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| Russ and Tiki in Port Aransas |
Mustang Island is an 18-mile barrier island separating the
Gulf of Mexico and Corpus Christi Bay. The beach town of Port Aransas is on the north
end of the island and lovely Mustang Island State Park is on the south end.
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| Loading onto the ferry |
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| Historic Tarpon Inn |
We arrived in Port Aransas by way of a short ferry ride from
the mainland.
Port “A” is a cute beach town, primarily bars/restaurants
and beach souvenir/gear shops.
We had a
yummy Cajun low-country boil with crawfish, shrimp and crab at a restaurant named
The Crazy Cajun.
Many visitors travel
around town in rented gas powered golf carts.
We tooled around on our bicycles.
Visitors to the historic Tarpon Inn (including FDR, and Duncan Hines [there really was a guy with that name!]) would write their names on huge scales from Tarpon fish that they had caught, and then hang the scales on the wall.
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| Lunch at the Crazy Cajun, note the FAU banner above our table. |
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| Sunrise in Port Aransas |
We stayed in a county-run park right on the beach.
In fact, for only $10 you can camp on the
beach in your RV.
There were very high
tides while we were there, so beach campers got their feet wet coming out of
their rigs in the mornings.
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| View from the Port Aransas jetty |
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| Ship passing neighboring campsites |
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| Shrimper leaving for the Gulf |
The Port “A” beach sand is whiter in color than we’ve seen
thus far in Texas, and the water a bluer color.
The park where we stayed is bordered by the jetty and the canal used by
ocean going ships to enter Corpus Christi Bay.
Yay, more big ships!!!!
One of
the things we like about the Texas Gulf Coast is that dogs are allowed on the
beach. With two fetching/swimming walks
a day, Tiki is definitely a happy camper here.
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| UT Austin Marine Science Education Center |
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| One of the sights on the walking tour at the Marine Science Education Center |
The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science campus is
located in Port Aransas. They have a
really nice exhibit area about estuaries and an outside walking tour of
different eco-systems along the Texas coastline. One thing that we learned is that the water
currents that go past the northern Texas beaches come from Louisiana and the
mouth of the Mississippi. Could that be why the waters and beaches are
brown? Another current comes up from the
Gulf Stream by Cuba toward Mustang Island. Could
that be why the water seems so much clearer here?
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| Mustang Island State Park beach |
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| Sunset over the grasslands |
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| 1 or 6 oil rigs off-shore from Mustang Island State Park |
After 3 days in Port “A”, we drove a whopping 15 miles south
to Mustang Island State Park for 5 more days.
What a beautiful park!
The crazy
winds that we’ve had with us since arriving in Galveston persisted, so the only
ShoreXplorer to go swimming was Tiki, but it is a lovely, lovely white beach to
walk along next to blue water.
The dunes
here are quite high with several bands of dunes separating the Gulf from the
interior of the island.
The rest of the narrow island is
very flat, and covered in grasslands.
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| One of these things is not like the other... |
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