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We quickly skipped through Port Aransas and headed down the long sand dune that made up Mustang Island. Much of the island has been recently built up with expensive gated communities. Cinnamon Shores is a development outfit that seems to have the lion’s share of the development. Every other gated community had the Cinnamon Shores logo plastered its the entrance signage.
Finally, development gave way to pure sand dune, which was preserved by the Mustang Island State Park. We were going to drive into the park for a quick look see, but they wanted $10. We were heading for the Padre Island National Seashore just south of the state park where we could get in for free, so we skipped the state park.
I have been intrigued by Padre Island National Seashore for a long time. This barrier island is a long undeveloped spit of sand dune that protects about 70 miles of Texas coastline. Free boondock camping is allowed on the Gulf side of the island, as long as you can get to it. With the sand and the tides that can be extremely challenging, it isn’t all that easy to drive on the long beach.
The first free beach area is called North Beach. The tide was, indeed, high today. This meant that the campers were cuddling up to the slightly higher but much looser sand, as far away from the angry surf that was being whipped up by a ferocious wind, as possible. We saw one rig buried in sand. The poor owner was fitfully shoveling sand as fast as he could to give his axels some daylight. He looked hopelessly dug in.
The next camping area, Malaquite, is an organized campground with the most facilities. Flush toilets, hot showers, water, and a sewer dump station are provided. At $14 a night, it was the most expensive campground in the National Seashore. For us with “old geezer” passes, it would only come to $7 per night - not bad. The layout was a tad cramped but it was well away from that roaring surf so eager to gobble up the free campers.
The entire South Beach area stretches for miles and is available for free boondocking. But again, that means driving on the sand. Like the much shorter North Beach, there isn’t a road access.
There is one more campground that is semi-developed and on a waterfront. It is Bird Island Campground. It is actually on the west side of Padre Island facing the more placid inland waters that the long spit of sand is protecting. It costs $8 per night and it only includes a couple of vault toilets.
It turns out that this body of water is a wind surfing haven. The wind still howls but the smaller body of water doesn’t get whipped up into such a froth. The campground is laid out in a very cramped style, more like a parking lot than a campground - actually, exactly like a parking lot.
The majority of the campers seemed to be wind surfing enthusiasts. Whenever I watch wind surfers, I notice that it must be a very difficult sport to master. Most wind surfers spend most of their time in the water trying to get back on their boards. Out of the twenty’ish surfers we watched, there were two or three accomplished surfers that actually were able to stay on their boards, and boy, did they zip in that fast wind.
The visitor center was a hub for the main swimming beach. Today, the visitor’s center was filled with signs begging people not to swim. There were strong rip tides, rough surf, and nasty jelly fish guaranteeing a tragic outcome. I didn’t notice anyone in the water. Besides all the nasty water related stuff, the wind coming off the Gulf was too cold to swim.
Once back at V-Jer, we started to pack up. We were going to head for Del Rio. I looked up the four national campgrounds around the Armastad Reservoir to see which one we might choose. To my astonishment, the campgrounds were closed for Easter weekend. Apparently, the little used campgrounds fill up to the brim during Easter. The park was concerned about COVID with such crowding, so they closed it down.
Oh well, it looks like we will stay put here until Monday. The surf is soothing. We’ll lay back and relax.
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