Hammocks Beach State Park, NC

Today, we visited Hammocks Beach State Park in North Carolina. In order to get to the park, you pay $5 for a 15 minute ferry ride out to Bear Island. Once you reach Bear Island, it's about another 15 minutes walk out to the beach. 

The path to the beach is paved, with interesting stops along the way.

Here is a particularly nice and shady stop.

Once you reach the beach area, there are restroom facilities and also a concession bar (cash only) which sells things like chips, ice cream, and sodas.

The beach itself is very nice, not crowded, and with beautiful sand dunes.

Rallie posing in front of the dunes

Empty beach

My hair!!!

The island has a lot of history, including a bit that involves local legend and pirate, Blackbeard. A local government official owned the island at one point and allowed Blackbeard to use the island as a getaway in exchange for a share of the booty. You can read more about the history in the photo below:

This is a beautiful, unspoiled beach but requires a bit of work to get there. There are also primitive camping sites available on the island if you really feel like roughing it.