November 2023

Eastern North Carolina is rich in American history and historical sites. One within an hour’s drive of Wilmington is lesser-known Fort Caswell. It lies on the eastern end of Oak Island at the convergence of the Cape Fear River and Atlantic Ocean, between Southport on the Brunswick County mainland and 12,000-acre Bald Head Island. Now…

I knew the first time I drove onto the Fort Caswell grounds, I had to write about it. Fort Caswell on the eastern end of Oak Island is so close and yet when you’re out there on that peninsula you feel as if you are a million miles from everywhere. In today’s really challenging climate,…

Around the time Wrightsville Beach got its first dial telephone installed and Newell’s expanded to become a landmark variety store, a beach cottage on North Harbor Island was built. The year was 1940, back before Johnnie Mercers Fishing Pier and Waynick Boulevard existed, when the Blockade Runner Beach Resort was still called the Seashore Hotel,…

Any holiday gathering typically revolves around the main meat choice, ham, turkey or beef, but most families will say no meal is complete without the traditional dressing. Not unlike the family gravy, this recipe is held in great esteem. It is a meal memory maker. Nods can be observed around a table, yep, that’s it,…

Art rarely adheres to any schedule but its own. Artists know a piece becomes complete in its own time. They explore every possible path until finally it is done. David Norris, a Wilmingtonian whose mediums include painting, printmaking, drawing and photography, knows all about this process. “I’ll find something to focus on,” says Norris. “I’ll…

Everett’s Yachtel was a marina and motel on the Wrightsville Beach Causeway crossing present day Harbor Island, formerly known as The Hammocks. With an early awareness of successful business branding, owner Martin Everett creatively combined yacht and motel to get the unique name. Everett went by the nickname Hot Shot Everett. “Everybody knew him as Hot…

After the lighted boat parade in 2019 the night sky explodes with fireworks. The annual N.C. Holiday Flotilla at Wrightsville Beach is celebrating its 40th year. The boat parade begins at 6 p.m. Saturday November 25th. Fireworks follow.

Throughout the year, hundreds of 14-year-old female surfers (wahines) compete in their district competitions for the right to win a spot in one of the heats at the Eastern Surfing Championship, the top event for surfers from Maine to Florida. So aside from the 32 top wahines she faced that day, Wrightsville’s Skylar Rose Steinmetz…

The Wrightsville community celebrates Charles McDonald “Tripp” Brice, the beloved Bridge Tender Marina dockmaster who passed away Aug. 13, 2023, at the age of 65. Tripp was an extraordinary man, a devoted patriot who embodied so much that is good in America. A happy Tar Heel, a delightful storyteller, a man of talent, sharing, and…

The Harbor Island Garden Club is sponsoring a Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker placement on Wrightsville Beach. Blue Star Memorial Markers honor veterans for their service to our country. There are over 3,000 markers throughout the United States, and now there will be a new stop in Wrightsville Beach. The markers are of three types.…