International Coastal Clean-up - Carolina Beach

After much internal wrestling with my sleep deprived self, decided to forgo salsa last night and wake up at 7.40am this (Saturday) morning to attend a clean-up at Carolina Beach! I haven't volunteered for such a long time that I was starting to feel a little weird and out of sorts. Was looking forward to getting down and dirty again for the sake of nature!

We were a little worried when we first arrived at Carolina Beach, as it was awfully quiet and lacking in people. But we finally chanced upon the registration booth further along the boardwalk, yay!


Signed up on the spot and free breakfast (pretty good donuts) provided too! Instructions were pretty sparse- just pick up our supplies, fill in the datacard and come back when we're done.


Pre-clean-up beach- doesn't it look absolutely polluted? :)

This event is quite well-supported, and more than 100 people showed up. Look at the advancing horde!

Frankly though, this is the cleanest clean-up I've ever been to. That's Wai and her aunt with our 'bulging' bag of trash after 2 hours of traversing the beach. The weather was sunny, breezy and cool, and I didn't even break into sweat. Where's the mud? The half-buried washing machine? The nets trapping multitudes of crabs? It all felt rather surreal...

Our tally ended with a total of 929 cigarette butts, plenty of plastic odds and ends, 1 piece of glass, 2 fishing lines, a few pieces of styrofoam and a used condom covered with ants which I had to pick up as Wai didn't want to touch it...

Since we had some energy left, we decided to take the car ferry to Southport and drive back to Wilmington from there.

Only $5 for 3 persons and one car! What do you think the breakdown of costs is?


View of the Cape Fear River from the ferry. Pretty!

The Southport-Fort Fisher ferry

Lunch was hotdogs from Trolley Stop. I love my chili dogs :P

We did walk around Southport and stuff, but unfortunately, no more pictures as my camera batteries died out. It's a really quaint and sweet little ole town though, with two major perpendicular streets, old houses, and a rather historical flavour. We contemplated visiting the Boiling Springs Lake on the way back, but couldn't find the entrance to the lake area. Oh well, we'll just have to come back another day.

Went to downtown Wilmington instead and got my Kilwins ice-cream fix (mmm...fudgy goodness....). Thought I'll go home, have a swim, and that'll be the end of the day, but got a call about a Chinese BBQ at Halyburton Park to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival! It's turning out to be a rather full day! But hey, graduate students seldom turn down free food opportunities, hehehe...