Last time we went to the coast we purchased wood from the camp host. Wet wood, was very hard to get going, I found that splitting twice the amount of kindling I usually split and building an upside down fire sorta worked,,very smokey,I then used a Fusee out of my trucks tool box, lit it and placed it in the center of my UD fire, as it was burning I fed it more and more kindling, this created a good base of hot coals that got it going good, kept it going by using the kindling/larger wood technique.
I will try the bag of cheap coals next time,it seemed that the coals dried the wood out as it was burning..