Before docking her kayak at the public boat launch at the end of Trails End Road in Wilmington, Martha Johnson took one last look at the weather app on her phone.
With sudden storms in the area and the possibility of severe weather later in the day, she didn't want to be stranded in a place with little protection and potentially no one to help anyone in need.
“That would be unwise,” Johnson said under a scorching sun in mid-June.
But that's exactly why she was paddling the short distance from the mainland to Masonboro Island.
“It's a different world out there,” she said. “It's hard to believe you're in Wilmington.”
What is Masonboro Island?
Despite being located directly across from the most urbanized area of ​​North Carolina's coast and sandwiched between two of the state's most popular beach towns, Wrightsville Beach to the north and Carolina Beach to the south, Masonboro Island is a surprisingly quiet place.
That's part of the plan: The 8.4-mile-long island, which encompasses more than 5,600 acres including marshland, has been a protected area since the early 1990s.
Managed by the North Carolina Coastal Management Agency, the island is an important habitat for countless plants and animals, many of which are in decline and are federally protected as development and other human pressures eat up land along the coast and cause habitat loss in other areas. Animals known to frequent the island include nesting sea turtles and shore birds, as well as seals that sunbathe on the beach. More permanent residents include diamondback turtles, raccoons, foxes, and even deer.
The island's extensive wetlands and tidal flats also serve as important habitat and nursery grounds for numerous marine species, including blue crabs, popular game fish such as flounder and hockey, and oysters.
The island's diverse wildlife and habitats make it an important research site for scientists who also track and map the physical changes that occur as Mother Nature alters the island at its whims through storms and other weather events.
“The refuges were established as living laboratories for researchers, students and the public to understand coastal ecosystems in their natural state,” Elizabeth Pinnix, the state's southern refuge manager, said in a statement. “These refuges provide an opportunity to test new ideas while also studying systems and landscapes that will be protected in perpetuity, and to learn how to plan for the future that accounts for both human-induced and environmental change.”
Why isn't Masonboro developed?
“Primitive” is the word often used to describe Masonboro, the largest undeveloped barrier island in southeastern North Carolina.
But there was a time when the island’s fate might have been very different if not for a grassroots volunteer organization. The Masonboro Island Association spent years raising funds and advocating for the preservation of Masonboro. Eventually merging with the NC Coastal Land Trust, the association still works with state regulators to manage and protect the island, including the private land that remains in Masonboro.
Another group working to protect the island and the public's access to recreational resources like camping and surfing is Masonboro.org.
So how do you get to Masonboro?
Speaking of accessing Masonboro, one of the things people quickly realize about the island preserve is that it's not the easiest place to get to.
And that's what's so great about people like Johnson.
“You have to want to go there,” she said as she lowered into her kayak and fastened her life jacket. “You can't just hop in your car and go. That's what makes this place so special. The people there want to be there. They want to experience something different.”
With no permanent access to the mainland, Masonboro remains a playground for boaters, kayakers and paddleboarders looking to escape the crowds that make travel to Wrightsville or Carolina Beach difficult.
This is especially true for the northern and southern ends of the island, which are the easiest to access and have plenty of sandy areas where you can anchor your boat or come ashore.
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Challenges facing Masonboro
Masonboro Island's closeness and isolation can make managing the island tricky, especially with the limited state staff that also manages other protected areas in the Cape Fear region, including Bird Island near the South Carolina border and Bald Head Woods, an island in upscale Brunswick County.
Over the past decade, this situation has come to a head many times during the popular summer holiday season, especially around the Fourth of July, when the northern end of the island becomes overrun with partygoers. Crowds of people litter the island's beaches and coves with trash, and there have been numerous stories of unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
The resulting outrage led authorities to crack down on underage drinking and send police officers to patrol the island. Volunteers, including groups like Masonboro.org, also sent cleanup crews to the island the day after the busy holiday to remove trash and return the island to its natural state.
Post-pandemic, the party atmosphere that enveloped every corner of the island seems to have faded considerably.
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But a surge in the number of Wilmington-area residents means the Cape Fear region's population has soared from about 200,000 in 1990 to 436,000 in 2020 and is expected to grow to an estimated 615,000 by 2040, meaning more people are “discovering” Masonboro, especially in the central part of the island that previously saw few tourists.
Hope Sutton, who managed the state's southern refuge for more than 15 years before joining the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission several years ago, said that while visitation numbers have increased over the years, the human footprint on the island has remained relatively minimal.
“Even now, 99 per cent of visitors, whether at the north or south end, are polite and fairly careful so the human impact on the island is very small,” Sutton said.
The increasing impacts of natural forces, especially as the climate warms, is another challenge facing the thin barrier islands.
Like other barrier islands, one of Masonboro's primary roles is to act as a speed zone, absorbing storm energy and storm surge before it hits the mainland, and unlike most other islands in southeastern North Carolina, this natural process is still happening on Masonboro.
Developed barrier islands like Wrightville and Topsail are now dotted with homes and infrastructure and need protection. In most cases, beaches need to be nourished periodically to prevent erosion. But in Masonboro, as with federally managed national seashores further north along the North Carolina coast, Mother Nature is allowed to shape the island. This causes the island to roll as sand is pushed from the ocean side to the shore. It also creates a dynamic environment, with new habitats creating in place of old ones, and major changes occur after powerful tropical storms, such as inlets and runoff flooding the island.
But as man-made climate change leads to rising sea levels, more intense storms and more extreme weather patterns, it threatens to upset nature's balance. So officials are having very preliminary discussions about whether to take steps to preserve and protect Masonboro, but they have no current plans to intervene.
Pinnix said recovery plans underway at several protected areas along the North Carolina coast are bringing together experts from multiple disciplines and organizations to consider what should and can be done.
“This process gives us the opportunity to determine whether there are viable studies or on-site projects, or in some cases whether we can allow nature to take its course,” she said. “There are many moving parts in this process, but anything that comes out of it will be implemented thoroughly, data-driven and from multiple perspectives to arrive at a comprehensive plan that will help us manage these places into the future.”
Johnson, a kayaking enthusiast, said he hopes nature will be left untouched when it comes to Wilmington's hidden but not overlooked coastal gem.
“Really, Masonboro is perfect just the way it is,” she said as she stepped off the pier and prepared to cross the Intracoastal Waterway. “We just need to respect it so that it stays that way. That's all.”
Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMCGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on X/Twitter. This story was produced with funding from the Green South Foundation and the Prentice Foundation. USA TODAY Network retains all editorial control of this story.