Part of the pleasure of life in Wilmington and along the southern North Carolina coast involves getting on the water, and there is no more immediately accessible or friendlier passageway than the Intracoastal Waterway. Built during the Roosevelt years, the ICW was created as a commercial waterway to move goods up and down the coast. Secondarily, but more importantly now, the water trail known affectionately as "the ditch" is a busy place for pleasure craft.

The Middle Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway runs from Norfolk, Virginia, to Miami, Florida, and is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It links sounds and rivers into the most extensive system of inland waters in the country and provides carefully charted cruising waters for every kind of boater. North Carolina's portion of the Intracoastal Waterway generally lies between the mainland and barrier islands, stretching across sounds, down rivers and through manmade ditches. It is largely undeveloped throughout the southern North Carolina coast. Egrets abound in this wilderness, dolphins speed alongside boats, and people from many points of origin convene to travel together and share stories along the water in the Carolina Beach area.

The area's mild temperatures make pleasure boating on the Intracoastal Waterway comfortable from March until the latter part of December, so there is a very long season to enjoy this special part of North Carolina's southern coast.