Up and out to the beach - early

It was me and the fisherman at 6:20 a.m. ... the beach was lovely, the ocean gave up a well tumbled welk shell (not a perfect speciman, but the biggest shell I found since I came here!) and I got a few pictures, nothing spectacular this a.m.

This beach is just across the sand dunes from our hotel room here at the Lighthouse View Inn in Buxton. (the name is a real stretch - you can see the light at night, but not the lighthouse!) If you \have the stamina for walking in the sand (it really is tough in the soft sand!) you could walk to Cape Hatteras Light Station from here, via the beach ... but I want to save my walking for a hike through the Buxton Woods today, a maritime forest out near the picnic grounds where we had out lunch yesterday! I also want to walk on the beach near the original location of the lighthouse (it was moved in 1999 about 600 yards inland!) and collect some sand there for my Hatteras bottle that I found at the Pirate's Chest on Ocracoke.

I was afraid if I tried to get both feet in this picture I would fall, so I had to settle for one foot only. (I also wrote in the sand on Ocracoke Island, and will do the same at Nags Head - one of the photos may end up in my title page layout for my vacation book from this year!)