We recently had a three day weekend in February 2017, and wanted to go somewhere other than the mountains. Yes, we love our mountains, but every once in a while we like to go somewhere during the off-season you might not expect. This works out well most of the time to avoid the pink shirted tourist, but this late February weekend was quite warm and the pink shirts were out in force. Since we only had three days, we concentrated our efforts in the Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Ft. Fisher, and Bald Head Island area. We will have to return to the Wilmington area another day. I had seen on Flickr, many great shots from these areas, but we had never spent time in these areas to shoot. Actually drove through these areas once going to the NC Aquarium but did not have time to explore. We were looking to shoot 3-4 particular areas. The Coquina Outcrop, Carolina Beach Pier at Freeman Park, Pelicans at the Kure Beach Pier, and Old Baldy lighthouse on Bald Island. We succeeded on most counts, but the pelicans did not corporate and the sunrise/sunsets were never as flashy as we had as we had hoped. The Coquina Outcrop is in front of the blue condos about 200 yards from the Ft Fisher beach parking lot. We were not sure where to park. Choices were mostly private property, or the museum and a walk across the street, but this doesn't work at sunrise/sunset because the parking lot at the museum is gated until 8am. The best choice was the beach parking lot ( open 24/7 ). It was a paved flat walk of about 150 yards with benches along the way and about 50 more yards on the beach. There are two out croppings, but the first one you come to is the best. Be sure to carry you tripod, ND Filters, polarizer to capture the sunrise here. Try to plan your sunrise pictures at the rocks during low tide if possible. The lower the tide, the more exposed the rocks are. Check local tide and sunrise times before visit and allow about 10 extra minutes to park and walk to the beach. Sunset is over the Cape Fear river behind you, but the out cropping makes excellent photos just before sunset as well. The picture here was taken just before sunset. There are plenty of other photo ops at Ft Fisher including the Ferry Crossing to Southport. Please visit our Ft. Fisher Gallery