Port Aransas, Texas

As is our usual habit, we moved from South Padre Island to Port Aransas, a move of about 150 miles up the coast. Port Aransas is also on a long narrow barrier island. The town itself occupies the northmost one mile of Mustang Island, and is about the size of Grand Ledge. We continue our world class loafing, in this case at the side of the outlet from Corpus Christi harbor to the Gulf of Mexico. It's a relatvely busy harbor, so some days large ocean going ships come by, two or three per hour. We read books, watch the ships and chat with the people who are fishing.

The photos show a ship carrying some off shore drilling equipment. There is quite a bit of off shore oil work in this area of Texas, and consequently a lot of ship traffic related to that industry. For scale, the white yacht in that photo is probably about 30 to 40 feet long.

Another photo is a of a local fishing boat that had sunk and was salvaged. In the opinion of the local old geezers it had been underwater for about 3 years. Sport fishing is very popular in the area. On weekends, the boat launch ramp in town is busy from before dawn until after dusk.

The last photo shows a couple of fellows grappling with a 30 pound black grunt. I'm told, when this type of fish gets bigger than 10 pounds, they aren't good to eat, so this one was thrown back. First they stick a knife in the fish, just behind the gill,to deflate it. Without this the fish would float, and die.