Located on Bear Island, Hammocks Beach State Park is best known for its three miles of beautiful beaches stretching along the blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean (follow park signs off Hwy 24 just west of Swansboro). Here you can find a beach unspoiled by man, untouched by time, and definitely at its finest.

For hundreds of years before the English came to America, Bear Island was home to the Neusiok and Core Indians. But when the English arrived, the secretary to the royal governor granted the notorious pirate Blackbeard use of the island in return for some of his "treasures." Blackbeard thusly utilized the island throughout the early 1700s. After his death a fort was built on the western end of the island to protect the area from other outlaws.

Today visitors to Hammocks Beach can enjoy surf-fishing, hiking (very hot sand necessitates shoes), camping, swimming, picnicking and shelling. Seventeen primitive campsites are available on Bear Island for camping year round. Bear Island is also one of the most important nesting areas in the state for loggerhead sea turtles. Females come ashore on summer nights to deposit their eggs in the warm sands and then return to the sea. These nests and hatchlings are protected by the endangered species act - do not disturb.

Educational programs on such topics as sea animals, pollution, the island’s history, and shells also are presented by park employees.  A ferry to Bear Island runs the 25-minute route 9:30am-4:30pm every hour on the half hour May through October: in May, Friday through Sunday; in June, Wednesday through Sunday; Memorial Day to Labor Day, seven days a week; in September, Wednesday through Sunday; and in October, Friday through Sunday.  Information, 910-326-4881.

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Story & photo courtesy of nccoast.com