This unique spot near the Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackelford Banks out from Beaufort only surfaces during low tide.  
by Ayn-Monque Klahre | photography by Mehmet Demirci

“I always take my camera. It’s my job and also my hobby,” says Mehmet Demirci. And on a sunny day in July, he had his Sony A7 III on a ferry trip to Sand Dollar Island with his wife and kids. “They are so energetic, we thought it’d be a good idea to put them on an island to keep them busy so my wife and I could relax!”

Sand Dollar Island is not really an island; it’s a sandbar between the Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks that’s only visible during low tide. Claren Englebreth has been taking her sons there on their boat for almost two decades. “It’s such a favorite of ours, this magical place in the middle of the sound,” Englebreth says. “You just walk and find sand dollar after sand dollar after sand dollar.”

Captain Monty Poling of ecotouring company Seavisions Charters has been operating boats in the area for more than 20 years. He says that up until a few years ago, this sandbar — one of many in the area — was known to locals as The Knob, and that ferries only started running visitors over there from Morehead City in the last few years. “The ferries do a great job of getting people out there, so now anyone can access it,” says Englebreth.

Since they have a boat, Englebreth’s family’s favorite time to visit is just as the tide is starting to come down. “Nobody is there yet, and you feel like you have your own little island,” she says. The sandbar forms a sheltered area with shallow, placid water to kayak, paddle board or jump off the boat without worrying about strong currents.

But for most visitors, the abundance of sand dollars is the real draw. “There are just millions of these tiny creatures,” Mehmet says. What most folks know as a sand dollar is actually the test (skeleton) of a unique species of sea urchin. When they’re alive, these creatures range in color from brown to purple, with tiny tubes on the undersides and soft spines along the tops. Once they die, their tests bleach in the sun, leaving behind the signature white disc with a star shape on top.

Sand dollars range in size — Englebreth has found ones as small as a quarter and as large as the palm of her hand — and are easy to find here. “You just pull them up with your feet — put your toes in the sand, wiggle them around a little bit, and feel for a flat surface,” she says. While there’s technically no limit to the number of sand dollars you can take home, the reserve nearby limits visitors to five tests per person. “And obviously we don’t want to remove live critters from anywhere,” says Poling.

For Demirci and his wife, who are originally from Turkey, the water around this unique sandbar has one final appeal: it reminds them of the Mediterranean. “It’s like a pool — warm and clean,” he says.
“It feels like home.”  

This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.