To get onto the Island, the State of Texas maintains a full-time (24/7) ferry service across the ship channel that separates Mustang from the mainland and serves as the only deep-water access to the Port of Corpus Christi. This narrow channel could be easily spanned by a bridge that would certainly be cheaper than operating this ferry system (6 ramps on each side, 5 big 16-car diesel powered ferrys, and scads of people)... except for one thing -- the bridge would have to allow passage for the big ocean-going ships that must traverse this channel and it would have to be some very high (and expensive) structure. I'm guessing the ferry is the simple and cheaper solution in the short term anyway.
The ferry dumps you into the heart of the little community of Port Aransas (population about 3,700), a beach town with all the expected trimmings... marina, condos, RV parks, many gift and beach-wear shops, little bars and restaurants that come and go, the smell of ocean in the air, and ubiquitous sticky sand and humidity. Mustang is a barrier island, long and narrow, built up by the action of the Gulf washing sand into sand-bars and then sand-bars into barrier islands. Oriented kind-of North-South, there's a highway that runs the length of the island and connects Port Aransas with Padre Island and Corpus Christi to the South. It's also possible to drive the length of Mustang right on the packed sand of the beach, a distance of a little more than 15 miles (not the 20+ I wrote in yesterday's entry), which is what we did Tuesday.
About half way down the beach we stopped, parked the car about 10 feet from the water, pulled out the chairs and cooler, and had a snack lunch while we soaked up the sun. Because it was a tad breezy we found some relief on the lee side of the car, but it was still a bit too cool to expose much skin for that important dose of vitamin D.
Watching the surf, for me, is a lot like watching a campfire. It's hard to explain, but it's mesmerizing. The steady natural ebb and flow of the surf seems to put me in touch with the cycles of nature, night and day, birth and death, hot and cold, storm and calm, war and peace, big and small. It's easy for me to get lost in my thoughts at times like this.
I love walking along the waterline checking out all the debris, both natural and man-made thrown up on the beach by the surf, as the ocean struggles to clean itself... remains of this or that sea-life, wads of old fishing nets, knots of weeds, chucks of driftwood, shells, plastic bottles, colorful rocks, and almost anything else you can think of. A short walk is a journey of discovery, if you want it to be.
We eventually drove every bit of beach it's possible to drive on -- from the ship channel jetty to the north to the pleasure boat channel to the south.
There's a bird sanctuary on the island too, and we decided to stop see what was going on there. We found mostly ducks but were able to get some good photos of a Little Blue Heron, the smaller cousin of the
Great Blue Heron.
The ferry trip back to the mainland was an adventure of it's own. Our ferry driver must have been new or he/she really misjudged the approach on the other side, or both. As we neared the dock and ramp on the other side, Dar commented that we seemed skewed... moments later we made hard contact with the pilings that separate one dock/ramp from the next and bounced off, as everyone aboard looked at each other like "what's going on?". At that point there was nothing to do but back out and try again. But other ferrys were coming and going so we backed up-channel quite a distance before another attempt was made... this time successfully.
It felt great to be out exploring again.
Already planning our next adventure...
Thom
