Ocean Isle Beach, 2024
Another year, another summer vacation with the family. Last year everyone loaded up on a cruise ship for Bermuda, but this year, we're bringing it back to tried and true Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. This trip won’t just be on the same beach as in many times past, but the same exact beach house as when I wrote this article just a few years ago!
Ocean Isle beach is a small town with only a couple surf shops and ice cream spots, but we love it all the same.
Saturday morning we arrive at the beach house. It’s earlier than our check-in, and there's no sign of the cleaning people. Either it’s already cleaned and we can get in early, or it hasn't even started yet!
We breathe a sigh of relief as we receive the good news, so we start unloading our things into the house. People soon make their way to the beach to submerge themselves in the sand and sea- it’s officially beach time!
A Small Surprise
As family members are figuring out sleeping situations at the house, I go on a solo walk down the beach to lose myself in the atmosphere and ambiance. On my way back I suddenly notice a big crowd of people on the beach about a hundred yards away. I've never seen such a crowd on this beach before, and my curiosity gets the best of me as I meander on over. I peek over somebody's shoulder, and crawling on the soft sand I spot a baby sea turtle! There's a small trench serving as a path to the ocean, and he's flapping around, trying to get down to the water as fast as his tiny flippers can take him.
My family’s been coming to this beach for almost 30 years now- we've seen a few turtle nests roped off here and there, but the only other time I’ve seen a baby turtle was with my Mom when I was just 3 years old.
It takes a few minutes, but by golly he makes it to the water- or so we think. A single wave trickles up the shore, but sends the poor guy head over heels, back up the sand, bouncing off spectators’ feet. The volunteers orchestrating the sea turtle launch ask people to stand back further so he doesn't accidentally get stepped on.
Wave after wave the tiny turtle is getting pummeled, and all we can do is watch. A few more minutes of struggle go by, and one of the volunteers finally sends him into the next layer of waves to get him started. Once he's got space to swim, he confidently makes his way further and further out into the ocean. I watch his tiny head bobbing up and down until he disappears behind a distant wave.
Incidentally, I had no phone to record any of it. I embraced the first-person experience and drank up as much of the present moment as I could watching this tiny creature enter our wondrous world (pictures explained later!)
An Even Bigger Surprise
The parents leave to go pick up groceries, so I take a book to read out on the deck using my new reading glasses. The glasses have triangular shaped lenses, allowing me to keep my head lifted up and facing forward while reading (everyone loved trying them on!)
The house is mostly empty, and a tranquil stillness filled the air.
Suddenly the door to the deck opens up, and unexpectedly my cousin Alexis pops out! Nobody was expecting her or her family to show up for family vacation, but here I find them standing before me! We spend time catching up, but then they leave for dinner. They'll be back later to surprise everyone else.
Afternoon turns into evening, so I decide to take a short cat nap. I wake up just before sun down, and looking across the beach, I see the same big crowd around the same turtle nest I was at just several hours before. Something’s going on!
I walk about 100 yards from our beach-access walkway and discover my family already there, watching a whole nest of turtles marching down the runway! This time I have my phone in hand, and I eagerly start snapping pictures and videos.
One by one the baby turtles instinctively race towards the water. The average nest of a Loggerhead sea turtle is about 100-120 eggs, with about 60-80 turtles able to make it out of the nest. The numbers drop even more from there- being hunted by seagulls, crabs and other ocean predators, less than 1 out of every 1,000 sea turtles make it to adulthood!
Everyone’s crowded around, snapping pictures with the camera flash off (so we don't confuse the turtles with blue-light wavelengths, which simulate daylight). We ask ourselves how it's possible we’ve never witnessed these turtles before!
Right on queue, Alexis and her family come walking across the beach. The adults are completely taken aback at their surprise visit, and everyone’s in high spirits. We haven't even had our first full day at the beach, and it's already been action-packed!
The Great Outdoors
Despite my evening nap, I'm still tired from the day's adventures and could fall asleep at any moment. The sleeping arrangements are pretty tight, so beds are in scarce supply. My mom asks me “Do you want to sleep outside on an air mattress?”
