West Beach is located at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. West Beach is where Bald Head came to get its unique name. Since ships started to use the Cape Fear River to reach the Port of Wilmington, river pilots were used to navigate them through the shallow waters. During the nineteenth century, the way a river pilot got the job was to be the first person to spot a ship coming into the channel and the first person to paddle out and get to the ship. The dune ridges on west beach and some of the highest found in the county. River Pilots would march back and forth on the dune ridge eagerly scouting for incoming vessels. Years of trampling the dune killed off all of the vegetation and left nothing but sand. When ships came past the island they saw a thick, green maritime forest with a trampled, white dune in the middle, which looked like a balding head. Today the Cape Fear River still serves as the shipping channel to Wilmington, but river pilots are now called on marine radios. The channel extends 24 miles north and is dredged to a depth of 38 at mlw. There is currently a widening and deepening project to make the channel more accessible to larger ships by dredging the channel an additional four feet. West Beach