Beach Walk....

We are leaving tomorrow to head home. It's been such a  nice trip. It's been rejuvenating and relaxing all at once. We haven't done a lot of anything special, it's just nice to be here.

Mom and I walk on the beach most mornings. We like to look for shells, and watch the sunrise and just be together. It's hard for us to be 750 miles apart all the time, and this is a nice time to be able to be "neighbors", if only for a month. And the sunrises are so beautiful!

The beach really is amazing in that it changes almost every day. One day you can find big shells, other days it only the little ones (which, if you really look at them, are just as nice as the big ones!) and some days none at all. I found these nice whelks the other morning after a storm. They just rolled right out of the surf in front of me.

But even when there are not shells, you can see all kinds of interesting things.

There are jelly fish everywhere along the beach, some as big as basketballs. After they wash up, the gulls pick at the top of them looking for something. It's always the same spot, so there must be something there that they like.

Some days there are Portuguese Man of War that wash up.  These can be anywhere from 1/4 inch to 10 or 12 inches. They are a bright purple color, and as you can see in this picture, a little obscene looking at times.

In the water (and out from what I read) you can be stung from the tentacles. I stepped on one last week in bare feet and it didn't do anything, but it was weird. They pop just like a balloon.

The first week we got here we spotted several Common Purple Sea Snails on the shoreline. They were everywhere.

There were also an amazing amount of Man of War as well. After some research, we found out that these snails actually feast on the Man of War. They use the bubbles to float along the water. You see them only sometimes, along with lots of the Man of War. Weird.

It's nice to just walk along listening to nothing but the surf, this morning there was no one else even on the beach. It was a beautiful morning. The birds were right there with me, but that's it.

It was high tide, so there weren't any shells to speak of, but I did find this:

 

I have an update on the Sea Urchins. We didn't bury them, we just left them in the sun to dry. Yesterday Al took all the spines off, and then cleaned the gunk out of the inside.

Now they are looking like they are supposed to. They just have to dry. I was in a store downtown today and I did see that you can buy one of these already dry and ready to go for a couple bucks. But isn't it more special if you do it yourself (ok, I didn't actually do it myself, it's special if you have your husband do it for you!).

Big Shell/Little Shell

We had heard one of the best places to find shells was on the north end of South Padre Island, so we decided we would head down last week to see what all the fuss was about.  They also said that you had to have a 4-wheel drive, a tow rope and should take two vehicles.

So we headed out with dogs in tow, Al's fishing gear, and brats for lunch.  The actual beaches are inside the Padre Island National Seashore, a Federal Park, around 45 miles south. When we got in the park it really didn't look much different than the beaches of Port Aransas. At first we were wondering what the big deal was.

The further south we went, the more we could see why. The sand is super soft, and when the tide is up it goes all the way up to the dunes. You had to drive right along the water, then it wasn't too bad, but I can see how you could get into trouble. And there was no cell phone service at all, so if you did get stuck, you were stuck for a while. And hardly anyone else there. We saw a few fisherman, but that was it. It was really peaceful and a gorgeous sunny day to boot.

We went by Little Shell Beach (which was 10 miles down the beach) to Big Shell Beach (which was around mile marker 22). We kind of thought bigger is better, right? When we finally stopped it was amazing. There were shells absolutely everywhere.

And I mean everywhere. Every inch there was a shell from the water up to the dunes.

The disappointment though, was that all the shells were so battered and worn that they were unidentifiable. They all looked like they had been in a rock tumbler or something. (I guess they really were, it was just the "ocean waves tumbler") But they all had such a nice color that we had to take bags of them. I think they will look nice in a vase or something at least.

There were several birds along the way, but no other wildlife except this goofy lizard.

Al, of course, planned some more fishing. It was a bit slow at first, but then the Whiting started pretty good. They weren't big, but they are good fish for dinner.

Then he caught this:

This is a Bonnet Head Shark. It was strange to see a shark that looked just like a big scary shark except it was only 21 inches long and had a funky head! His skin felt so weird, it was smooth going one way, then it was rough going back up his body.

You can't keep them unless they are 24" long, so we didn't get to taste them, but he caught several and had to throw them all back. It's tiring to go in and out of the waves so each time he caught another one, mom would go out and help measure.

 

I did find a new bird, haven't looked this one up yet, but he was cool with the long beak.

Overall it was a great day. We were all tired and a bit sun-burnt when we got back, but it was a good day.

A terrible accident today...

We are located directly on the beach. Our camper sits maybe 300 yards from the water, and the airport is just a couple blocks the other way. For the last few weeks we have been watching sky divers fall from the sky several times a day. I can sit at the table in the camper working, and watch them. Some of the time they are single jumpers, some of the time they are tandems. Some times they land on the beach, other times they land in a large field 1 block away.

Late this morning I was sitting at the table working and I heard sirens. And then more sirens. Then I looked out the window to see some people looking up the street. I went outside but I just saw a fire truck in the street, nothing exciting.

Al had been out with Roxie driving on the beach and he came home in a hurry and said to grab the camera. We drove up the street to see this:

As we drove away they were bringing Life Flight in, but they weren't in a hurry to leave, neither was the ambulance. The jumper had died.

