Mason Inlet
NOAA ENC chart tiles · planning aid, not for navigation
Right now at this spot
oldest reading 50 min agoSmall boats will get beat up. Pick your heading and slow down.
The sea state in that call was measured 6.5 nm away at NDBC 41110 — that is open water, not this basin.
What that call is built on
- · Forecast wind SW 15 kt gusting 20 — NWS AMZ250 · Today
- · Observed seas 1.6 ft — NDBC 41110 · Masonboro Inlet
North end of Wrightsville, and it migrates. Locals run small boats through on a good tide but it is not a dependable inlet and it is not marked like Masonboro. Shell Island shoals build on the south side.
The tide today
4.4 ft right nowBest window to be here. Aim for the window around high water at 12:09 — this spot is tide-sensitive.
- It is an inlet — the bar stands up when the tide runs against the wind.
- It is flagged for shoaling or hazard in the dataset.
- It is a sandbar — the ground under you changes with the water.
When is the sand out?
Walkable from about 4:25pm, though it never gets properly dry today — expect ankle deep at the bottom of it, under water again by about 8:30pm. It was also out earlier, 2:55am–7:30am.
The tide is falling and has about 2.9 more feet to go, bottoming at 6:20pm. Nose onto sand now and you are on hard ground until some time after midnight — further ahead than today's curve reaches. This is how people spend the night on a bar. Anchor off in water you can still swim in, and re-set as it drops.
The inlet migrates and the shoals move with it. A bar that was here last summer may not be this one — this is the spot on the list where the clock is most likely to be right about the tide and wrong about the sand.
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 8658163 Wrightsville Beach, six-minute predictions, MLLW. Height of the sand: Corridor rule of thumb for the numbers. Classified as a covering bar because the shipped knowledge line records the Shell Island shoals building on the south side of a migrating inlet.
What’s biting here
All speciesPeak month, and 76°F is right in their band.
Min 18" total length · 1 per person per day
Peak month, and 76°F is right in their band.
Min 14" total length · 3 per person per day
Peak month, and 76°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.