Hammocks Beach State Park: Trouble in Paradise

Hammocks Beach State Park offers a remote island beach and extensive paddle trails. The striking views are everywhere from the moment you enter the front gates. If you are just coming for the beach experience, consider checking out Fort Macon or Pine Knoll Shores

Where

Hammocks Beach State Park is located to the South of Swansboro which is not far from Emerald Isle. This small coastal town is mainly known to locals in the area and residents of near by Camp Lejeune. When you turn into the park, you will exit suburbia and enter a beautiful coastal forest.

The main parking area is sized well enough. This is mainly a staging area for the ferry. We came during Memorial Day and did not find it hard at all to get parking. The park had marked off addition surge parking for the day but it did not seem needed.

Visitor Center

The Hammocks Beach State Park visitor center is the main structure next to the parking lot. This epic building has quite the grand foyer with adequate mini museum. I appreciate that they put these exhibits together to tide over any waiting time for the ferry. We walked through this in a matter of minutes with our rowdy toddler.

The back door has a beautiful covered porch with enough seating for 20+ people. This overlooks the water front and was a great waiting area. Kaitlyn stayed here and studied while Madilyn and I walked around. There is also a small gift shop and the ticket line for the ferry. They keep a simple flipchart up displaying the next ferry time you can purchase tickets for.

Did You Bring Your Own Boat?

There are generally two types of people who come to Hammock’s Beach State Park. beach-goers and kayakers. If you are coming for the beach then you will be using the ferry operated by the Park. If you came for the paddle trails, you brought your own boat.

Boaters

If you are big into kayaking or are looking to get started, this could be a great place for you. The small launching area is just behind the visitor center. You will likely see the colorful boats in this area. The parking lot does have a direct walkway to this area.

If you do not have your own kayak and would like to still check out the paddle trails, there are rentals you can reserve to use. One outfit we saw out there was Paddle NC. They offer rentals ranging from 2 hours to multi day rentals. Prices at the time of writing range between $20 to $120 depending on the package selected.

We did not check out the paddle trails ourselves but saw quite a few people enjoying them. You can check out some islands that are not otherwise accessible. You do have to cross the Intercostal Water Way for several of these so be careful during peak season. There were plenty of crazy people driving through there not looking for smaller boats.

There is also a full sized boat launch at the park as well but has its own parking area away from the visitor center.

Ferry

For the rest of us, we came for the beach on Bear Island. The ferry service runs to the island on a predetermined schedule put out by the park. The Ferry is operated by the park itself. This is slightly different from the arrangement at Cape Lookout.

We were very frustrated to learn that you can not make advance reservations of any kind. You have to be in-person on the day of the ferry ride in order to make reservations. This means that there is no guarantee that there will be any room for you on a boat that day and you can not find out until it is too late. I am sure Hammocks Beach State Park has a valid reason for this but this really had me second guessing coming at all.

We ended up having to wait for over 1.5 hours to board the ferry. During that time I saw several other groups come and leave because the wait was too long. The next closest beach access is a 30 minute drive.

Boarding is an easy process. You congregate at the small pavilion near the gate. When it is your turn to get on, the gates open and you walk onto the ferry boat. Oh but not fido. No pets are allowed on the boat but they are allowed in the park. Again, I can understand that there is likely a reason for this but other nearly identical ferries in NC allow pets. Cape Lookout National Seashore contracts their ferry service to Ferry Express. They allow pets… and flexible advance booking… just saying.

The crews were courteous, timely and prompt. They did a great job and the 15 minute ride was really pleastned. The procedural shortfalls of the “no pets” policy and no advanced bookings left a bad taste in my mouth.

We Made It! Oh Wait…

When you get off the ferry, you are still not yet at the beach. There is paved 1/2 mile path from the ferry to the beach. All of the concessions, restrooms, shelters and other amenities are on the far side of this 1/2 mile. Madilyn had a hard time with this part. The air is rather stagnant on this side of the island and there is not much shade.

A volunteer with a golf cart ran up and down this trail for anyone with mobility issues. We are no strangers to convoluted beach experiences like Cape Lookout so we continued to push through since usually these type of beaches are our favorites.

Beach… FINALLY

You will see the picnic shelters and the pavilions as you come up to the beach. The beach was not be crowded for us. We came on a summer holiday and would still call it light traffic at most. There are life guards posted for a SMALL section of the beach. If this is important to you, pay attention to their signs. Most people stayed close to this area mostly because there was not much reason to spread out further.

The picnic areas, the restrooms and the concessions stands are all linked by a long walkway. This gentle slope up was very gradual and gave the concessions stand a nice view of the beach below. Though these make for great photos, there are a few issues. The bathrooms are not very clean. Only one of the four outdoor showers was functional. And this remote island concessions stand only takes cash (no ATM)

As for beach itself? It was OK. Weather was nice, plenty of room and lot of unpopulated beach we could explore. We pulled out the old trusty budget kite and had a great success. We staked it down and used it as a guide marker when we were getting too far away. This was our 3rd attempt with the kite and the first time we had adequate wind. Madilyn was blown away.

We were hoping to find lots of shells like when we went to Cape Lookout National Seashore. After walking over 50% of the water front, I found only 2-3 OK shells and we left them on the beach when we left. I found myself remising about our recent trip to Fort Macon State Park and even Pine Knoll Shores Beaches. Neither had a ferry nor a remote island to boast of but we had an equivalent or better beach days there. However, they both had far less hassle to get to the beach itself. We were hoping to find Hammock’s Beach State Park to be a mini Cape Lookout experience but we were not impressed.

Overall

Hammocks Beach State Park offers a unique island beach and paddle trails on the NC Coast. The Beach experience takes significantly more time and effort than is valuable in most cases. The park desperately needs to allow advanced ferry ticket booking. If you are just coming for the beach experience, consider checking out Fort Macon or Pine Knoll Shores

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