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Hi, everyone. We've looking for a child-friendly beach for us and our kids, ages 5 and 3. We went to North Topsail a few years ago. The beach was lovely, the rental house was perfect, but the surf made it nearly impossible for the kids to get any ocean swimming in - to say nothing of some of the more skitish adults we were traveling with! We live in NC now and I'd love to spend my tourist $$ here in my new home State but need some suggestions on an appropriate spot for us. Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks in advance.
I know what you mean about the NC beaches and wawes, they can be very rough.
Years ago we rented at Sunset beach and if I remember correctly it was
a little more peaceful . Also Ocean Isle comes to mind.
otherwise my suggestion is to drive to the southern beaches of SC although you
will always have days where the wawes are just too strong , that's when you go at low tide to play in the pools.
sjdoh,
You bring up an interesting question about safe beaches. Everywhere North Carolina has a safe beach. But at any given time a particular spot might not be. Remember we are dealing with the awesome force of the ocean and the silty, slithering, sliding beach sand.
Rip currents are the thing to look for. Rip currents are narrow streams of water that run perpendicualr to the beach and run opposite of the wave action. Sometimes refered to as an "Ocean Outsuck", rip currents draw swimmers away from the beach. The best thing to do when caught in one is to swim parallel to the beach until you swim to the other side of the rip current.
This picture shows what rip currents look like. You can see the foamy water moving in the opposite direction of the waves.
This picture shows the cause of a rip current. A near shore berm creates a channel. The wave action breaks thru and creates a breach in the berm. Water flows thru it like pulling a stopper out of a bath tub.
Now there is a big positive to rip currents. They are a great fishing spot! Fish like Red drum (Otherwise called channel base) lay in wait to ambush the bait that comes out of these outsucks. Flounder, sea mullet are amongst other fish that will hang out at these locations.
Hope this helps,
Bill
sjdoh,
You bring up an interesting question about safe beaches. Everywhere North Carolina has a safe beach. But at any given time a particular spot might not be. Remember we are dealing with the awesome force of the ocean and the silty, slithering, sliding beach sand.
Rip currents are the thing to look for. Rip currents are narrow streams of water that run perpendicualr to the beach and run opposite of the wave action. Sometimes refered to as an "Ocean Outsuck", rip currents draw swimmers away from the beach. The best thing to do when caught in one is to swim parallel to the beach until you swim to the other side of the rip current.
This picture shows what rip currents look like. You can see the foamy water moving in the opposite direction of the waves.
This picture shows the cause of a rip current. A near shore berm creates a channel. The wave action breaks thru and creates a breach in the berm. Water flows thru it like pulling a stopper out of a bath tub.
Now there is a big positive to rip currents. They are a great fishing spot! Fish like Red drum (Otherwise called channel base) lay in wait to ambush the bait that comes out of these outsucks. Flounder, sea mullet are amongst other fish that will hang out at these locations.
Hope this helps,
Bill
Bill -
Thanks for those great pix - I have always wondered if you could see one and now I know! Great info to share!
sdjoh -
If you like Topsail - you might think about renting down at the very south end - and then take the kids over to the public access on the sound side at Serenity Point - we have found it very mellow and our little grandkids love it there - you still have to be aware of the currents, but there are not big waves - most of them are wakes from boats going by - it is just a great spot with the little ones.
Hi, all. This is great. Thank you so much. Maybe the southern part of Topsail is the answer. I will definitely check it out. We take rip currents very seriously, and I realize that they come and go but never did realize how you can see them from the air. Seriously cool. Oh, and what I meant by 'skittish' (sorry for the earlier typo) is that even the weaker swimmers among the adults were taken back by the surf and didn't swim. Thanks again everyone. Great information.
It's a very "temporary" thing--i.e., it's not as if a certain beach ALWAYS has rip tide and another one NEVER does. Every beach has them sometimes but they are not common. It's based on the weather and the ocean currents. Every beach in NC is popular for swimming, but none is immune to occasional strong and even dangerous currents.
Absolutely, I agree that the rip currents come and go. My initial questions was about surf, which of course is also influenced by weather but in many cases is also a result of the geographic make-up of the coastline and so a little more predictable. I think we'll probably find middle ground somewhere - like rent a house at the beach we like best but with a community pool for those days when the ocean just doesn't work for the kiddos. Thanks so much, everyone
I had hoped my description of "awesome force of the ocean and the silty, slithering, sliding beach sand"
would be adequate enough to highlight the temporary nature of a rip current.
No place along the NC beach that I can think of is "dangerous". All places can be at any given moment due to the above.
More importantly-I would check which beaches have a renourishment program and how often they do it.
Bill
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