OCEAN — With tourism season in full swing and the July 4 peak rapidly approaching, boat ramps are busy and parking lots are often near or at capacity.
“You have to time it right,” James Trexlor of Pennsylvania said last Thursday morning while preparing to launch at the free N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission ramp off Highway 24 in Cedar Point. “Me and my family have been spending two weeks each year for a long time near Bogue Banks or on it and you learn to get to a ramp – either this one or the big one in Emerald Isle – really early in the morning or plan for late afternoon after some people have come in for the day. I don’t mind that. I like night fishing when the weather is good. But they both seem to get more crowded each year.”
He also said the middle of the week seems to be the best time to launch, because many people take long weekends and want to hit the water on Friday or Monday.
Trexlor said he chose the smaller Cedar Point ramp lot, even though the place he stayed this year is closer to the also free NCWRC Emerald Isle ramp, because traffic can be a problem in Emerald Isle.
“I love Emerald Isle, but it takes a while to get to places there once you get into June,” he said.
The Cedar Point NCWRC facility on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway has a two-lane boat ramp and eight single-vehicle spaces and 39 parking spots for vehicles with trailers.
Trexlor, like many residents and visitors, said the western end of the county could use a new public ramp or ramps.
“It’s a great place to vacation and fish,” he said of western Carteret County. “But it’s getting harder. You tow your boat a long way on vacation, and I have a good place to keep it when I get here, but then it’s getting harder to get it into the water.”
Fortunately, there’s one new access facility in the works. Unfortunately, it’s been in the permitting stage since the project was announced in 2021 and still is, Carteret County Public Information Officer Nick Wilson said Friday.
In December 2021, the county announced it was gearing up to start work as soon as possible on a major boat launching facility off Highway 24 next to the Morada Bay subdivision in Ocean.
The plan at that time was for the county and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to construct 170 parking spaces and six boat ramps, although those numbers could change some during the permitting process.
And even when the permits are issued, relief for beleaguered boaters will still be a good way down the road.
“Once permitting is complete, our construction schedule should be approximately 18 months,” County Planning Director Gene Foxworth said at the time.
The project, when built, is to be funded by $3.5 million allocated by the N.C. General Assembly in 2021 at the urging of then-Rep. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle.
Of the $3.5 million allocated for the project, $2.5 million is for actual construction and $1 million is for dredging a channel in Bogue Sound to the site. Both require time-consuming permit approval processes.
The money came from the N.C. Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund, which gets money from sales and transfers of boat titles and from the boat fuel tax.
Normally, Rep. McElraft said in 2021, there has to be a one-third local match for money from that fund, but by placing it in the budget, no match was required.
The new facility is eventually going to be on part of 76.25 acres of property the N.C. Coastal Federation and the county partnered to acquire in March 2020.
The federation plans to build its new Center for Coastal Protection and Restoration and its new headquarters on 10 acres at the site. It’s still raising money for the project. https://www.nccoast.org/the-center-for-coastal-protection-and-restoration/introduction/
The land acquisition cost was $7.4 million, with funds from the coastal federation, the state legislature and two state grants, including one from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund – now known as N.C. Land and Water Trust Fund – and the N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.
The U.S. Navy also provided funds and acquired a restrictive easement over the entire property to prohibit incompatible development near Bogue Field, a training site for the U.S. Marine Corps. Bogue Field is an auxiliary of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock.
The third significant boat ramp in the area is at the end of Manatee Street in Cape Carteret. The town this year capped the number of permits for use of the boat ramp at 300, now increased to 310, citing overcrowding in the parking lot and complaints by nearby residents that boaters were parking vehicles and leaving boat trailers on their properties,
The facility has 28 spaces.
For the 2021-22 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, the town issued 468 permits to property owners in town and to out-of-towners.
Cape Carteret residents and property owners pay $225 for a permit, while those in Bogue, Cedar Point, Swansboro and Peletier pay $500 for a permit and anyone outside that area pays $750. It has about 28 spaces.
New permits there will go on sale on Nov. 1 to town residents and property owners, and on Dec. 1 for out-of-towners.
For this year, all but 66 permits went to Cape Carteret residents or property owners. The town leases the boat ramp property from a private owner.
The huge Emerald Isle ramp facility, which has four launching ramps and parking for 112 vehicle and trailer combinations, and a separate parking lot with 18 single-vehicle spaces, also has a problem. Residents nearby on Sound Drive want the channel to and from it moved farther offshore in Bogue Sound, contending boat wakes are killing sea grass and eroding their property.
The town is seeking permits to move the channel, but it isn’t easy or inexpensive – $2 million plus – and obstacles are significant because of protected sea grass and high state water quality ratings. In addition, the town had to get part of the existing channel dredged because of shoaling.
One Emerald Isle resident recently suggested that instead of continuing to try to move the channel, the town and property owners affected by the boat wakes should pay to build a wider beach and install a new living shoreline with rocks and seagrass to slow down boat wakes.
There is also a boat ramp in Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro, with spaces for five trailers. The fee for use of the ramp is $7. There are no public ramps in Peletier or Bogue, the other two mainland western Carteret County towns. Finally, there’s a free boat ramp with some parking in the Cedar Island Recreation Area at the mouth of the White Oak River in the Croatan National Park, but it is suitable only for flat-bottom vessels.
There are also kayak, canoe and paddle board launching facilities in Cedar Point’s Boathouse Creek Park at the end of Masonic Avenue and in Cape Carteret off Highway 58 near its intersection with Taylor Notion Road. Bogue and Peletier, the other western Carteret County mainland towns, don’t have any public launching facilities.
Contact Brad Rich at 252-864-1532; email [email protected]; or follow on Twitter @brichccnt.