After arriving at the beach, the girls couldn’t get enough time in the sand.

We checked out surfers that were having more luck than we anticipated in the waves right outside our door: 

We dug for buried treasure after finding a map in a bottle:

Gold! 

A midday trip to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, with a picnic lunch: 

Back at the beach in the afternoon, my dad and his wife visited and we were tasked with burying the girls in the sand.  I am told that when I first visited this beach, I wanted nothing to do with being buried in the sand until Natasha went first; then I wanted to be buried too.  The same held true for Lula and Mae:  Lula was eager, Mae apprehensive, but after Mae confirmed Lula’s approval (see the grin below), she couldn’t resist:

Evening on the beach, as the sun set behind the house: 

Shell hunting in pajamas: 

An evening drone flight over the beach: 

The next day, we started out early, to get a jump on the long lines for the ferry to Ocracoke Island.  It turns out we didn’t have to wait too terribly long and fortunately, the weather was perfect, so the wait wasn’t an issue.  

Pink Bear accompanied us to the island: 

Kind of cool to see our present location on the iPhone map as over the water: 

The rumors of abundant seashells on Ocracoke Island proved true: 

We may have been a little overcautious with the sunscreen on Mae, but better safe than sorry. 

Standing on a beach on a sunny, 80-degree day with no other people as far as the eye can see in either direction was pretty incredible.  

The little specs on the beach are us; the blue car parked on the side of the road is ours.  

An overhead view, looking south from our location.  

We drove south a bit after leaving the beach while briefly considering trekking up the Ocracoke Island lighthouse, but by the time we got there, both girls were completely conked out.  After an exhausting day at the beach, we didn’t have it in us to wake them.  I hustled in for our National Parks Passport cancellation and we made tracks back north.

The wait for the ferry was again relatively brief, as compared to peak times of the day.  We are about 12 or 13 cars back in this line: 

Back at the beach the next morning, we were greeted by another unexpected sight: dolphins just off the coast! 

And lots of flocks of birds, streaming north: 

Before leaving the beach cottage, we discovered an old pirate flag on the porch that had to be flown before we could depart: 

After leaving the beach, we drove west through North Carolina.  As great as the beach was, some trees (and their shade!) were welcome sights.  Umstead State Park was our midday stop, on the way to Asheville.