From what the news says, his chute was open when he landed on the building, but some of the witnesses say that it was out but not opened. We watch them some days and they are sideways and almost upside down right before they land, like they are trying to be dare-devils or just show off. I do not know if this was the case this time, but we have often wondered how they can land when they drop so fast and hard.

As this just happened around noon, I didn't want to post this until I knew what had happened, so I did some searching on the internet and found a YouTube Video that someone had posted 2 days ago of their jump over this same area. In the video they land right where this jumper was supposed to land. These are screen shots from the video. The first one shows the condo where the jumper actually landed, the other shows our camper just up the street.

As I watched the video, I was thinking how really beautiful it is to see the view from the sky diver's camera. But I guess today we saw firsthand what the risks are.

Rattlesnake races....

We headed out last Saturday to go to the Rattlesnake Races in San Patricio (an hour northwest). You know how I hate snakes, so I wasn't all too hyped up about it. We went to Rockport first because there was a small quilt show that mom and I wanted to go to. It was a small one, but there were several nice art quilts, and several art dolls.

It only took 1/2 hour or so to go through, then we were going to head out to the much anticipated races!  Almost as soon as we left the building, however, it started pouring. This wasn't just a rainstorm, it was a downpour. We went into a little coffee shop and waited for it to quit. But it didn't quit. There was some discussion now about plans for the day. Do we want to drive an hour, in the rain, to go? (NO!) or do we find something else to do? (YES!). A motion was made to cancel the trip to the rattlesnake races due to rain and possible mud. MOTION CARRIED!

We didn't really have plans, so we drove around for a bit and stopped at the Texas Maritime Museum in Rockport. It was interesting. It was about anything maritime around the area. They had artifacts from a ship that sunk in the 1700's off the coast, fishing history, and oil exploration exhibits.

We stopped at the Fulton Mansion, a mansion right along the bay that was built in 1877. They only had tours of the house on the hour and we were in between so we didn't go in. I can just picture it in 1877 on the bay with hardly anything else around. It would have been a very different life I think.

We drove along the harbor. It was cold after the rain so we didn't stay long, but it gave me the chance to take a few neat photos.

I was apprehensive about going anyway, but when I saw the coverage on the news later that night I was sooooo glad we didn't go. I don't think I could have stood there. I expected that they would be in a box or some kind of trough. I wasn't sure how they would get them to the other end (maybe a mouse?), but it sounded do-able anyway. NOPE! They line up along the side of an open field and let them loose. The handlers have a crook or stick and they just steer them where they want the snakes to go.  They even said on their website that "if you don't have your own snake to race, one will be provided for you". Al was looking forward to a T-shirt, though. Sorry Al.

This video is long, but you get the idea. UGH!

Nothing but birds....

All along the beach and water there are birds. And more birds. You can't be anywhere on the beach or by the jetty without seeing them everywhere.

The Great Blue Heron is so graceful. I love watching them, they just stand there still as can be or very gracefully walk along. They wait near the fisherman in case there might be a discarded morsel.

 

We found one that had found his (her?) dinner. He just kept laying it down on the beach, took a step or two back and then plunged his beak into the fish, over and over again. He was surrounded by people and other birds and he didn't care at all. He was intent on dinner.

Another one that you see along the ship channel is the Brown Pelican. You don't see them on the beach, but several times a day they fly up and down the beach in a long line, and they will fly over the water or just sit out in the water looking for fish. They sit near the fisherman as well, looking for a handout.

I love how they glide along just above the water.

 

I don't know what kind of gull this is, but I loved the picture.

This is a Snowy Egret. It has cool yellow feet.

There are Cormorants, these are the same kind we have in Wyoming and Iowa. They swim (?) under the water and look for fish to eat. We watched one the other day with a fish that I think might have been too big for him. He kept going back underwater and trying to get the fish to go down. It took him a while, and of course none of the photos turned out, but it was neat to watch.

Laughing Gulls were named after the crazy noise they make. It sounds like someone hysterically laughing. They are quite noisy and raucous. They are everywhere along the water.

They also wait for handouts from the fisherman. We were down the beach and Al caught a couple fish and cleaned them on the tailgate. He threw the waste on the beach and the birds went crazy.

They even chased each other in the air trying to get the fish away from the others.

Until this big boy came along, that is. He pretty much just walked right up and the other gulls just stood back. After he took the fish he just gulped it down. I'm not 100% sure what kind of gull he is. There was an article in the local newspaper about a rare gull that has been seen in the area, the Lesser Black Backed Gull. It does look like a young one of those, but I found pictures of this same type of gull in my files from last year, so I don't know that it's the rare one. (Not that most of you care what their names are anyway, but it might be a little bit of knowledge that you MIGHT need someday, I guess)

This was a very cool bird, I thought. We were just driving along the beach and he was cruising for dinner (or lunch, I guess, it was early afternoon). This is a Crested Caracara. He had a beak like an eagle and was large. The other birds didn't like him, but they didn't get too close. He just cruised up and down looking for food.

It's cloudy today and windy. It's still 67 out, but it seems colder just because it's dreary and grey.