Bald Head Island, NC - Sept 2011

Harbor on Bald Head Island

We had a long weekend planned on Ocracoke Island for Labor Day weekend.  Unfortunately, Hurricane Irene spoiled those plans so we had to rally with a backup option.  Fortunately, John is on a distribution list that let him know there were houses available on Bald Head Island, so Keith/Shawna, John/JoAnna, Phil/Joyce, and Steve/Amy re-arranged the weekend and headed for Bald Head instead.

Accommodation:

Rose Cottage

Rose Cottage - This is a four bedroom house on Bald Head that we rented.  Three of the bedrooms are in the main house, with an extra bedroom in the "crofter" above the garage.  It is a beautiful home with a large kitchen/living room area where we could all hang out.

Activities:
Bald Head Island is a gorgeous island about 3 hours from Raleigh.  Its claim to fame is that there are no cars or trucks on the island - everyone gets around on golf carts.  The beaches are beautiful, there are plenty of activities and the houses are definitely owned by wealthier people than us!

We picked up John and JoAnna on Friday at 2:45 and were on the road shortly thereafter.  The car was amazingly stuffed for just a short weekend - we had brought a couple of coolers with us filled to the rim with beer and wine and a bit of food.  With traffic only hurting us in a couple of places, we made it to the ferry terminal by 6pm where Phil and Joyce were waiting for us.  John had already booked tickets so JoAnna picked those up, John collected the keys to the house, Keith parked the car, and we made it on the 6:30 ferry with ease.  The ferry ride is a quick 20 minutes and after only a few minutes from disembarking, we were on the tram to the house on South Beach.  John had the foresight to book dinner while we were en route, so after quickly unpacking, the six of us grabbed the two golf carts and headed to the Shoals Club for a fantastic dinner.  We called it an early night (which Keith did the whole trip - he was pooped!) while the rest of the gang stayed up playing the "Battle of the Sexes" board game.

After breakfast the following morning, we worked out for an hour, showered, and then went for our first paddle boarding experience with John and JoAnna.  It was amazingly easy to balance on the boards.  The guide said he had only seen two people fall in - and one of them was drunk!  On a few occasions, we thought that Keith would be the third as he had a few near misses.  We paddled in the internal salt marsh which meant that there were no ocean waves, but there was still a current.  This was not much of an issue as we paddled out, but it was a serious amount of work paddling back.  There were times that no matter how hard you paddled, it seemed like you were standing still or even going backwards.  At one point, JoAnna and Shawna contemplated having the guide tow them back to the dock but pride prevailed and they persevered the long trip back.

Paddle Boarding

Ghost Walk Guide

Shawna had brought sandwich fixings, so we headed back to the house for lunch where Steve was waiting at the door.  After lunch, we went to our favorite spot on East Beach to relax, get some sun, crank through our Kindles, do some people watching and have a few beers.  Later that evening, we went to the harbor area to go on the ghost walk.  While fun, it was very cheesy and we are quite sure that everything was completely made up!  At one point, several people pointed to what looked like a bear in the distance - there are no bears on this island so you can imagine the surprise.  Come to find out, it was someone dressed in a bear suit who attempted to scare us throughout the walk.  I say attempted but I think it accomplished this task - at one point Shawna yelled 'holy s***' and Steve screamed like a girl.

Steve had offered to make us dinner so we retired to the house for wine, cheese, and a wonderful beef and pepper dish with rice and crab cakes.  We stayed up late playing a few rounds of "Battle of the Sexes" (the women were in the lead) and Mexican Train.

Sunday was even more relaxing because we had no morning event to commit to.  Steve's wife Amy, her daughter Margaret, and a school friend of Margaret's arrived right before lunch.  After a quick lunch, we headed back to the beach for more reading and beer - this time we walked across the street from our house to a spot on South Beach.  There were less people but there was a lot of fish activity in the water.  We were hopeful to see a shark fin but never did so we braved the water and swam around a bit as well.

South Beach (BHI, not Miami)

For dinner, we all returned to the Shoals Club - this time with 10 of us.  Thankfully, they seated us in the rear of the restaurant as we certainly were a loud bunch.  Everyone enjoyed the meal and Phil especially enjoyed one of their cocktails that starts with an 'o' and ends with an 'o' (another famous catch phrase coined by John)!

Gang at Dinner

Following dinner, we went on a Turtle Walk.  The Bald Head Island Conservancy monitors the various turtle nests on the island.  The event starts with a 45-minute  PowerPoint presentation about turtles which was surprisingly well done.  We then all jumped in our golf carts and headed to one of the 100-ish turtle nests on the beach with hopes that it "boils" that night - meaning that the 100 eggs in the nest all hatch, climb to the surface, and then waddle to the ocean.  While this would be a really cool thing to see, the odds of it happening are quite slim.  Turtles hatch in a 20-day window, and while almost always at night, Steve calculated the odds of this particular nest hatching at the exact time we were sitting there at about 1-2%.  What this meant is that Keith had yet another nap on the beach while the rest of the gang sat staring at the nest using flashlights covered with red cellophane to no avail - not even JoAnna and Shawna's singing could get these turtles to hatch!  We returned to the house to play more rounds of "Battle of the Sexes" - this time the men pulled into the lead and won the overall number of games.  There was much complaining by the women that the game was stupid and clearly written by men; however, we just couldn't pull ourselves away from continuing to play!

Steve was generous again and made us a yummy egg and bacon breakfast on our last morning.  We cleaned up, packed and boarded the tram at 10:45 am with sad faces and caught the 11:30 ferry back to the mainland.  To mix things up a bit on the drive home, we took the Fort Fisher Ferry so we could head up Carolina Beach to Wilmington to get home.  After a quick stop for lunch at Fish Bites, (recommended to Jo by the person on the same tram as us) we headed home - back to the grindstone!

Sunset on BHI

Restaurants:
Shoals Club - So good we ate here twice!  The location is beautiful at the southern edge of East Beach on BHI.  We particularly loved the bread, the Crab and Avocado Parfait, Shrimp Brule, and Grilled Vegetable Napoleon appetizers - as John said, the best a vegetable can taste without being meat.  The Pork Tenderloin was good, but the Shrimp and Grits was a bit disappointing.  We did have a taste of Steve's lamb entree and it was fantastic. 

Fish Bites - We stopped at this Carolina Beach restaurant for a quick lunch on the way home.  The service was attentive and the "Fish Bites Shrimp Bombs" (beer batter shrimp stuffed with pepper jack cheese, wrapped in prosciutto, fried, and served with a Thai chili sauce) were killer.  However, we were disappointed with the fish tacos and the fish and chips entrees that we ordered.