NC Estuarium: Where Good Ideas Meet Reality

The world’s first and only estuarium is a local museum focused around the Pamlico estuary in Washington NC. Much of museum is oriented towards adults but is not very extensive. Between the odd sculptures and lack of depth, we are left wanting more.

Estu-Where?

The estuarium is located in “little” Washington adjacent to the waterfront park and is owned/operated by the Partnership for the Sounds. Parking is towards the west near the downtown shopping area. Outside from a handful of handicapped parking spaces and some street parking, there is no parking directly next to the estuarium. We intended to spend some time at the park anyways so this wasn’t a problem for us. For lunch, I recommend bringing a lunch to enjoy in the park. If that is not your speed, the downtown area has plenty of great local restaurants.

Estu-What?

The concept of the estuarium is so new that the word is not in the dictionary. Nonetheless, the main entrance to the estuarium is on the west side of the building where the very tall flag is located. When you enter the estuarium helpful staff will be there to greet you. We were directed to pay at the gift shop immediately to the left of the front door. $5 admission for adults and free for anyone under 5 is not too bad but was more than most local museums we visit.

After we paid, we were allowed to pass a makeshift/temporary rope gate that had been fashioned between some stand-up barriers and the greeter’s table. I first thought that this set up was a precaution left over from COVID. Instead, it seems to actually be a key function to ensure patrons paid the admission. I would have expected a ticket booth or something a little bit more thought through.

Estu-Sculpture

Nonetheless, once we past the rope gate, the greeters directed us to a very large sculpture that was made just for the estuarium. This sculpture is mostly comprised of driftwood and other unique materials. The greeters told us that the driftwood portion represents North Carolina, however I struggled to see the resemblance.

The greeters then demonstrated the kinetic part of the art piece. This involved a bouncy ball playing the roll of a water droplet in the water cycle. The ball goes up a suction tube to the top of a wire track. The wire track goes all throughout the main foyer and into parts of the sculpture. Ironically, the bouncy ball gets stuck multiple times throughout the track. The greeters clearly are ready for this as they discuss how this happens regularly and have certain procedures to get the ball unstuck from various parts of the track. All this to eventually have the ball drop out about where it was sent up.

Plenty of museums have a large marque sculpture to capture your attention. This one was a little bit quirky for my taste.

Estu-Exhibits

We skipped the movie in the auditorium since Madilyn would likely not sit for it. We were then offered a scavenger hunt check-list. A nice touch for younger kids. As we moved into the actual exhibits, it was made clear that the estuarium is mostly a showcase on the environment, local history and a handful of live fish and reptiles to view.

We meandered through the exhibits which did not take very long. Madilyn is not particularly interested in learning about how fishermen in Eastern North Carolina made their living a hundred years ago. Oddly enough there was several open top tanks of water with live animals/fish in them below waste level. All of these had stickers on them that stated “Not a Touch Tank”. Frankly, if these are not intended to be touch tanks then I would not have designed them to be open topped or at the height where small children can easily access them with their hands.

There are many items in the exhibits that I would describe as not-kid-friendly. This includes antique firearms and fishing equipment. All of this again at toddler height. Luckily, Madilyn cooperated to move quickly past some of these more dangerous items.

Based on what we read online we were expecting to get hands-on with different animals after the exhibits. This was not the case. About halfway through the exhibit area, I started to notice people were walking the opposite direction. Reaching the end of the exhibits, my suspicions were confirmed. There are no interactive activities with animals/wildlife. There is an activity room that appears to be some type of additional educational space for programs held in the estuarium. The exit door in this activity room has signs indicating to return back the way we came to exit.

Estu-Sculpture (The Sequel)

If I don’t mention odd food chain sculpture I’d be reminisce. Just inside the main exhibit area is a sculpture with figures of animal heads sitting at tables with on their table other animals on chairs at identical smaller tables and so on and so on and so on. From what I read, this represents the food chain but parts of it did not make much sense to me. I found this sculpture a little bit unnerving bizarre and not really helpful. Also again, not-kid-friendly but very kid accessible

Estu-Overall

I have to say, I am largely disappointed by what I found (or rather did not find) in the estuarium. I would NOT make a trip solely to come see it. Stay away if you have a toddler. The Greenville Science museum covers a lot of similar ecological topics in a more exciting and engaging way for no cost. The Estuarium is best described as a local history museum for Washington NC that should be run jointly with the city visitor center for no/lower cost.

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