Above is a relatively recent photograph of the crowded yacht basin at Carolina Beach, North Carolina. 

How things have changed since my youth.  Eighty-plus years ago my friends and I would often go crabbing off a small pier that then stood in the left foreground.  Later, when I was in my teens, I puttered around in my small outboard motorboat up and down these waters, sometimes travelling the sound many miles north in the direction of Wrightsville Beach.  There were very few other boats around at that time – certainly nothing like the numbers you see in this photograph.

One thing hasn’t changed.  The Winner family was the king of the deep-sea fishing business in Carolina Beach in 1939.  It appears that it remains paramount even today.

Sounds like the one pictured above are common along the eastern coast of the United States.  These shallow bodies of water are separated from the ocean by barrier islands, and they afford great opportunities for boating and other water sports.