The Gypsy Turtle: Port Aransas, Texas

June 10 - 17, 2013

We left out early Monday morning for Port Aransas. The trip was nice and uneventful. It took us a total of about 7 hours to make the trip from Brownwood. We are staying at the Pioneer Beach Resort. It's a nice place, although the spots are crowded. Certainly not going to complain, though, when we have this right outside our door. If you can't camp on the beach, this is the next best thing!

Tuesday was spent exploring the area. We came over the causeway from Corpus Christi when we came in, so on our day of exploration, we had to ride the ferry over to Aransas Pass a time or two just for the fun of it. On the third trip, the ferry operators even said, "Weren't you on here before?" Yeah...what can we say. Of course Max struck up a conversation with him, and we learned all the "must see" places and best restaurants in Port A.

Max said if he stayed in the truck, maybe the ferry wouldn't sink.

Another one of those funny moments--
When we were kids, we came down to the coast fishing almost every summer. Usually it was to Port O'Connor, but occasionally we would come to Port Aransas. I remember riding that ferry then and thinking it took a long time. It's really only about 5 minutes. Did they move Port Aransas and Aransas Pass closer together since I was a kid?

Wednesday we had reservations on the "New Kingfisher" with Captain Kelly's Deep Sea Headquarters for a 12-hour deep sea fishing trip. Max has been looking forward to it for weeks.

The sunrise is my absolute favorite time of the day down here. It's during these moments when I realize....now I can breathe.

The boat left at 6:00 a.m. After three hours and about 40 miles out into the Gulf, we finally arrived at our destination--the fishing grounds! There were 31 guests onboard, only four of whom were female--two teenage girls, an older lady and myself. That poor older lady and her husband were sick as sick could be for the entire trip out there and then for hours afterward. I felt so badly for them. (And the captain told them to hang their heads over the side until they felt better. My daddy and grandpa would have had a fit. They always told us to sit down, cool off, and look at the horizon. Hanging your head down was the worst thing you could do. If we did that, we might soon find Grandpa throwing a bucket of water on us! But I digress...)

Just as we got to our destination, it started raining. So nice to have a cabin to sit in and wait it out. It didn't last long, though, and before we knew it, we were fishing. First up--red snapper. Everyone onboard quickly caught our limit of 2 apiece.

Then it was off to king mackerel fishing grounds.

The theme song to Titanic was playing in my head...

I didn't catch a king, but Max was one of only a handful who did.

Then we were off again to fish for vermillion snapper. There wasn't a limit on them--except time and ability, of course. I caught one; Max caught eight.

Just before we shut down for the day, a gentleman right next to us reeled this in.

Yes, that's a red snapper--sans the body. In one big bite. Just a few minutes later, a gentleman on the other side of the boat hooked what turned out to be a 7-foot sand shark. That must have been one hungry boy!

We reeled in our lines for the final time about 3:00 p.m. and headed for home. The catch of the day--

And Max carrying our haul to the truck for cleaning--

We came back to the park for the not-so-fun part--cleaning the fish. You know, when I was growing up, the boys always did the cleaning. The girls did the cooking. I still prefer that rule. Max didn't buy into it. Sad for me. Gross for me. Fish guts everywhere. Had to bag up the guts to throw in the dumpster. Bag busted. Oh man, what a mess. Gagaroni. When we finally got that job done, we came back to the Gypsy and had leftover Mexican food for supper. :)

Today was spent recuperating, doing paperwork, and planning our next adventure. Finally took a break and walked over to the beach. There's a neat little boardwalk over the dunes to the beach.