| Outer Banks Vacation Trip Reports: Croatan Surf Club
- Kill Devil Hills - 9/23/2010
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September Getaway to the Croatan Surf Club - Posted By: Jill
Dwyer
Will and I escaped for a fantastic weekend getaway at the Croatan Surf Club in
Kill Devil Hills. We arrived late in the evening on Thursday at the beautiful
oceanfront condos and took the elevator to our top floor corner unit, 4G. The
condo has a keypad at the door, which eliminated the need to "check-in at the
office" and it also meant we didn't have to keep track of keys during our trip.
The ocean front rental, named The Penthouse, was beautiful with a panoramic
view of the ocean as well as a clear view of the Wright Brothers Memorial.
After a hectic day of preparing for the trip and our late night drive from
Virginia, we went to sleep!
Friday morning we succeeded in getting a little work out of the way and it was
time for vacation fun! I found a surf lesson a few blocks south of the condo
and jumped at the opportunity. Two hours later and I was glad I did it, but
completely exhausted. I did manage to stand a few times and Will took some
pictures to document the endeavor. Next, we were off to lunch at the Blue Moon
Cafe. I was starving from my surf lesson and the food and service were great.
After lunch we headed to see the lovely people at Village Realty who manage the
unit we were staying in at the Croatan Surf Club. We followed our visit with a
little shopping and I found a neat print of the Bodie Island lighthouse at
Cloud 9 Jewelry. We came back to the condo and took an incredibly rare
afternoon nap. Fully rested, we were ready for more adventure and drove to
Oregon Inlet to see the boats and the sunset on the sound. Next stop, dinner! A
great aspect of visiting the OBX in the shoulder season is that everything was
open. Shop owners have the time to chat and we didn't wait anywhere, including
dinner at 7:00 PM on Friday night. A welcome change from the Summer months.
Saturday morning we traveled down to the south side of the Bonner Bridge,
parked in the lot on the left just after crossing the bridge and trekked over
to the beach. It was incredibly peaceful as we only saw two other people on our
beach walk. The ocean was very calm and shells were everywhere (shhh... don't
tell anyone). This is a great place to go, but make sure to bring bug spray for
the walk from the parking lot to the beach. We stopped at the Bodie Island
lighthouse on our way back to the condo. There is scaffolding completely
surrounding the lighthouse for the refurbishing project it is undergoing, and
it was great to see the new boardwalk out over the wetlands. Once we made it
back at the Croatan Surf Club, we ate lunch, took a shower, and had yet another
nap! Full of good food and plenty of sleep I knew I could coerce Will into more
shopping, so we hit the Tanger Outlet Mall in Nags Head. After shopping, we
took off to Kelly's for dinner. Once again, no wait, great service and good
food! With the full moon we enjoyed a night stroll on the beach and then ended
the day in the hot tub on our deck - fantastic!
Sunday morning we walked on the beach, packed up and left heading down through
Nags Head on a quick tour of the beach road. We stopped on our way out for
brunch at The Pearl - which was fabulous. Having lived in a few tourist
destinations, I have a great appreciation for timing trips and activities when
everything you want to do and see are still open, but you can do them and see
them without 100,000 other people. This was one of those well timed trips and
it was perfect.
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