Thanks to Jim Youngblood and his extra- wide tired Jeep, I visited the barrier Island of Padre Island yesterday. It was a twelve hour excursion. This section is the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world. One could drive for seventy miles and not see a single building. On the far southern end it is like Miami Beach! We didn't go that far. We were separated from it by a pass. Once entering the National Seashore there is blacktop. It soon disappears to only sand and two-wheel drive travel.(maybe) A sign will warn that four-wheel drive is necessary. We went twenty-miles down through "little shell" to the area known as "big shell", for obvious reasons.
It was an interesting trip. I hadn't been since the sixties. There had been a fish kill from the red tide and thousands of dead fish were half-buried in the sands. They had already rotted so the odor was not bad. I saw some redfish that must have weighed forty pounds when alive! There is also quite a bit of ocean trash along the way. Park people say 95% of it comes from ships and other places. Every so often there will be huge rotting trees in the surf, or even beyond in the dunes.They are a reminder of the storms that have come from time to time. We have been blessed with another storm-free year. The downside is that no rain to speak of has come.
Birds by the thousands cover the island's beach. More than half of North America's birds drop in during the year. The once- endangered brown pelican numbers in the hundreds and even thousands, perhaps.
At our destination only one vehicle was seen other than our own. We saw earlier a Border Patrol and Parks Service vehicle on the way down. We went for fishing, but weather and tides had taken the necessary mullet to other places. Jim seined less than a dozen. A large bluefish and a spanish mackerel were our only catches. A couple of really big hits gave some action but were never landed. That really didn't matter all that much.
This trip is not for a casual Sunday afternoon. Even four-wheel drive vehicles can bury in the soft sand and shell. Those wide tires and light load allowed us to make the trip without a bobble. One must take all provisions. We did.
