot lighthouse is the oldest such structure surviving in North Carolina. A visit to the lighthouse includes a stop next door at the Smith Island Museum, housed in the lighthouse keeper’s home. The development of Smith Island (of which Bald Head is the terminus) allowed almost 17,000 acres to be set aside as an ecological preserve. The Old Baldy Foundation leads historic tours (910/457-5003, Tues.-Sat. 10:30am, $57, includes round-trip ferry) of Bald Head, departing from Island Ferry Landing, a sh
ort walk from the lighthouse.

  the Bald Head Island Lighthouse

  Food

  At Carolina Beach the Shuckin’ Shack (6 N. Lake Park Blvd., 910/458-7380, www.pleasureislandoysterbar.com, Mon.-Sat. 11am-midnight, Sun. noon-midnight, $7-25) is a friendly little oyster bar that serves fresh local seafood, and oysters by the bucket. After a meal at the Shuckin’ Shack, stop by Britt’s Donuts (11 Boardwalk, 910/707-0755, www.carolinabeach.net, Mon.-Thurs. 8:30am-10:30pm, Fri. 4pm-midnight, Sat.-Sun. 8:30am-10:30pm, closed Oct.-Feb.). Britt’s has been famous for its homemade doughnuts since opening its doors in 1939.

  SOUTHPORT

  One of North Carolina’s prettiest towns, Southport is an 18th-century river town whose port was overtaken in importance by Wilmington’s—and hence it has remained small and quiet. It was the Brunswick County seat until the late 1970s, when that job was outsourced to Bolivia (Bolivia, North Carolina, that is). It’s a wonderfully charming place, with block upon block of beautiful historic houses and public buildings. The old cemetery is a gorgeous spot, and in it you’ll find many tombstones that bear witness to the town’s seafaring history—epitaphs for sea captains who died while visiting Smithville (Southport’s original name), and stones carved with pictures of ships on rolling waves.