Corpusfishing.com

[Towboat Trash]

"Happy and I'm smiling, walking miles to drink your water...
Let's go living in the past..."

--sung by Jethro Tull, "Living in the Past," 1972, album of same name

"Well, they ran everybody off of it except me during the War, and, of course, they had Coast Guard stations about every six miles. They had a house in back of the dunes, and they patrolled the beach. They finally let people come over, but they couldn't stay after dark. They had to be off the island before dark. And people got to where they--they just shied off from coming over. Or they'd come over and stay on the upper end, but as far as coming way down, it was too much of a trip. They couldn't be caught there during the night, because they had these patrols with dogs. And these guys would carry these .45 automatic rifles and, he**, they were scared of their shadow. They shot stumps and everything else. You didn't want to be out on the beach...

And of course that's when you couldn't--you had to have red meat stamps and coffee stamps and sugar stamps. They'd always bring me a ham and 10 pounds of coffee and a bunch of sugar. He**, I had more stuff than I had before they had stamps.

They'd come down and fish. And on paydays, I'd start in--and those darned boys knew when I was going to town and by the time I got to Port Aransas I had them hanging all over. They'd come out on the beach and wave me down and jump aboard. They were just going on liberty...

But they had bunks in these buildings. They had power plants, water systems. And they had a building there, oh, about 15 feet wide, about 30 feet long, and it had two bunks, one of them here and one of them here, then a space, you know, and two, and then it was divided, and there'd be four more. They had a separate place for a dining room--nice table, benches, stoves--and they abandoned that and I moved into it. And they left blankets, these good Navy wool blankets, mattresses, pillows, cooking utensils--they just, you know, pulled out. I stayed in there for, I don't know, a couple or three years. It was a heck of a nice place. It was in back of the dunes.

--oral interviews with Louis Rawalt, August 1978


Hope. There just isn't anything else like it. Just an ounce of it can make a man walk to the end of the earth and back. I've always known that something I've been searching for a long time for was around somewhere on that old Island, but it wasn't until yesterday that I found it. But heck-we'll get to that! First off...attempted fishing!

Road work moving right along! All work done by Bay Limited....(A Berry Company). Sorry inside joke there...




And there we were. East winds over the night hours shifted to SE and really had the incoming tide coming in quick. Oh well...a short day! Or so I thought!


But a pretty day nevertheless.




And a strong sea out there...




And some blockheads on the beachfront....WEED SEASON! I've missed it!


And the birds have too...


Willet! Such pretty wings!


Hiya guys! Just dropping in!






Caspian terns! In breeding plumage! You know what that means! Look out Malaquite parking lot!


Sanderling!


Ruddy Turnstones on the far left and more Caspian Terns! Annnnd what looks like on Royal tern on the far right.


Run!! This way!






They love the seaweed washing in, and love to forage amongst it for a meal.


And in came the tide...




And while I watched, out popped one ghost crab!


And in one instant....gone!


Not gonna be any fishing this day!


And a very juvenile ghost crab!


And I guess I can shutup now about people wearing neon Columbia!!!!!!! Got no defense anymore!!!!


So I took a walk for lizards...


Annnnd one keeled earless lizard!




And one old road...




Now I wonder who's living in the old Lemon oil pad tanks....


At least one coon that we now know about! Picking on those poor tourists that camp in front of here!


And then...some more of that Indian Blanket!


Just lighting up that old oil pad like nobody's business.





Beautiful.


And some Showy Evening Primrose!






But it was time to go! Time was a wasting, water hitting the railroad vine!


So....new location!


And I couldn't believe my eyes....through the burnt off grasses, there it was...


I just couldn't BELIEVE it!


It EXISTS!


And this would likely be the WWII radar fan installation.




The cabin would have lay in the far reaches of this picture on the foundation supports. Rumor has it that the porch faced to the east.


The fuel and water tanks lay on those concrete bases in the rear.


SO AWESOME!



Just like Rawalt said....it lay just beyond the high dunes...


The generator base?



And I wondered what they made their mortar from...beach sand at all? Didn't look like it...



And victory was MINE! Rawalt where you at!? I'm sitting in your old stomping ground!


And there was the remains of the old shell road.






I love following the old track roads. I've got a TON of them on GPS by now....and after a burn is the best time...it sure is....so much to see and follow and sniff out...


And this one led back to the beachfront...years before our time here...









That isn't from around here, that's for sure!


And I climbed some high dunes still looking for those lost Coast Watch patrol bunkers that I know lay around here somewhere and just enjoyed being king of the world for a while.




And looked across the entire Island to the Laguna Madre shimmering in the distance...


And when it was time to go, checked out a cattail trough.


All burnt up but growing right back.




And that was that. Just in an instant, Rawalt and the Coast Watch and WWII and the Navy and Padre Island itself reached out and touched me with that one cold and chilling finger of the very essence of this Island, which is and shall forever remain it's mystery, it's aura, and the allure it embodies. We'll never know it's full history, we'll never be able to know who crossed it's sands before us, and when all is said and done that's the way it should be. Some things in life just need to remain mysterious and unknown.

I'm going to go cut grass and complain about ethanol gas. Ya'll take care, and cross some fingers these winds let up a bit.

--Colin
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Protect Padre at all costs for future generations to use and enjoy and never forget our freedoms aren't free.

www.padreislandexpeditions.com

[parttime]

Great post, I enjoy reading them.

[Tyler]

Way to go Colin! That's cool. Sometimes I like it better when the surf is blown out. It allows for exploration time
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[Kattelyn]

Awesome post. Wish I was down there. The pink flowers are pink evening primrose.

[ziacatcher]

Awesome, as usual

[deputydawg]

Awesome as usual! You always make a computer screen come alive!

Thanks for making the afternoon better!

[Rebecca of Sunnybrookfarm]

Caspian terns on the left, the single on the right is a royal tern....bill color gives it away: caspians are red and the royals are "gold"...think Royal = gold (=yellowish) for a mnemonic device....

your unknown is showy evening primrose....

nice report and nice find on the old facility!

I'm kind of jammed up this week/weekend, but secret mission will happen soon enough...
becky
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[STEVEBAIT2]

WELL ! GREAT PICTURE'S ? WHERE'S THE FISH ???????????


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(CATCH A BIGUN )

STEVE.BAIT.TWO@GMAIL.COM

[Towboat Trash]

STEVE! I TOLD EM I WAS LOOKING FOR TWO SIZE 16 GOLD GUSG FUJI GUIDES AND THEY ALL TOOK OFF!!!!

Jay, thanks for sharing as always! The mission sounded quite 'rigorous,' better bring an inner tube survival device in case the floor falls out of the zodiac again...

Glad ya'll enjoyed the read, what an incredible place...
_________________
Protect Padre at all costs for future generations to use and enjoy and never forget our freedoms aren't free.

www.padreislandexpeditions.com