First up is a drive through downtown Wilmington, with lots of historic buildings, lots of churches, narrow streets, some cobbled, a light number of tourists on the streets. Looks nice for a return visit.

We need some food though, so we're off to Wrightsville Beach, the "nicer" beach north of Carolina Beach, to find a diner TFS wants to take me to. But, it's closed this Sunday, so Plan B is the Bluewater, a fancier place on a marina, where we get a waterside table next to the parking lot.

me, calabash, boats

The customer boat parking - at various times people tie up, right below us, helped by 2 restaurant staff, and come in for dinner. One 2-level 60-footer slips into its own berth and the family inside comes out onto the pier to await something, maybe tying up for the day. How nice to be able to cruise in for some nosh.

I didn't even think to take any pictures. I'm too busy stuffing myself with calabash, a style of preparing battered and fried seafood that comes from Calabash, NC , which itself was named after gourds that were grown in the area and used for drinking. It's good, but not as noteworthy as some of the boats that cruise by, all pleasurecraft, and some very large. My favourite is the boat in foreground of the picture. It's a leather-appointed Norwegian-made 40-footer on display by a local dealer, no pricetag, so we're not prime customers for it.

After eats we go see how Wrightsville Beach is better. There's a lot more newer and large development, with large homes, fewer motels, and a central tourist area that looks less cheezy, but nothing obviously better about it. I guess we're the kind of people more suited to a "redneck" beach. What makes Wrightsville more exclusive is that it's separated from the other beaches by a couple large coastal inlets and a coastal reserve area, which means it has to be accessed from a different part of Wilmington, keeping the grubby southern-beach riff-raff from wandering up to it. We didn't even get out to see the beach - beach is beach, and we have our own martini-fortified beach which we like Just Fine.

A few evenings earlier, when we got lost on the beach and had to go inland to find our way back along the street, our first clue to being past the beach house was the closeness of the Carolina Beach Pier to the north. It's been part of the view, especially at night when it's lit, and isn't too far away to walk to, so we do, along the beach, mixed drinks in hand, in the night.

Not my photo. The best shots of the pier are had in the morning, as the sun rises. I am not (yet) a sun-rise person. Have yet to see one actually...

The pier is at the far end of Carolina Beach and there's no development north of it. The dunes get pretty thin as we near the pier, replaced by large boulders to act as a breakwater for the newer-looking developments nearer it. The pier has a couple dozen people on it, most quietly waiting for their line to pick up something. Anyone can get a Pier Permit, rent a pole (or two or three), and try their luck in the warm Atlantic night.

The only fish we see caught are 12-inch thin silver things in the cooler of a large contingent of Asians collected along one side, men, women and a couple young boys, the largest group I've seen in one place the whole time. Despite being in the US South, this trip has been very white. Can't be a lot of eating in such thin fish, but they're free and something to do as a family picnic kind of thing.

Our beverages have long since run dry, so we amble back down the beach. By now, we have a clue about beach night walking, and know how to recognize whereabouts the beach house should be and leave a light on on the deck table to indicate our little box for living from all the others, lit and dark, that face the beach.

Some more people are fishing on the beach, no light needed. At various times I've asked people what they're fishing for, or catching, because I can't believe one can cast a hook far enough into the shallow waters to reach anything, but the locals know better. The two fellows I ask this time rattle off some names I can't remember, and know what would be running in November, so they're not just pushing a pole into the sand as an excuse to drink beers and be on the beach. These fellows have a little extra reason, or relief, in being here: the talkative one has just returned from a tour in the much sandier but less beachy country of Afghanistan. A much better sand-to-water ratio here! :)