N. Topsail officials remove tons of rocks, visitors find ocean gems

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH, NC (WWAY)– The town of North Topsail Beach is closing parts of the beach while they try to remove tons of rocks before May.

“Well I stubbed my toe yesterday and my toenail came off,” Visitor Lukas Richardson said.

Rocks ranging from one to six inches in diameter cover North Topsail Beach.

“There’s more rocks then shells,” Lukas said.

Lukas and his mom Melissa came here as a spring break tradition.

“Smaller atmosphere, no big high rise condos,” Richardson said.

She says it has a smaller atmosphere, but this time they saw an unexpected view.

“Lots of rocks, lots of rocks,” Richardson said.

Those unexpected rocks also led them to an unexpected find.

“We’ve found Great White Shark teeth, three of them,” Lukas said.
“We never find shark teeth that big, so it was awesome,” Richardson said.

They aren’t the only ones looking and finding shark teeth.

“We came to look for Megalodon teeth, because we heard there were shark teeth and all kinds of little fossils,” visitor Kara Myatt said.

Town manager Stuart Turille says engineers are using an offshore sandbar to replenish the beach.

“We first started seeing some rocks coming from the offshore bar in mid February.”

Now the town is using rock boxes and private contractors to get rid of them. They might even buy a beach rake to make sure they’re gone.

“We have a concern that you know the folks who visit our beach will want to see a nice clean beach a quality beach and that’s what we plan to present,” Turille said.

While the Richardsons say it may not have been the beach they were expecting, what they found instead made it all worth it.

“To see the look on his face when he found that tooth.. Yeah,” Richardson said.

Turille says they are complying with all state and federal regulations and hope to have the rocks removed when the dredging project is completed by the end of april 30th. The beach accesses will be closed as the trucks move down the beach.