Shining light

I spent the day out and about in Corolla seeing the sights. Over at Heritage Park, I admired the Currituck Beach Light Station and the Whalehead Club.

Currituck Light is a pretty amazing structure… Over 1 million bricks, with walls over five and a half feet  thick at the base and three feet thick at the top.  It’s 162 feet high and 214 steps to the top if you’re not afraid of heights like me. It makes a pretty picture…

 Currituck Beach Light Station

I also checked out the Whalehead Club – a lovely estate house on Corolla Island.  Built in the 1920s, it was used as something of a hunting lodge and vacation home by its owners Mr. and Mrs. Edward Collings Knight – who also had homes in Philadelphia and Newport. 

 
The Whalehead Club – a sunny entrance and the boat house out back.

Huge flocks of duck and geese migrate through this part of the world every year, and in the early 1900s, they were hunted at dangerous levels for market and sport.  I can imagine why the birds love it here… it’s quite beautiful with the brackish bay on one side of the barrier islands and the ocean on the other.  At the nature center at the park, I also learned that the Currituck Sound averages only about 5 feet deep. 

Seen in Hertage Park…
 Gorgeous live oaks

A view toward Currituck Sound

While the lighthouse and Currituck Sound were marvels to see, I myself am continuously drawn to the light of an ocean beach – sparkling on the breaking waves, reflecting off the dunes, brightening the sky to a clear blue.  And at sunset, the beach was peaceful in the twilight. That’s what I really came to see.