Without hesitation I grab an air mattress, a pillow, two blankets and arrange my bed on the top deck with a grin on my face. I use towels and extra pillows to block the light from the neighboring houses, and when I look up I can see the stars. The sky is clear, and you can make out Cygnus and Hercules constellations, among others. The humidity in the constantly-blowing air is high, and the pillow and blankets start getting damp. I lay there until I start getting chilly, where I then disappear under the covers. Despite my exhaustion, I stargaze for another 15 minutes before putting my sleep mask over my eyes.
Golfing, and More Wildlife
While it’s not always fun waking up early, it’s easy to do when you’ve got a tee time with your family scheduled. The next morning a big group of us go golfing at one of the nearby courses called Leopard’s Chase.
It's not long until we hit the first Par 3. A glance at the neighboring pond to our left reveals an alligator hovering in the water. It's not overly huge, but it’s enough to make us more aware of our surroundings! We hit our (pretty good) tee shots and keep it moving.
We pull up to the green and my younger brother Bryce nails his first ever birdie putt from 15 feet away! We walk back to the carts, exchange fist bumps, but stop in our tracks. We spot another gator- except this one is huge, and twice as close! His head is massive, and you can see his immense body disappearing into the depths of the pond. This guy isn’t to be messed around with, so we make haste to the next tee box!
Two holes later I'm driving around the woods helping Jared find his tee shot. Out of nowhere a coyote comes trotting by us not 20 yards away! He's a big boy too, and I quickly point him out to Jared before he runs out of sight. We’re used to seeing squirrels, pond turtles, and maybe the occasional fox on the golf course, but not gators and coyotes! We keep it low key at the beach after our round of 18 that day.
Party Time Charter
We’ve got some ambitious fishermen in our group, so we assemble a group of eight the next morning to climb aboard the Party Time boat. When the captain asks what we want to fish for, we reply “something we can eat for dinner!” We spend a few more minutes talking, but right away the vibes are off. The captain isn't very enthusiastic or engaging, and the answers to our questions aren’t reassuring. Nevertheless, we take the boat out to the open ocean.
We troll for some Spanish mackerel, but to keep them they need to be over 12” long. The ones we were catching were all 11.5”. After an hour or so we switch out the bait for chum- we're fishing for blacktip sharks now. All we get is a tiny baby shark after two more hours, and he lives to see another day.
The charter boat turned out to be a bust, which became apparent fairly early in the 4-hour long excursion. When we finally land on solid ground with a single Spanish mackerel to show, the captain tells us it's been a slow few weeks out on the water. They filet our single fish, and we leave with what feels like a sour taste in our mouths. The best part about the charter boat was being tired enough to take a nap on the beach after!
A Lesson Learned
So much for sleeping in on vacation! The next morning is another golf day, which marks day #3 I wake up earlier than 7am this trip.
This golf crew is smaller than before, allowing for a more serious match to be had. Upon the first tee box of Panther’s Run, I hit a hook into the bushes. I start getting flashbacks of an unsatisfactory back nine from the prior golf day.
We put money down on the first 9 holes, but I only manage to win a hole or two for our team. Me and Shane scrape by enough to win $5 each after the first nine, but my personal game is pretty ugly. We switch up the pairings for the second nine, and I try a different strategy.
Golf is a mental game, and I was tired of fighting what seemed like an fruitless battle. Imagining shots and maintaining a positive attitude, while both good strategies, weren't enough to pull me out of the funk I was in. I decided to give up trying to control every small aspect of my game. Instead, I zoomed out of my circumstances and focused on enjoying hanging out with my family on the golf course.
Hole #10 I hook my drive to the left, but my approach shot takes me to the fringe of the green. I take a look at the hole, hit a semi-confident putt, and watch the ball drop in from 10 feet away. Birdie!
Slowly but surely I start straightening out my shots, and my back 9 score begins shaping up nicely. My shots aren't as bad as they were on the front, and I shoot 5 straight pars to finish out the second nine. After the last putt goes in on hole #18, I discover I’ve just shot my lowest ever 9-hole score of 38, just +2 over par! Shane said it was the best mid-round adjustment he’s ever seen.
