One Last Salt Water Day

 After our "fun day" at the Freightliner shop, we headed due north for a stop near Alice, Texas, at Paisano Mobile Home and RV Park. Not the most glamorous park ever, but it served our purpose for a half-price Passport America place to land before we started our journey due west this year. We're going to be traveling away from the ocean, as we don't plan to go all the way to the Pacific this year. So Denisa requested one last salt-water day to walk on the beach before we headed further inland.

It was a 45-minute foggy drive to Corpus Christi, and then another 15 minutes to get to White Cap Beach on North Padre Island. We visited South Padre Island a couple times this winter, and now we are on the north side of this 113-mile-long barrier island. One source we read said that is the longest barrier island in the world. We watched this flock of pelicans fly south overhead, wondering if they were going to make that long flight all the way to South Padre Island.

Driving is allowed on some of the beaches, but we opted for some good old-fashioned walking on the sand. The wind was causing the red flags to stand straight out from the flag pole, so we won't be swimming in the salt water today.

We saw almost no sea shells on this beach. The only thing that seems to wash ashore right now are the man-of-war jelly fish. Their iridescent blue color is lovely, but touching their tentacles would leave a nasty sting. That's another reason to stay out of the salt water today.

The other thing that can wash ashore here is trash. This Turtle Patrol worker is busy digging up and removing the plastic that would be harmful for a sea turtle mother's attempt to bury her eggs on this beach.

After walking the beach, we returned via the cement sea wall for a four-mile hike this morning.

We decided to make a loop drive today, so we headed north along Mustang Island for another beach stop in Port Aransas. It was still foggy here when we started our walk on the granite jetty.

We forgot our good camera, so we had to be very close to get good wildlife pictures with our cell phone today. The local pelicans don't mind letting the tourists get close.

That's because most of the people that have walked this far are more interested in the fish, rather than the pelicans. We probably saw 100 people fishing, scattered along this .7 mile-long jetty. It's the best way to go deep-sea fishing on a budget, as the water is very deep this far from the shore. 

We watched as some good fish were hauled in along the jetty. This sheepshead fish was fresh out of the gulf, and will make a delicious meal. Notice the teeth, that allows the sheepshead to crack the shells of its prey.

We also saw a few drum being caught, and a little puffer fish. Fishermen told us that they fished ten hours yesterday with no success, but it looked like everyone was getting their five-fish limit on this foggy morning. We made it to the very end of the jetty--a mile out from the beach. We didn't get our picture sitting on the very last rock because that place was already taken by another big group of people fishing.

This 1.4-mile hike to the end of the jetty and back is not for the faint of heart. We've hiked a lot of rocky mountain trails, but this un-level granite walkway will rival any of them. Add slippery algae growing on the rocks, and wet patches of salt water, and it would certainly be easy to slip and fall on this hike.

The channel along the jetty provides a deep path for large ships to get to the refineries and freight yards on this coast. It was hard to get the entire ship in one frame. A smaller pilot boat helps to guide them, and also gives some scale to the size of these big boys.

We also saw double barges heading out from Port Aransas. Watching the ships go by is a fun project, but it's also a good place to see dolphins playing in their waves. We saw fewer dolphins this year, and didn't have the right camera to capture their antics.

It looks like Port Aransas is ready to celebrate Easter, with this bunny sand sculpture in Roberts Point Park.

To complete our loop drive, we must ride the free ferry over to Aransas Pass. Denisa would have gotten some better pictures of dolphins frolicking in the ferry waves, but there is a new policy that people must remain in their cars during this short crossing.

Our loop drive brought us back to Corpus Christi for a couple stops we found on the "free things to do" list. One was visiting the Texas Surf Museum. It was a little tricky to find with instructions like "walk through the restaurant around the corner, take a right at the fountain, and turn left at the woody."

Not known for its great waves, the gulf coast still managed to support the Pat Magee's Surf Shop from 1969 until Pat retired in 2005. 

This unusual museum displays surf boards and Pat's favorite nostalgia from the 1970s and 1980s. The unusual part is that everything inside the museum is for sale. You can buy everything from 8-track tapes to surf boards. That tall board beside Denisa is a bargain--marked down from $6,000 to only $3,500.

From there we walked to the Corpus Christi downtown sea wall for a view of the marina. We've had a covering of clouds all day, keeping the temperatures very comfortable for us.

Our next stop was the Selena Memorial. The memorial includes a statue and display right on the sea wall, with a bilingual recording that tells about her career. This local singer is known as the Queen of Tejano music, even though her career was suddenly cut short when she was shot by her manager in 1995. 

We were surprised by the large crowd of people visiting the memorial of this unknown-to-us singer. Do they have crowds and fresh flower bouquets here every day? Then we read that today was the 26th anniversary of her death, and we think that explains the extra presence today.

We enjoyed our day filled with salt water, and the chance to walk on the beach one more time before we head west this year. We are saying good-bye to the ocean as we head inland for the rest of 2021.