Day 39 - Thursday, January 11 - Shrimp Boil Boat Trip

 We had a busy day today. This morning I added water to the four 6v house batteries. I do it every 4 months. They lose about 24 oz of water during that time period, but the level is still well above the top of the plates. 

Next I regened our portable water softener. With the campground waters level of hardness I needed to do that about every 6 days.

A little after noon we headed for Padre Island, a 50 minute drive.

Note highway 48 in both photos and note the channel that parallels it in the photo below. The channel is the shipping channel from the Gulf to the Port of Brownsville. The left end of the channel is the port. It is much larger that the photo makes it appear. About midway along the channel construction for a facility to load liquified natural gas onto ships, for export, has recently started. The construction extends from the water to the highway. From the highway you can see some of the ships on the channel.

We had to be checked in by 1:30 and the boat left the dock at 2:00, It was almost 6:00 when we finally returned. Note the sky in the photos below. Most of them look like a storm is ready to break at any moment. In others the sun is out and the sky is blue. Weather changes quickly. The 20-35 mph winds most of the day, and at 11:00 they are still blowing that hard, probably help move things along.

Note the haze as we cross the bridge to Padre Island. I think it is just moisture in the air.

Sign at check in for other boat rental costs.

The line to board.

An aerostat (blimp) that the Coast Guard and other federal agencies use to watch the coastline. It is normally tethered 800' above the surface but today's winds were high enough that it was grounded. 

Coast Guard facility near the blimp.

Heading into the shipping channel.

There were 5 track hoes working in a line maybe a quarter mile long. I saw at least another 15 track hoes on the site. I scanned several articles about  the LNG terminal. It is being privately funded. Different articles mentioned costs ranging from $11-18 billion.

I think these are some type of soil consolidation rigs. There were 4 or 5 of them.

There were at least 3 dolphins that swam along with the boat for maybe a half mile. For some reason they just like to swim along side of the boats. They are beautiful to watch glide along near the surface of the water and then pop up for a breath.

This is laying floating pipe that the dredge will use to pump spoil to the shore.

There was a lot of pipe before we finally got to the dredge.

The dredge. With the 20-35 mph winds I couldn't hear much but I think the tour guide said that when the dredging is completed 17 miles of the shipping channel will be deepened from 42' to 52'.

These 2 boats are undergoing a Coast Guard safety inspection. It looked like some of the bow plates have been replaces on the right one.

These are a few of the hundreds of shrimp (?) boats we saw. The tour guide made an interesting comment. He said that these boats are normally manned by men from Mexico and all the problems at the border have made it difficult for the men to go back and forth. He said this is a real problem because, and I quote, "Americans are to lazy to work on the boats."

It was amazing to see the number of old ships (WWII vintage) being scrapped. I think the tour guide said that a company at the Brownsville port is the only one in the US approved to scrap decommissioned US military vessels. Note how part of the front of this ship has already been cut away. He said it takes 18-24 months to scrap one of them.

Blow up  of gun turret from the above ship.

I think he said this was a oil drilling rig. I don't know if it is being refurbished or scrapped.

We knew that the tour included a "shrimp boil". It was pretty much all the shrimp, sausage, corn on the cob, boiled potatoes and fruit that you could eat. The trick is that how much can you eat while on an upper deck travelling 15 mph into a 20-35 mph wind. Try peeling a shrimp while holding on to your plate under those circumstances, it was interesting. The food was good.

One thing we didn't realize was that the tour had an open (free) bar (water, sodas, beer, wine and some hard stuff). Note the guy below is crushing one empty beer can while he had another open one in his other hand. 

There were five couples on the upper deck who seemed to know one another. The guys stayed relatively well behaved but 3 of the old senior ladies were drunk and loud. I wouldn't have though much about such behavior 45 years ago, because I probably would have been one of the drunk loud people. Praise God that I no longer feel compelled to lower my inhibitions with alcohol. I still remember the Holy  Spirit speaking to me (not in an audible voice but speaking to my spirit and asking the question, "Why do you feel the need to modify your behavior with alcohol?"  I pray that these ladies are open to hearing the Spirit speak to them. Full disclosure - I did have a two beers during the 4 hour cruise. First time in a long time that I drank two beers in one day.

The husbands of the 3 loud women seemed to stay remarkably restrained.

On the way back we stopped at Pirates Landing in Port Isabel, Kathy's favorite restaurant down here. She had her favorite crab louie and I had my favorite dirty dave's beef philly. Gooood.

It is now midnight and it seems like the wind has finally died down a little even though Weatherbug still shows 28 mph winds with 38 mph gusts. Today's high was 81. It's still 70.

I'm to sleepy to proof read this, please forgive my typos and any other nonsense.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He sure has blessed me.