People are always asking me about my favorite beach, which prompts me to chuckle to myself because in recent years I’ve only had the chance to visit the beach once every five years or so. But this month and year finally gave me a good answer—one that challenges my enduring, longtime love of the mountains:  A place with the most pristine beach and natural, flourishing dunes untrammeled by overbuilt human mansions and surrounded by miles of conserved land teeming with wildlife, especially birds—board walks the only construction in sight. A large, active volunteer corps offers well-informed nature talks and guided walks.

As much as Kenneth and I loved visiting and meeting friends in older parts of the Outer Banks, especially Ocracoke, it is a sad fact that the east-facing coastal chain of barrier islands is steadily losing ground to erosion brought on by climate change. Remarkably, the south-facing island of Sunset Beach and the marshland of Bird Island take-in sand from coastal tides and currents while most other beaches today are losing sand. Not long after Kenneth died in 2017, I spent a week on Little St. Simon’s Island collecting trash that had washed up on its shores. Somehow it seemed good therapy for grief to clean-up what had been heedlessly tossed into the sea by others elsewhere. The seas remind us that “no man is an island.”

During our recent October visit to Sunset Island, Gracie and I could walk for miles on the strand—eventually catching this single bloom of a beach morning glory dusted with sand at the foot of a frontal, oceanside dune. Secondary dunes stand as high as twenty feet, with sea oats the dominant plants that hold the dunes in place; the upper zone is a critical nesting area for loggerhead sea turtles and ground nesting shorebirds such as the American oystercatcher, terns, black skimmers and Wilson’s plover. (Gracie especially liked to move, always-on-leash, in concert with the plovers, who seemed to enjoy her company.) The grasslands sheltered by the sand dunes host plants such as saltmeadow cordgrass, broomsedge, carex, prickly pear cactus, pepper grass, blanket flower, goldenrod, and pennywort. Monarch butterflies fluttered about the plants and the sea waves. Nearly every night, clear skies and no nearby artificial lights made it possible to star-gaze for hours.

Walking back to our rented vacation home, tucked behind several series of dunes, we caught up with retired university friends in long and thoroughly-enjoyable conversations while taking turns preparing meals and working on an immense table-top puzzle of underwater creatures. Five days flew by. We’ve already made another booking for seven days next year!