Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Day 12 Texas Vacation Xmas 2011

Another beautiful day shaping up outside our Airstream at the KOA Kampground here on South Padre Island.

We had some breakfast and then Karen headed off in search of souvenirs for her family members.  No souvenir shopping for me, I took it easy around the KOA enjoying the warmth and sunshine and trying not to think about having to head back to Ontario in a few days.

When Karen returned we ate our lunch then at 1:30pm we walked over to Pier 19 where we met the “Osprey”

6841 Texas, South Padre Island - Pier 19 - Osprey Cruises Sea Life Safari

We are going on the Dolphin Watch / Sea Life Safari.

While we were waiting to board, the Black Dragon Pirate Ship came in close to the pier and fired off its cannon.

6847 Texas, South Padre Island - Pier 19 - Black Dragon Pirate Ship

We left the pier at 2:00pm and headed out into the Laguna Madre where a crew member dropped a drag net over the stern of the boat and then 10 minutes later brought it back aboard.   We caught a few things and were shown what was caught.

6868 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank

This is a porcupine puffer fish.

6872 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank - puffer fish 6874 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank - puffer fish 6875 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank - puffer fish

And this is a saltwater catfish.

6877 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank - saltwater catfish 6879 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - touch tank - saltwater catfish

We weren't allowed to handle this one as they are very dangerous.  They have 3 long sharp barbs that will pierce right through your hand if you don’t know how to handle these.  On the fishing charter boats they don’t let you bring them aboard if you catch one, that is how dangerous they are.  The crew member threw it back after briefly showing it to us and talking about it.

There were several other types of fish caught, but I was being distracted by the photo opportunities that the seagulls were presenting as they followed us just off the stern, so I left the talk and went astern to take pictures of the seagulls instead.

6880 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  Laughing Gull 6884 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  Laughing Gull 6887 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  Laughing Gull

After taking seagull photos, I went to the bow of the boat and found Karen out on the bowsprit watching for dolphins.

6890 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari - Karen at the bow

And it wasn’t too long before she said “there’s some”
6907 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin 6912 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin 6916 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin

I quickly discovered that it is a whole lot easier taking photos of large and slow Humpback Whales than it is of much smaller and quicker Dolphins.  But I did get some good shots.  You will have to look on my FLICKR site if you want to see all of the dolphin photos and videos.

6926 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin 6926a Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin 6943a Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin

We watched the dolphins for about an hour, then the Captain took us out into the Gulf of Mexico.  We left the Laguna Madre and sailed between the Isla Blanca Jetties out into the Gulf of Mexico.
We have never seen South Padre Island from out in the Gulf, so it was very interesting to see another perspective of the Island.

On the jetty there is a statue of El Cristo de los Pescadores, which translates to Christ of the Fishermen.

6958 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  tip of the island - statue of Christ, El Cristo de los Pescadores & Isla Blanca Park 6959 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  tip of the island - statue of Christ, El Cristo de los Pescadores

This is the view of South Padre Island as we head out into the Gulf of Mexico.

6964 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  view from Laguna Madre Bay across Isla Blanca Park jetty to Gulf of Mexico 6965 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  view from Laguna Madre Bay across Isla Blanca Park jetty to Gulf of Mexico

At the very end of the jetty, the waves are sending spray high into the air.

6968 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - end of Isla Blanca Park jetty 6975 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - end of Isla Blanca Park jetty

We are in some pretty big rollers as we pass from behind the shelter of the jetty, but we get a nice view of South Padre Island.

6982 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  view of South Padre Island 6983 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  view of South Padre Island

As we head back to Pier 19, we pass several shrimping boats (called Shrimpers) that are heading out to catch shrimp.

6953 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  - shrimper 6993 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  shrimper 6992 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  shrimper

We even saw the shrimper that our friend Paul McNamara owns.

6988 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  shrimper 'Mr. Mac' 6989 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  shrimper 'Mr. Mac' 6990 Texas, South Padre Island - Osprey Cruises - Sea Life Safari  -  shrimper 'Mr. Mac'

Back at the KOA after our afternoon cruise I got the bbq lit and cooked us a steak with potatoes and onions for dinner.

7003 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground - Bill BBQing 7004 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground - Bill BBQing

While I was doing that, Karen walked over to the sunset deck to capture some more sunset photos.

7005 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground - sunset from our RV site 7012 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground - sunset 7030 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground -sunset

That brings to a close another beautiful day in paradise.

7036 Texas, South Padre Island - KOA Kampground -sunset

To see all the photos from today you can click on this link to our FLICKR site.

3 comments:

  1. WOW! Came across your blog by searching for fish that my husband has found on his journies as a deckhand for the Osprey, low and behold we found your pictures from your time in South Padre Island... Amazing! Great photography, and we especially loved your pictures of the Porcupine Puffer Fish! Hope to see you in South Padre again very soon. :)

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  2. Hi, I love your blog and am so impressed with your photography. I'm Jim Isham (jci) and am the manager of the TexasTX Facebook site, www.facebook.com/texastx. We post photographers' and fans' photos of Texas along with their captions. Together with our sister site, www.facebook.com/texashillcountry, we have more than 120,000 subscribers and are seen by over 1.2 million fans each week. Your beautiful photos along with their captions would be enthusiastically received and appreciated. We present the images unedited with "link-backs" to their owners. Would you grant us permission to share your images, please. Sincerely, Jim

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes Jim, you can have my permission to share my images. Thanks for letting me know that you will be using them, so many people don't and just go ahead and use them without asking. I appreciate that you asked.

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