The Beach info tab — rules, access, parking, cams, ships, the tropics and shellfish
The Beach info tab (labelled Info in the tab bar) is the practical half of the app: what the town’s rules are, how you get onto the sand, whether you have to pay to park right now and until when, what that ship on the horizon probably is, whether the National Hurricane Center is watching anything, and whether the state has shut the water beside the beach to shellfish harvest. It opens with a one-line Sources row (how many upstreams are live, cached or down), then an Alerts row that opens the Alerts screen, and ends with Where this comes from. Everything curated here — rules, ramps, contact details, parking rates — was read off the town’s own pages and carries the date it was read (the parking rates carry the year they were set for); facts the town does not publish are listed as missing rather than guessed.
The sections, in the order they appear: Sources · Alerts · Getting there · Rules on the beach · Paid parking · Rates · Good to know · Paying · Beach cams · Ships offshore · The tropics · Shellfish · Where this comes from. If nothing at all has loaded the tab says “None of this is loaded right now. Sources has the detail.”
Getting there
Section titled “Getting there”The section leads with the one fact that changes what you do:
There are no lifeguards at Sunset Beach. Swim near other people and know where the nearest access is.
Then Wheelchair-accessible accesses — the four with permanent ramps or paved surfaces and mobi-mats over the sand: The Gazebo, at the end of Sunset Blvd S, 1st Street, 3rd Street and 40th Street; the pier is wheelchair accessible too. The town loans beach wheelchairs and walkers — book through Town Hall in advance and call for the current fee and notice period. Town Hall is 910-579-6297, 700 Sunset Blvd. N., Sunset Beach, NC 28468, Monday – Friday 8 AM – 5 PM except holidays.
Rules on the beach
Section titled “Rules on the beach”The dog rule leads and is computed for the current moment, because it is the only rule that changes during the day. Dogs are off the beach strand 9 AM – 6 PM, the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day; outside that they are allowed on a leash. The row reads one of:
| Right now | Row |
|---|---|
| In season, 9 AM – 6 PM | ”Dogs are off the beach until 6 PM.” |
| In season, outside those hours | ”Allowed now, on a leash — off the beach again from 9 AM.” |
| Out of season | ”Allowed any time out of season, on a leash.” |
Below it, the town’s rules as a flat list — the app does not rank them, because ranking would imply it knows which ones get enforced:
- Dogs must be leashed anywhere in town off your own property. Ten feet maximum, and no electronic leashes.
- Carry bags and clean up after your dog — $100 per offence.
- No glass on the beach.
- No bonfires, charcoal or gas grills on the beach at any time. Grills stay ten feet clear of any structure.
- No fireworks on the beach at any time.
- No vehicles of any kind on the beach, including motorised bikes and e-bikes.
- Umbrellas anywhere. Canopies, tents and cabanas are capped at 12 × 12 feet, set in a single line between the trashcan poles, and are not allowed between 3rd and 29th Streets.
- Nothing goes on the beach before 7 AM, and everything comes off by sunset.
- Refill your holes and knock down sandcastles before you leave, or by sunset — whichever comes first.
The footer gives the date the rules were read off the town’s rules page and adds: “The town is the authority, not this app.”
Paid parking, Rates, Good to know and Paying
Section titled “Paid parking, Rates, Good to know and Paying”Parking is a calendar, not a feed, so the app computes it. The paid season is April 1 – October 31, enforced 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM daily in season; free before, after, overnight and for the rest of the year. Paid parking shows the state right now — “Paid parking is in effect until 5:00 PM.”, “Parking is free until 9 AM.”, “Parking is free until 9 AM tomorrow.”, “Parking is free until April 1.” or “Parking is free for the rest of the year — the paid season ended October 31.” — plus Season, Enforced, and either Free again at (while paid) or Next charged (while free). In November and December the app deliberately does not say paid parking resumes on 1 April, because the rates for the new year have not been adopted yet.
Rates, as set by the town for 2026 (council reviews rates annually, and the year is printed under the table):
| Rate | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | $5 | three-hour maximum |
| Day | $20 | |
| Week | $80 | |
| Season | $175 |
Good to know lists the town lots — Gazebo, Street Scape, Main St West — and four rules: handicap parking is free with a valid plate or hangtag; spaces marked with green curb stops are for low-speed vehicles; town taxpayers get two free seasonal passes; and, since 13 July 2026, parking is prohibited on the side streets from 7th through 11th.
