2012 Sunset Beach Photo and Video Contest Announced by Sunset Properties

Sunset Properties is excited to announce that it will be giving away 2 IPad HD's this year to the grand prize winners of its Photo and Video contests.

If you are one of our vacation rental guests or homeowners, you can submit your best beach photos and videos by August 25th. See our website's promotion page for all of the entry details.

Our staff will select the five finalists in each category, and those entries will each receive a copy of our new "Sunset Properties-opoly" game. As a new wrinkle this year, we will then ask everyone to help us select the grand prize winners by voting in early September through our Facebook pages.

So get those cameras out, and start shooting!

Sunset Properties Renews as "Sunset at Sunset" Festival Sponsor

pictured: Jean Hutchinson, Ron Watts, Marci Berry, and Bev Williams


Sunset Properties is pleased to continue its sponsorship of the Sunset Beach "Sunset at Sunset" festival again this year.  The 6th event is scheduled for October 6th on the mainland next to the Ingram Planetarium.

"Sunset Properties has been a sponsor for each of the festivals," said Ron Watts, President of Sunset Properties.  "We appreciate what the volunteer committee has developed over the years.  This has grown to become one of, if not the, premier events in our community each year."

Watts is shown presenting the company's sponsorship check to Marci Berry, the committee's co-chair this year, along with committee members Jean Hutchinson and Bev Williams. 

Sunset Properties provides vacation rentals and real estate sales on the barrier island of Sunset Beach, and is celebrating its 25th season during 2012.  For more information on the company's rentals, visit http://www.sunsetbeachnc.com/.

Sunset Beach Boat Ramp Close to Completion

It looks like the new Sunset Beach boat ramp is nearly completion.  This overhead photo was taken from the top of the island's bridge last week, and shows the boat ramp and the fishing pier that is part of the project.

Completion for the public facility is targeted by early summer.  The pier is completed; the ramp is almost done; leaving just the parking lot to finish.  If weather cooperates, we should be able to watch boats launching into the ICW by early June!

This will be a free facility available to the public.  Those of you renting at Sunset Beach through Sunset Properties on either the bayfront or one of the canals will be able to use this location to launch your boat instead of having to drive to Ocean Isle or Little River.

Sunset Beach Island Sewer System Gets the Green Light

The Brunswick County Public Utilities Department has announced that homeowners may begin connecting to the new sewer system on the island of Sunset Beach as of Monday April 16th.

Sunset Beach Town Councilman Wilson Sherrill (above) was one of several Town officials on hand at the open house to welcome residents and property owners to the tour. Council members Carol Scott, Lou Devita and Karen Joseph also attended the event with Town Administrator Gary Parker.

Department Director Jerry Pierce conducted an open house tour of the island's pump station near 5th St and East Northshore on Saturday April 14th to let interested island residents and homeowners see the inside setup. Once the station goes into production on Monday, access will be limited to county employees servicing the station.

The station has 3 floors. The basement sits 8 feet under sea level, and includes two pumps (one of which is for backup purposes) along with a 2 million gallon tank. Pierce estimated that, once the majority of the island homes are connected to the system, the peak flow will be roughly 400,000 gallons per day.

The tank can handle 2 million gallons of waste, which is about 5 times the current estimates for peak daily usage on the island once all of the homes connect. One pump is needed; the second was installed for redundancy purposes.

The first floor at street level is basically empty, with some built-in doors to allow servicing of the basement pumps when needed in the future.

On the top level are the six vacuum pumps that make the island's system work, and capture the odors from the waste. The odors are piped through an outdoor pit 8 feet in depth (4 of which is above ground), and work their way through a series of bacteria and mulch before reaching the air.

Brunswick County Public Utilities Director Jerry Pierce explains the vaccum pump system to residents during the station open house.

Resident John Hutchinson listens to the presentation on the 'odor pit' located next to the island's pump station.

Waste from the facility will be piped across the island's causeway and 60 feet under the ICW on to the county's Sea Trail waste treatment plant. As volume grows, the waste can be pumped to the West Brunswick treatment plant in Supply as well.

Mr. Pierce explained that the full system, including the mainland portion, will end up costing somewhere under $28 million. Accessments for each homeowner can not be determined until final bills are in, and Mr. Pierce is now estimating that the bill will probably not go out until sometime in October. His current estimate is approximately $5600 per parcel.

Each homeowner will have one year from Monday to connect to the system without paying the County a "tap-in" fee (which is current $4000). Our recommendation: for those that have had problems with their septic system, go ahead and get your scheduled plumber to make the connection before the end of May. For everyone else, work with your plumber to schedule the transistion for a time when the rental schedule and family schedules won't pressure the work.

Property Owners must sign an agreement with Brunswick County Public Utlities, and then permits are required for the connections, and can be obtained by your licensed plumber at the Sunset Beach Town Hall. Though a number of plumbers will offer their services for this project, we recommend that you use reliable companies that have and will be in the area for years. Three recommended plumbers are:

John Williams Plumbing (910-754-9213)

Plumb Rite Plumbing (910-579-3757)
USA Plumbing (910-880-5473)

Beach Schedule for Easter Services

There are two beach services scheduled for Easter Sunday on the strand at Sunset Beach.

The first will be a Sunrise Service hosted by Seaside United Methodist Church at 6:45 am.

At 8 am, Calabash Presbyterian Church will conduct its Easter Beach service.

Regular Sunday services are held on the beach strand near the gazebo and pier at 8 am from Memorial Day thru Labor Day by Calabash Presbyterian.

Sunset Properties Scavenger Hunt Winners Announced

Thanks again to everyone that played in the Sunset Properties Scavenger Hunt. We ended up with over 3000 qualifying entries!

We're pleased to announce that Paul Hammond from Akron, Ohio was drawn as the grand prize winner. Paul and his family will receive a $1,000 credit for their vacation this year (which we've heard will be their 10th at Sunset Beach!).

Other grand prize winners drawn include:

Choice of Trip Insurance/Linen Setup-Rich Brenner, Grant Hink, and Kimberly Myka

"Sun Catcher" Rental Package-Marcia Gilbert and George Lockhart

Choice of Shopping Trip/Beach Dinner-Kathy Bosse and Pam Krolczyk

Roberto's Dinner Certificate-Sue Schmidbauer and Peggy Stanley

Lynn Yates was drawn as our Day 10 winner of a copy of the "Sunset Properties-opoly" game.

We appreciated all of the interest in this contest, and we'll plan to do another again next year!

Sunset Properties Scavenger Hunt-Day 10

Well, we've reached the final day of our first Sunset Properties Scavenger Hunt. Hope everyone has enjoyed this little diversion while we all count down the days until 'beach season'.

We want to send thanks out to Mark Randle and the folks at Visual Data Systems (Ellicott City, MD)-they design and support our websites, and first came up with the Scavenger Hunt idea. Of course, we didn't realize how much effort it would take when we said we would try it! But it's been fun on our end-we appreciated hearing all of the vacation stories over the last two weeks.

Here's the final activity: Question: what type of animal might you see in the marshland as you cross the Sunset Beach bridge from mainland to the island? Clue: There are plenty of options for this answer, but we're looking for the one mentioned in this short YouTube video.

Once you think you've got the answer, email us by Saturday at 10 am at sunsetproperties@atmc.net.

Our Day 9 winner of a "Sunset Properties-opoly" game is Megan Woolheater.

We have close to 3,000 qualifying entries to date, and plan to hold the grand prize drawings Monday afternoon. We will post the winners mid-week on our blogs and websites after we have a chance to notify the winners individually.

Thanks again to all of you for playing! We'll do this again in the future.