Some Beach Time

While we had visitors (our son Blake, and Denisa's sister Debra and Dave), we planned some trips out of town--and out of the country. Our first trip was to go on a fishing excursion in the bay at South Padre Island. We had reservations for the afternoon boat, so we arrived in time for a little sight-seeing on the island first. We stopped at the visitor center, where Mark took a group picture by the sand castle out front.

Each year, Padre hosts a sand castle festival in October. Semi-permanent sand sculptures are scattered across the island, and these are some of the largest. They are made of real sand, then brushed with elmer's glue and water to make them more permanent. But we could see that these works of art were eroding at the base.

As you can tell from the hairstyles above, it was a warm and very windy day. When we parked at one of the beaches, we saw the red flags were flying straight out to indicate dangerous water conditions because of the wind.

Without any protection from the wind, we were getting sand-blasted on the beach today. Even the sea gulls were having a hard time flying against this wind.

With temperatures in the 80's, the water felt good on this December day. We picked up some sea shells for the land-lovers back in Oklahoma, but we didn't stay long on the windy beach.

About this time we found out that the water in the bay was too choppy for our planned fishing excursion. We learned a lesson today.  We had already purchased our one-day fishing licenses, that would now go to waste. We now know not to purchase that license until you know that you are going fishing for sure. We also learned that Oklahoma residents over 65 don't have to purchase a fishing license under a reciprocal agreement between the two states.

So we consoled ourselves with a shrimp meal at Dirty Al's. We have eaten here many times, and the lines are usually long at lunch time. But we no longer recommend the fried shrimp at Dirty Al's, as they were about half the size that they have been in the past. But we had a great waitress who brought us extra shrimp to make up for their small size.

We were looking for a beach activity that could take advantage of these gusty conditions. So we drove out to an area known as "the flats" on the bay side of the island. This past week we saw on the local news that unusually high tides had closed several of the Padre Island beaches. It also covered the flats with salt water that we had to wade through.

We walked close enough to the water to get a look at these brave wind surfers. The strong winds were filling their giant kites, that propelled them across the top of the water at break-neck speeds.

There was a beginner trying to get started as we watched. The helper was holding the sizable kite as the new surfer was getting ready. Meanwhile, another wind surfer was lifted twenty feet out of the water by his kite.

Our last stop of the day was at a local shrimp market in Port Isabel, where we purchased a couple pounds of jumbo shrimp. Since we already had our portion of sea food at Dirty Al's, we waited to cook them until the next day. We made short work of the two pounds of jumbo shrimp, as we ate them as fast as we could peel them. Below is a small sampling of our shrimp feast.

So our weather wasn't ideal, and we were disappointed that our fishing excursion was cancelled. But our visitors came home with some sea shells to share with their grandchildren. After all the sea shells that we have picked up and then returned to the sea this year, it was nice to be with someone that wanted to take them home. We have officially spent more time on beaches in 2016 than we have in our entire lives. It's been a good year!