Day 2 Malaquite Campground Padre Island National Seashore Corpus Christi, Texas

We had a wicked thunderstorm last night.  The wind was howling and very strong.  There was thunder and lightening and lots of rain.  It lasted for a long time.  It was probably the worst storm we have ever had camping in the RV.  There were lots of tent campers across the road from us.  We both worried about them during the night.  This morning they were hanging all of their things, trying to dry everything out.  Tim took them coffee.

We packed the car and drove out onto the beach. Tim had taken the doors off so the sun was streaming in and we had a great view of the ocean waves.  The south beach access is 60 miles long.  We went about halfway.

There are lots of people in ATV’s doing Turtle Patrol.  The Kemp’s Ridley turtle is endangered.  This park with its biologists and volunteers has seriously worked to increase the turtle population.  Because driving is allowed on the beach, the patrols are an important part of saving the turtles.  From April to September, the beaches are patrolled.  If a nesting turtle is spotted, the nest is protected until rangers can come and harvest the eggs.  The eggs are then taken to a hatching facility.  Once the baby turtles hatch, they are released from Padre Island.  Turtles that are released from here will imprint and return here to nest.  This is an important nesting site.  60% of the turtle nests are here.  A yellow flag is flown on days when a nesting turtle is found.  There was a flag yesterday.  The turtles most commonly nest from May – July.

This is a squadron of pelicans in a feeding frenzy.  They must have been following a school of fish.

This flock of egrets flew along with us as we drove down the beach.

We picked up 4 bags of trash.  We also had a toilet seat, a drawer pull, a big yellow jug, and 2 long lengths of marine rope.  We probably only cleaned up 200 feet of beach…it would be easy to get discouraged.  It didn’t take long and it wasn’t hard to do. 

This reminded me of the starfish story.

We sat on the beach for a while, our toes in the water, mesmerized by the waves lapping at the shore.  When the waves got a little bigger and wet us, we headed back.  At high tide there is only room for one vehicle to pass.

We had some afternoon quiet time and then got showered and ready to go out to dinner.  We drove to town to The Angry Marlin where we enjoyed some coconut shrimp.

After dinner, we went out on the patio and listened to live music.

We left the restaurant just as the sky was turning dark.  We took the North Beach access back to the campground.  We saw deer in the dunes.  The moon was nearly full and it was lovely!