In the Spotlight: Driving on the Beach

Sunday, 17 April 2011

If you read the previous post about the Currituck Heritage Park, you’ll recall that the Knights — the couple who built the mansion that is now the Whalehead Club — had to drive 33 miles (53 km) down the sand from Virginia Beach to Corolla Island.  You see, there was no public road access back then.  That’s not the case anymore, but driving on the beach is still an option for at least part of the way.  In fact, if you want to get to Carova, on the North Carolina/Virginia state line, your best bet is to drive on Currituck Beach — not only is it a much shorter distance, but I understand it’s way more fun.

Which road would you choose to get to Carova?

We didn’t go to Carova, but following our visit to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse and the Currituck Heritage Park, we did go for a short drive on the beach … and thus joined the blogger community of “rule-breakers.”

Let’s go for a drive! 

How did we break the rules?  It wasn’t because we let our dogs off the leash — we don’t have furkids.  Nor did we snitch a few lemons from the ground — no orchards nearby.  And no, it wasn’t because we opened a bottle of wine to drink — had only plain old water in the car (besides, unless the open bottle is in the vehicle, alcohol on the beach is not against the rules).

What we did was drive on the beach in a non-off-road-vehicle (NORV) … but only after we saw many obviously NORV sedans already on the beach.  At least our CR-V looked like it belonged amongst the big ole off-roaders.  Before you report us to the authorities, I’d like to point out that we did follow all of the other rules.  We drove smart, kept our drive short, and didn’t stray from the hard-packed sand.

There’s not much one can say about a drive on the beach — other than, it was lots of fun.  We certainly had a perfect day for the drive.  The sun shone brilliantly, the sky was blue, the breeze kept us comfortable even as the temperature continued to rise into summer-like digits.  Although there were plenty of people on the beach, it didn’t feel crowded at all.  At our turn-around point, I got out to walk a stretch of the beach while Mui drove ahead and waited for me in the car.

Here are some of the images I took during my stroll ...

And then there was this beach scene, which I started playing around with in Lightroom (I shoot Raw), applying various filters.  I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so here’s a four-way collage (upper left is the original) ...

With excellent visibility on the beach, we didn’t have to worry about losing sight of the other vehicles or the beachgoers who were enjoying various activities.  We did, however, have to be extra careful of the stumps of wood poking out of the sand.

Let’s play find the tree stumps in the picture.
(hint: look for the black specks in the area between the shore and the last car.)

We speculated that the stumps were remnants of wrecked ships washed ashore and buried by sand, or remains of pier pylons.  We were wrong on both counts.  It turns out that they are still-rooted live oak stumps from an 800-year-old marine forest that has been buried by the sand — or so say the historians.  Anyway, here’s a closer look at a few of them.

A great day … a great outing.