Upon reflection of the round, I found that zooming out of my situation, being in the present moment, being grateful, and relaxing (with the help of a white claw on hole #12) had served me best.
The Family Picture
Every year we get a family picture. Everyone peeks their head over someone's shoulders, stretches their neck for a spot, and a few seconds later everyone’s relieved to be done.
Family pictures require a bunch of people to be in one spot, and when it's +90 degrees out right beside the ocean, it comes as no surprise when everyone turns around and makes for the waves.
Just minutes after the family picture, there's no less than 15 people bouncing up and down in the waves, bumping into each other and pinching each others’ legs underwater. My Dad exclaims ‘The waves are never this rough’ and my Uncle Joey retorts “We’ve been coming here for years now, and it's always like this!”
Coffee Shops and the Comedy Cabana
Wednesday was the first day I could finally sleep in, so I stayed in bed until the morning sun started cooking me on the top deck. From there Braden and I headed to Drift Coffee Shop.
I'm not a big coffee drinker, but the physical act of going somewhere (along with the ingestion of a cafe au lait's worth of caffeine) allows me to enter a mindset conducive to focused work- aka writing this article! I only needed an hour or so to get the swirling thoughts out of my head and into the Google doc.
Braden and I would go here the next two mornings as well, me writing and him reading Dave Ramsey and listening to podcasts.
Our family loves to laugh- one of the nights we drive to the Comedy Cabana out towards Myrtle Beach. We've been there a few times and it's a fun way to spend a night with the fam. We went to see Joe Deuce, followed by Joseph Anthony , but we ended up liking Joe Deuce better!
Beach Game(s)
The main beach game we played this year was bocce ball, which Shane and I paired up for. Since the tide was high for most of the time we were at the beach, there wasn't a whole lot of flat, hard sand to roll the bocce balls on. This left us with mostly throwing the balls, seeing who could land them closest to the white ball (the pallino.)
We won the first couple games, but our competitors complained this wasn't “real bocce”. The next day we played “correctly" when there was more beach to play on, and despite their prior gripes, we remained undefeated the whole trip.
Another Year Safe from Sunscreen
The sun shines bright and hot on the beach, but that didn’t stop Jared, Bryce and myself from remaining sunscreen-free. This is the third summer I’ve intentionally avoided sunscreen, and I can confidently say I'm never going back.
I almost got burnt a few times, but I’ve learned to listen to my body and not push my limits past what I can handle. With the help of coconut oil and homemade moisturizer AFTER(!) a day at the beach, I was able to wake up each day of the trip with all the tan and none of the pain of sun-toasted skin!
Sunscreen has been around for less than 100 years, and despite what medical professionals may say, I believe the sun has healing and beneficial properties for the body- as long as you don’t overdo it! People love to say “the sun gives you cancer!”, but I believe it's actually sunscreen, combined with poor diet, that gives people cancer. If you do some research, you’ll find skin cancer rates have been rising since the invention of sunscreen. I wrote an article about the dangerous effects of sunscreen, and how you can safely avoid using it, here.
Before We Leave…
As some may know, last year I started an all-natural (almost) edible soap brand called Gage’s Natural Deodorizers, with the tagline Ground Yourself. I used this trip as an opportunity to do a photo shoot with some bars of soap. I started by asking Bryce if he could dig a hole I could sit in.
It was especially windy our last day there, and the dry sand near the dunes was perfect for slapping me in the face. I wasn’t super hopeful for how the pictures would turn out, considering the sand in my eyes and clinging to my beard, but I think they turned out awesome!
Jared took the lead of the photoshoot, and with the help of Bryce and my Dad, they blew my expectations out of the water. There has to be over 100 pictures and videos of soap taken, and there’s some real diamonds in there. The brand isn’t even a year old yet, but I’m excited to see it reach new heights with the support of my family and friends!
Another Successful Family Beach Vacation
I anticipated this beach trip to be slow and uneventful, but looking back, it was quite the opposite! Surprises were bountiful, wildlife was everywhere, and the contrast of the hot sun and the cooling waves was as relieving and grounding as ever. The days were engaging and fun, but still relaxing, and it turned out to be another successful beach vacation with the family!