Paying links out to the vendor, SurfCAST by Otto — the online payment portal, the App Store app, and the citations page (Pay or appeal) — plus the Town parking page. The rules themselves are Municode Chapter 72.
Beach cams
Section titled “Beach cams”Four links that open in Safari. None is embedded in the app — the town’s cam is a still image rather than a stream, and re-hosting somebody else’s camera is a permission question, not a technical one.
| Cam | Operated by | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Pier and strand | SurfChex | Looks down the beach from the pier. The most useful one for surf. |
| Pier cams | Sunset Beach Fishing Pier | The pier’s own cameras, including the end of the pier. |
| Bridge and causeway | sunsetbeachncwebcam.com | The causeway approach — worth a look before driving over in summer. |
| Town cam index | Town of Sunset Beach | The town’s own page. A still image rather than a stream. |
Ships offshore
Section titled “Ships offshore”Three named kinds of traffic so a shape on the horizon has a name — Wilmington traffic (container ships and tankers to and from the Port of Wilmington, well out and usually the largest thing on the horizon), Tug and barge tows (closer in; a tug with a barge on a long wire reads as two hulls with open water between them), and Dredges, during a nourishment (a hopper dredge works within sight of the strand for weeks when a project is running; nothing here can tell you whether one is running now) — and three live-map links that open in Safari: VesselFinder, MyShipTracking and MarineTraffic, each centred on the beach.
The app carries no live vessel layer of its own. That is a decision, not a gap: an AIS feed boxed on this beach was tested twice and delivered nothing, and the reasoning is recorded once, under What this doesn’t know on the Sources screen.
The tropics
Section titled “The tropics”The National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic outlook, issued four times a day whether or not anything exists. When nothing is brewing the card says so — “The Atlantic is quiet — no tropical cyclones, and the National Hurricane Center is not watching anything for development.” — because that is the answer most people are looking for. When something is being watched it names each area with its formation chance (of the form “N% in 7 days” — the longer window first) and the forecaster’s discussion, and turns amber only once an area is more likely than not to form. The header shows how long ago the outlook was issued.
A formation chance is about whether a storm forms at all, somewhere in the Atlantic — not whether one reaches North Carolina. Local impacts come from the National Weather Service and appear as alerts on the Today tab. That is why the tropics live here rather than on Today.
Shellfish
Section titled “Shellfish”Whether NC DEQ has the water beside this beach shut to shellfish harvest. The headline is one of “Every shellfish management unit within 6 nautical miles is open — N of them, the nearest X nm out.”, “NCDEQ has closed shellfish harvest at <unit>, X nautical miles from the pier.” (with how many more are closed), or “NCDEQ lists no shellfish management unit within 6 nautical miles of the beach.” Below it: one row per management unit within 6 nautical miles with its status and distance from the pier, a Standing classification list for the conditionally approved growing areas, and a line naming the permanently prohibited waters. The header shows when the state last touched the data — the only freshness signal the layer has.
Two different things are on this card and are kept apart because together they read as a contradiction. A closure is temporary — conditionally approved waters shut after heavy rain and reopen when the water clears. A classification is the standing category of a body of water. Tubbs Inlet can be classified conditionally approved and open while the unit covering the same water is shut today; where the two disagree, the closure is the more recent word. Prohibited waters — the canals behind the island — are prohibited permanently. The state publishes no start or end date for a closure, so the app cannot say when one began or how long it will last.
Where this comes from
Section titled “Where this comes from”The way through to the Sources screen (Every upstream), a link to the town’s rules page, and the list of what the town does not publish in a form the app can carry — so a reader who scrolls this tab looking for a restroom is told why there isn’t one listed rather than left to conclude the app forgot:
- A per-access list of amenities — the town publishes its accesses as an interactive map, not a table.
- Restroom and foot-wash locations.
- What a beach wheelchair costs, and how far ahead to book it.
The Sources screen itself — every upstream with its status, What this doesn’t know, and Backend — is described in How fresh the data is.