North Carolina Aquarium and Fort Fisher Historic Site -- Random Sightseeing!

Saturday was just drenching rain, so Lisa and I decided to do some inside sightseeing and so drove down to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. It is about a mile and a half from the house and usually we would walk, but not Saturday!

The Museum was really crowded (note to self -- don't go again on a weekend) which surprised me as Fort Fisher isn't in a large metropolitan area for sure!! The museum is designed so that you can get an idea of the area in which you are living or visiting. The theme is the Cape Fear River area and the marine environment it goes out to. There are some other fauna represented as well though.



This is a young loggerhead turtle. The loggerheads return to the beaches where they were born to lay their eggs.





This was one of the gigantic lobsters they had but the coloring was so pretty. I liked the patterning on the back of the very young turtle above as well.


This is one of the local quails which was at the aquarium -- in fact quite a few of them walking around the conservatory.

This is a wood duck which is the only duck that nests in North Carolina! Now that was a surprise!

Sunday was another matter as the skies were the bright cerulean blue that I love although it was really windy! Lisa and I again decided to do the tourist thing and walked down to the Fort Fisher Historical Site which is right before the aquarium. My intent was really to see the beaches down at the end of the island which I did! I will probably head back down there in the next couple of days as there appears to be just big deserted beaches that stretch forever. The fishermen have returned also so the fish must be back!

You can see the blowing sand well in this picture. Lisa and I liked the blurring effect it had.


This was looking down the beach to the wide open spaces south of the Ft. Fisher Historical site.

There was quite a bit of surf as well as many whitecaps. We saw surfers later at our beach access.

This was again an illustration of the blowing sand giving the beach a really strange quality (although pretty stinging when it hit your skin like sandpaper!)