Ocean Isle Beach Day

Saturday, we took Alex to the coast for a beach day at Ocean Isle Beach. On the way down, we made a stop at Green Swamp Preserve to check out the carnivorous plants.  A short hike on the preserve trail led through a forest that had recently been burned and across a rickety boardwalk through a dense forest area.  Across the boardwalk, the trail entered a beautiful savanna and we began to see the carnivorous plants.

And a lot of non-carnivorous plants were flowering too.

The rosebud orchids were especially pretty.

Partridgeberry has tiny little white flowers.

Continuing on, we came to another savanna with a ton of pitcher plants.

Unlike the tiny little fly traps and sundews, the pitcher plants are quite conspicuous.

They were flowering as well.

The sundews are so small, they are hard to spot.

I think that there were spoonleaf sundews as well as the more common pink sundews present.

But the pitcher plants were the star of the show.  I really love their flowers.

Like the sundews, the Venus fly traps are very small and easy to miss if not looking carefully.

We went as far as the trail went before hitting a wet spot and turned around.  Nearly back at the car, I went down to the mostly dry burrow pit to see some ten-angled pipewort flowering in the much.

We were the only ones around for our hike but another car pulled in as we were leaving.

From here, we continued to Ocean Isle Beach and parked at the pier.  We took a walk down the beach and found a nice spot to set up an umbrella.

While Sandy and Alex relaxed in the sand, I walked down the beach to the east end of the island.

On the way back, I took a detour at Winston-Salem Street and hiked the short Ocean Isle Beach Nature Trail.

The mostly boardwalk trail had very nice views of the tidal marsh and intracoastal waterway.

Back on the beach, Sandy and I took our shoes off and walked in the water a bit.  It was a little cold for a dip, but felt nice just ankle-deep.  Alex, however, stayed further up on the beach and refused to get any closer to the water.

When we had enough of the sun, we made the short walk over to Pelican's Perch for a late lunch on the patio.  Then we made the drive home.