21 January ‘09 Wednesday
The sun is still shining, the winds are very mild, and the temperature is still hovering around 75 degrees. With just 2 more full days here in Rockport, and we haven’t been in the water yet, we made a point of making today the day. But first…. We drove into Rockport to the Visitor Center, stopped by one of the local “bakeries”, and visited the one and only farmers market in town. Overall we found some real good veggies for a good price. Back to the coach to drop it all off and then head across the highway for a quick lunch. We had tried to eat at Stevie Lew’s BBQ the other night, but it was closed so this afternoon we made sure that we could enjoy one of their BBQ sandwiches. The pulled pork with their “special sauce” was soooo good… OK, back to the coach again and get ready for a little paddling. Clark and Reba were still home, so we asked them if they would want to join us for the afternoon. Our destination was to head down T-361, and down San Jose Island. We had Redfish Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. After traveling about halfway down the island, we turned off into an area where we saw 6 to 8 kayaks and other boats. They were heading into the waterways that were bordered on each side by Black Mangrove and Oyster reefs.
The sun is still shining, the winds are very mild, and the temperature is still hovering around 75 degrees. With just 2 more full days here in Rockport, and we haven’t been in the water yet, we made a point of making today the day. But first…. We drove into Rockport to the Visitor Center, stopped by one of the local “bakeries”, and visited the one and only farmers market in town. Overall we found some real good veggies for a good price. Back to the coach to drop it all off and then head across the highway for a quick lunch. We had tried to eat at Stevie Lew’s BBQ the other night, but it was closed so this afternoon we made sure that we could enjoy one of their BBQ sandwiches. The pulled pork with their “special sauce” was soooo good… OK, back to the coach again and get ready for a little paddling. Clark and Reba were still home, so we asked them if they would want to join us for the afternoon. Our destination was to head down T-361, and down San Jose Island. We had Redfish Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. After traveling about halfway down the island, we turned off into an area where we saw 6 to 8 kayaks and other boats. They were heading into the waterways that were bordered on each side by Black Mangrove and Oyster reefs.
This looked like a spot that we could really enjoy. This is a place that must be one of the hot spots for fishing as they were fishing from their boats, kayaks, and lining the banks on both sides. We found a spot to pull in next to one of those fishermen and pulled the kayak out for launch. Louise and I took the first paddle and headed out into the passageways with the mangroves close by. About an hour later Clark and Reba took the paddles and headed out for their turn.
A little later we repacked the car and continued our drive towards Port Aransas. At the end of San Jose Island, they have a ferry that will take you across to Mustang Island and the little community of Port Aransas.
They use these little ferries that will carry about 20 cars with the crossing taking about 5 minutes. We were surprised to find that they don’t charge for this service. On the return, we actually had to get into a moderately long line as apparently we had gotten into Corpus Christi’s commuter time…