Best Snorkeling Spots

There are so many great places to go snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of Eastern North Carolina. Be sure to pack your flippers with the rest of year gear, load up and check out some of these amazing places today. 

The first place I love to go snorkeling at Cape Lookout. You can get here by boat and if you don't have one you can take the ferry out. It is about a 45 minute ferry ride. You can catch the ferry on main street in Beaufort, NC. When you get to the island you will want to go to the east side of the island known as the hook. The hook is the best place to go because there are always less people here and more coral reefs. 

My other top pick of places to go snorkel at is off the shoals. Past the cape is Shark Island. If you continue to the shoals there is amazing snorkeling here. The best way to do it is the anchor out about a mile for the shoal shores. Here, there is lots to snorkel around. There were old abandoned ship wrecks years ago that are now buried in the deep blue with exotic aquatic inhabitants. 

Coastal Grilled Shrimp Skewers

Thinking coastal eating, the first thing that always comes to mind is shrimp! In our family we eat shrimp all the time. I wanted to share with you my favorite way to prepare shrimp.

To start, you want to make sure you have a good quality shrimp. I use the green-tailed shrimp. If you get to the seafood vendors early in the season you can buy them in bulk. This way you can freeze them and get the good ones before their all gone. Green-tails are known as the best around our area. Since I put them on skewers, I like to get a nice size shrimp. I usually get 16/20s.

Green Tailed shrimp

 

 

 

After I peel and d-vein the shrimp, I put about 6-8 of them on a skewer. You can make as many skewers as you want. I then melt a little butter and spread it on both sides of each shrimp skewer. I then use my favorite seasoning, Tony Chachere's Original, by generously shaking it across all the shrimp.

This is what the seasoning looks like and can be found out any local grocery.

 

Lastly, I lay the skewers on the grill and let them cook for about 4 minutes on each side. Then you got yourself the best shrimp skewers to serve! Enjoy!

 

 

Shackelford Island

Shackleford Island is a good island to go for the day or go and camp at. Their are lots of wild horses that roam the island. You can actually get right near them and get really close pictures of them. It is said that the horses first got to the island hundreds of years ago. There was a big ship wreck off the shore that was filled with horses. The horses were the only thing that survived the ship wreck by making it to shore. Over the years the horses have reproduced and continued to live on the island as wild horses.

It is also a lot of fun to do some fishing here! I like to use a cast net to catch little bait fish then use those on the end of my rod to catch some bigger ones! Then dinner is served! There is a local ferry that will drop you off there if you have lots of supplies and plan on camping. My favorite is to canoe over to the island from Finz dock!