Posted on December 1, 2025
Sunset Beach is renowned for having one of the widest, most stable beaches along the N.C. coast, and one that doesn’t rely on periodic nourishments or erosion-control structures
Key Points
- Sunset Beach in North Carolina is known for its wide and healthy beach, which contrasts with other coastal towns struggling with erosion.
- The town has no history of beach nourishment projects or oceanfront erosion control structures.
- The behavior of nearby inlets, including the closure of Mad Inlet and the movement of Tubbs Inlet, has contributed to sand accumulation.
SUNSET BEACH | As he slowly walked toward the eastern tip of the Brunswick County beach town, observing the shorebirds resting on the exposed mud flats near Tubbs Inlet and the shrimp boats just offshore, Marty Franklin almost had the wide beach strand to himself on the warm mid-November day.
“Love it here,” said the Tennessee resident slipping in an early fall vacation before the holiday season. “This has to be one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to. It’s just so wide and peaceful.”
Sunset Beach, North Carolina’s last barrier island before the Palmetto State, is renowned for a number of things. It is consistently rated as one of the state’s most family-friendly beaches in the state, praised for its lack of commercialism even though it’s just a few miles from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and famous for its beautiful sunsets since it faces south.
But if there’s one thing that draws visitors back and helps keep the island’s property prices among the highest along the N.C. coast it’s the town’s wide and healthy beach.
While coastal communities from the Outer Banks to Oak Island struggle with disappearing beaches, oceanfront homes teetering on the edge, and eroded dune lines, Sunset Beach has none of these problems.
The town’s beach is among the widest and healthiest on the coast, and it’s mature dunes offer oceanfront homes hundreds of feet of protection from threatening storm-driven waves.
“Currently, there are no oceanfront erosion control structures, and no history of beach nourishment at Sunset Beach,” states the the latest inlet report by the N.C. Coastal Resource Commission’s Science Panel.
According to coastal experts, here are some of the reasons Sunset Beach has been able to avoid problems impacting many of the state’s other beach towns.
‘Friendly’ inlets
Land near inlets are the most unstable features along the N.C. coast, since inlets are fickle and have a habit of wagging back and forth like a dog’s tail over time, taking sand from one side while allowing the other side of the inlet to accrete. Whether Mason Inlet in Wrightsville Beach, Lockwood Folly Inlet in Oak Island, New River Inlet in North Topsail Beach or Shallotte Inlet in Ocean Isle Beach, some of the coast’s most serious erosion woes − historical and current − are centered around inlets.
Tubbs Inlet separates Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle Beach. Historically, the relatively small inlet migrated west between 50 and 65 feet per year, according to the science panel’s inlet report. But the inlet was intentionally closed in 1969 due to the threat it posed to development on Sunset Beach and a new inlet was dredged and opened in 1970 roughly 3,200 feet further east. Following the relocation, the inlet began migrating toward Ocean Isle Beach − while the east end of Sunset Beach kept growing thanks to fresh sand.
The inlet’s movement eventually led to the installation of sandbags to protect buildings on the west end of Ocean Isle Beach, although that erosion pressure seems to have eased in recent years as the inlet’s main channel appears to be shifting back toward Sunset Beach.
With lots of sediment and shoaling within Tubbs Inlet and the inlet’s feeder channels, including Jinks Creek, officials are expecting a gradual movement of the highly unpredictable inlet back toward Sunset Beach, although a complete closure of the waterway can’t be ruled out.
Bye-bye Mad Inlet
On Sunset Beach’s west end, the island used to be separated from Bird Island by the small Mad Inlet.
But the inlet closed naturally in the late 1990s due to sand buildup, exacerbated by 1998’s Hurricane Bonnie, and lack of strong flow from its feeder creeks. Bird Island is now run by the state as a nature preserve and bird sanctuary and is one of Sunset Beach’s most popular attractions.
The closure also has helped stabilize and benefit the town’s beach and possibly providing another natural source of sand, said Roger Shew, a coastal geologist at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
But even before the inlet closed, it was seen as a positive influence for the island.
“Tubbs and Mad inlets were presumed to have had a combined influence on making Sunset Beach one of a few accreting islands in North Carolina,” states the inlet report.
Jetty help from south of the border
Finally, experts say the jetties South Carolina installed at Little River Inlet just south of the state line and at the western tip of Bird Island also help Sunset Beach.
Shew said westward migrating sands in the longshore current pile up on the east side of the Little River jetty, helping to stabilize the west end of the island. While longshore transport mainly runs east to west, some of that sand also comes back east with prevailing wind and currents at times, meaning parts of Sunset Beach receive sand from both directions, helping boost and maintain the wide beach.
Back at Tubbs Inlet, Franklin admitted he didn’t know or understand the dynamics as to why Sunset Beach has such a wide, natural beach that doesn’t require a nourishment every few years to remain stable unlike many of its neighboring coastal communities.
“It’s just really nice,” he said as shorebirds rested nearby. “Nice and peaceful.”
