Question for NC crabbers?

Any recommendations for good places to get hermies and hermie things (shells, etc) on the coast of NC or thereabouts? Any places I should stay far far away from? I want to go to the beach, but mostly I wanna go hermie and hermie shell shopping, so I'm trying to pick a place. I got my first two crabbies at Ocracoke, but I'll prolly not be going there this time as I'm just trying to make a long day trip and the ferry ride eats up like 4 or 5 hours.

I've lived in NC a long time but haven't been to the beach very much aside from Wrightsville and Ocracoke, so I am definitely open to suggestions.

Nikki

 

PetSmart Store Locations for Pet Supplies and Pet Accessories | PetSmart
Here's a Petsmart locator. I went on PetFinder and Craiglist and no hermies, sorry.

 

I got one of mine from Ocracoke (Pirates Chest)...was impressed with the information the lady gave me. She has some of her own and takes care of the ones in the store. Not sure if you were planning to travel to Hatteras but I got the others on Hatteras Island at different places. Scotch Bonnet only had three and one was dead while the other two didn't look good at all. Wings down on Hatteras Island had a big section of crabs. Island Gift shop had a nice selection of shells/crabs and so did Scotch Bonnet(just shells). Not sure about anywhere in Nages Head/Kill Devil Hills area.

I went in Sweet Pets today for the first time. Although they have hermits they didn't have any smaller shells. I didn't find any at petsmart either.

 

Yeah it's hard to find smaller shells around here. Your best bet is really the internet, but it can be tricky to not be able to "eyeball" the shell size. It's too bad there aren't more pet stores around here. Shell shops at the beach are also good,

I got my first two crabs (Sebastian and Arthur) at Pirates Chest in Ocracoke too. The crabs were in fairly typical icky souvenir shop conditions but the lady (British or Irish accent?) there knew enough to point me to the Crabbage Patch, which is prolly why Sebastian and Arthur are still alive. Hehe.

I went to Wilmington/Wrightsville Beach today. I found a good shell store in Wilmington, it's a combination Oriental market and shell shop. Decent prices, great selection. They have a few hermies which are kept in prettly squalid conditions as seems to be the norm, although it didn't even begin to compare to the hermie holocaust at Wings...but I'm fixin' to make a whole separate post about that.

 

ok i know this is a little far out there but do you have a HOMEGOODs?
i work in one here in denver and they carry 2lbs Shell bag in the Decor area
ive bought it twice and im geting ready to sell/trade them, im just waiting on a paycheck so i can pay the shipping.

 

I went to the Petsmart here in Greenville the other day. They actually have some nice shells in for not more more than you'd pay online. I bought a few tapestry turbos(I think like an 1 inch opening maybe larger). They had some banded turbos that looked nice, but were extremely weak, and seemed to fall apart in my hands.

I really want to go back and look again for a few of the smaller and D shaped shells I need.

 

I also get some big bags of assorted shells. I got one bag from Christmas tree stores and one from Meijer's. They had tons of turbo shells in them, and when you have PP's that's a great thing. P.S. They were only like a dollar a bag!!!