A Day at the Beach

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A shot from Tuesday of Donnie and Johnny going in for a swim in the ocean near Atlantic Beach, NC.  The tide was coming in, and the water was rougher than we would have liked, but we all went out and enjoyed ourselves.  We all had at least one wave grab us and pound us into the sandy bottom, but we all came up and recovered quickly and were back enjoying ourselves.  Johnny is a real go getter and nothing much deters him.  We were impressed with is toughness.  No shells on this beach.  And, we went out late in the day to avoid the sun, sunburn, and hot temps.

Here's a collage showing what I thought were the best beach shots.  Donnie lost his ball cap doing that arms up V for me. He's such a great guy helping me to get the shots I want.

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Here's a collage of our visit to the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort also from Tuesday.  This museum boasts artifacts from Queen Anne's Revenge and takes the kids through a near clue find in the museum.

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Here's our behind the scenes tour pics in chronological order from the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.  Definitely worth the extra few bucks to go on the tour!  We got to touch a loggerhead turtle, see where they breed the sea horses, learn what the fish each, understand the filtration system, and understand how the staff gets to the fish for feeding and diving,  This aquarium has the biggest viewing glass and tank size on the east coast.  From the museum website:

German U-boats sank scores of cargo ships, tankers and passenger liners along the East Coast during World War II, a reality still not widely known more than 60 years later. On May 9, 1942, the U-352 fired on the Coast Guard cutter Icarus 25 miles off Cape Lookout. The Coast Guard fired back, and the submarine lost the resulting altercation. It went to the bottom in about 100 feet of water, the first U-boat to be sunk by the Coast Guard.

A three-quarter-size replica of the U-352 as it looks today lists to starboard at the bottom of the 306,000-gallon Living Shipwreck. The fearsome-looking sand tiger sharks, schools of colorful fishes and other animals that populate the Living Shipwreck are typically found around this wreck and others offshore.

The extensive and varied marine community makes the U-352 a popular recreational dive site. In the Living Shipwreck exhibit, divers chat with visitors through underwater microphones. Three viewing windows – one of them 65′ long – frame the constant swirl of color and motion around the submarine. A concave cylindrical window at one end imparts the sensation of being inside the tank.

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And here are a few pics I got during the Winging It bird show.  We saw two pelicans, a hawk, two vultures, a barn owl, and a couple of other birds.  They flew right over our heads.  I felt the breeze.  Horrible lighting, so I apologize for poor picture quality.

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We're back home now. We miss the breeze we had at the beach.