West Third Street Public Estuarine Access

West Third Street Public Estuarine Access is a small public right-of-way on the soundside of Kill Devil Hills, leading down to the marshy edge of Kitty Hawk Bay rather than the Atlantic. It sits a few blocks west of the Beach Road/Croatan Highway corridor, in a quiet residential stretch most beachgoers never see — this is a locals' kind of spot, not a beach.

What's here is estuarine water, not sand: calm, brackish, and bordered by marsh grass instead of surf. That makes it a workable put-in for a kayak, canoe, or paddleboard away from ocean waves and currents, and a low-key option for shoreline fishing in the sound's shallows. Because it faces west across the water, it's also one of the better places nearby to catch a sunset — the sunrise views belong to the ocean side of town, so this is the other half of that picture.

• Treat it as a bare-bones access point rather than a developed park — like most of these numbered street-end soundside accesses in the northern Outer Banks towns, don't expect facilities beyond a place to reach the water
• Better suited to paddlers and anglers than to swimmers or sunbathers
• No reviews on record yet, so conditions and upkeep are worth confirming locally before you go