Nov 24 Tuesday South Padre Island

We traveled east to the coast and South Padre Island and met up with Marg & Ev Thompson from Midland Ontario. They are staying at the Isla Blanca Park on the very south tip of the island. We wanted to scout around and get a good sense of what South Padre is about. Our bowling friends, Ken & Louise Pigott have been coming here for a few weeks each year and now will be coming for three months starting in January. While I had seen a map view of the island, I was a bit surprised to see the number of high-rise buildings…condos and hotels along the gulf side beach. This is area is fairly well built up but everything peters out in a few miles as you move north, and then it is just miles of beach and sand dunes.

 South Padre Island

 

This area has had a Red Tide, killing off thousands of fish.

 

 You can imagine the smell.

 

Marg doesn't like the smell so she wears a mask, mainly to ward off the respiratory irritation.

One of the highlights of this little jaunt was a visit to the local turtle sanctuary. It was a rather simple “zoo” of large tanks, maybe 10-12’ across, with one or two turtles each that had been rescued from the nearby beaches. Most of these turtles were missing one or more appendages, usually due to shark attacks. There was one turtle that was rescued very young, no bigger than 3” across, that was missing three appendages. The center was experimenting with a prosthesis that would allow this turtle to swim in a somewhat of a straight line. Amazingly enough, this turtle was now about 15” across and about 15 years old. The center does take loving care of these wonderful creatures, releasing many back to the wild after a period of tender care.

This big guy would surface and squirt water. Why? Who knows!

We stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant with a nice view of the lagoon side and the causeway bridge linking the island to the mainland. We were just about finished lunch when a cold front moved, changing the sunny warm day into a cool, very windy, and wet.

After lunch we continued the tour into Port Isabella on the mainland side of the bridge. There were lots of shrimp boats at the commercial docks and lots of them were pretty well beyond repair and probably due for the scrap yard soon.

There were a couple of RV campgrounds but none that would be suitable for us as the RVs were packed in pretty tight. Not what we would consider fun. I had been a little antsy when the storm moved through as I was worried about out awning being out, and possibly gone with the wind.

We returned to Ev & Marg's rig to find that their awning had been damaged, with a 1 foot tear of the material right at the top where it joins the side wall. Someone had rolled in the awning while he was away, saving considerably more damage. We left for home expecting the worst.

When we arrived b ack at our campground we found the awning secure and undamaged...what a relief. If you recall, we had just installed this two weeks ago. The bicycles were knocked over but no damage done. The Satellite dish was another story though. It had fallen over and broken the arm off that holds the LNB. Another job for JB Weld epoxy.