Emerald Isle Sandbars
NOAA ENC chart tiles · planning aid, not for navigation
Right now at this spot
oldest reading 54 min agoSmall boats will get beat up. Pick your heading and slow down.
The sea state in that call was measured 27.9 nm away at NDBC 41159 — that is open water, not this basin.
What that call is built on
- · Observed wind WSW 7 kt gusting 11 — NDBC BFTN7 · Beaufort
- · Observed seas 3 ft — NDBC 41159 · Onslow Bay
- · Adjacent sounds and rivers moderate chop — NWS AMZ158
String of bars in Bogue Sound that go dry on a low tide. Beach the boat, set up chairs in a foot of water. Know your tide or you'll be walking your boat off at 4pm.
The tide today
2.0 ft right nowBest window to be here. Aim for the window around high water at 01:08 or 13:55 — this spot is tide-sensitive.
- It is a sandbar — the ground under you changes with the water.
- Tagged tide critical.
When is the sand out?
Walkable from about 3:15pm, best between 7:50pm and 9:35pm, and it does not cover again before midnight. It was also out earlier, through 12:40pm.
The tide is coming up. Nothing you put on the sand now will be stuck, which is the opposite problem: an unattended boat floats off. Set an anchor up the beach and check it, don't just run the bow up.
Bogue Sound has a smaller range than Wrightsville, so the whole exposure window is longer and flatter here — and the walk back off is longer too when you get it wrong.
Walkable below about 2.0 ft of tide, properly dry below about 1.0 ft — the same rule of thumb we apply to every bar on this coast, because none of them have been surveyed.
This is a rule of thumb, not a survey. Nobody has measured the height of this sand to a datum, so the times are the tide curve run against a threshold we chose — treat them as give or take three quarters of an hour, and tell us if we're wrong.
Tide curve: NOAA 8656613 Swansboro, six-minute predictions, MLLW. Height of the sand: Corridor rule of thumb for the numbers. The shipped knowledge line asserts the tide behaviour directly: "String of bars in Bogue Sound that go dry on a low tide."
What’s biting here
All speciesPeak month, and 78°F is right in their band.
Min 18" total length · 1 per person per day
Peak month, and 78°F is right in their band.
Min 14" total length · 3 per person per day
Peak month, and 78°F is right in their band.
Unlawful to possess right now.
Ranked on the month and the measured water temperature. Limits are North Carolina’s current rules — confirm with DMF before you keep anything.
Depth
Getting there
from Wrightsville BeachWhat else is out here
straight line, true bearingLive from the water
Know before you go
Comments
Conditions, tides and alerts are live from NOAA CO-OPS, the National Weather Service and NDBC. Distance, run time, fuel and clearance are calculated from your boat profile. Member depth reports are corrected to the datum at the moment they are filed. Planning aid only — not for navigation. Carry current charts.