The white beaches of Emerald Isle on Bogue Banks are the perfect location to enjoy a relaxing day breathing in the ocean air while enjoying a day of nothingness. When you seek a break from nothingness, I recommend going on a shelling adventure. There’s no shortage of sandy beaches waiting for you to wander up and down looking for shells. Whether you are looking to check off every shell on the Carolina Coast or want to add to an already existing collection, there are certain tips and tricks for shelling. The best time to look for shells is after a storm because shells on the ocean floor have been churned up. You’ll also want to look off the beaten path by going into the water a little or venturing further up the beach. The tools you need are simple: a shovel, bucket, and sense of adventure. Now, most people when they think of venturing off the beaten path or venturing further up the beach are thinking of Hammock’s Beach State Park, Shackleford Banks or Cape Lookout National Seashore. And, while these are perfect beaches for a shelling adventure, my favorite place to go shelling is Bear Island and it is only minutes away from Emerald Isle.
In the hectic summer, Darryl Marsh loads his skiff with vacationers at Dudley’s Marina in Cedar Point and pilots them through the winding backwaters, past the Hammocks Beach landing, and over to Bear Island. There, locals and tourists from many states compete for treasures of the sea, sea shells. And lots and lots of sand dollars. Especially when the tide is low and especially when you know where — and when — to look. For summer beachcombers walking on the beaches of nearby Emerald Isle, finding a whole sand dollar can feel as impossible as seeing the flip of a mermaid’s tail. But, over to neighboring Bear Island, things change. For shell seekers, Berat Island is a prime place to find Scotch bonnets and whelks, too.
On an off-season outing, Darryl pulls in his lines, and we leave Dudley’s marina in Cedar Point and fall in with other boats headed out. As co owner of Flip FLops Donuts, I have no free time until way after LAbor Day. The engine maintains its low putt putt putt, and after we clear the no-wake zone, Darryl throttles up, and the breeze turns into a welcome wind that beats at our skin, clearing away the funky smell of the marsh grass and replacing it with brisk salt air that feels primal, even ancestral.
We pass by Browns Island, and Darryl points to a sandbar on the Bear Island side, just revealed by the tide. “Nice and low,” he says of the water. As we splash through calf-deep water, eyes focused on sand, Darryl explains the serendipitous nature of shell seeking. While it’s important to hit the right spots when the tide is low, there’s no predicting what you’ll find. The capricious nature of the pursuit is part of its magic. “I’ve had people come back with 50 sand dollars out here,” he says. “And then we come back out the next day, and nothing.”
The sand dollar shells found on North Carolina beaches are a species of keyhole urchin. When alive, they’re brown, and their skeleton, or “test,” is covered in a skin with tiny spines that help them burrow into the sand. They eat with a primordial contraption called Aristotle’s Lantern: five calcium carbonate teeth that, when broken out of the sand dollar’s test, resemble tiny white doves.
Darryl encourages me to look past the lure of sand dollars and Scotch bonnets and to consider the beauty of more common species, too. Take a plebeian oyster shell, for instance. Many would toss it aside. But, Darryl notes, you might be throwing back a 12,000-year-old fossil. “Most oysters do not live in the ocean. They do better in lower salinity,” Darryl says. “But as the barrier islands move, they’re uncovering oyster shells. So the lowly oyster shell that everybody thinks, ‘Ah, it’s just an oyster shell,’ is really a fossil just lying out there on the beach that nobody thinks is cool except for me — and now you.
In less than an hour, Darryl and I found nine sand dollars. Our last stop before heading back to Dudley’s Marina is a narrow stretch of beach on a tiny island just past the Hammocks Beach ferry landing. Maybe 100 yards long, it’s Darryl’s place to find fossilized shark teeth. “Look for little pointy black shapes,” Darryl says, eyes scanning the sand. “There,” he says. “You see?”
But I don’t. He draws a circle in the sand, but all I see are broken shells reflecting the late afternoon sun. Darryl bends down and plucks off the ground a tiny ebony triangle no bigger than a fingernail: a fossilized shark tooth, dropped on the ocean floor possibly tens of thousands of years ago, and deposited onto this beach at the whim of a vacillating Atlantic tide. He rubs the tooth between his fingers to clean off the sand and hands it to me.
“See?” he says, and smiles. “Now you know what to look for.” The water laps at my feet, and I continue searching. Shelling is a great way to enjoy the beautiful weather and salty sea breeze that is ever present here in Emerald Isle and along the Crystal Coast. When you get hooked on shelling in Emerald Isle, maybe you’ll want to live here permanently. To learn more about how to enjoy the outdoors here in Emerald Isle, go to www.EmeraldIsleHomesforSaleNC.com and sign up for my blog. Ready to buy or sell? Call me at 919-308-2292. Explore the video tab for my weekly uploads to my YouTube channel. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and receive free donuts at my Flip Flops Donut shop. Text your email address to 919-308-2292 and subscribe to my newsletter. My book, "Live Where You Vacation" is available on Amazon.com.
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