Intro
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Mustang Island
USS
Lexington Padre Island
Mustang Island
The next day we drove two hours south to Corpus Christi and checked into our
room at the Clarion Inn. Corpus Christi turned out to be less than
impressive. It is an industrial town, with oil refineries never far from
view.
We drove north up long, thin Mustang Island, a flat and uninspiring piece of
land covered in little but dune grasses and interrupted by occasional
condominiums. We'd hoped to visit the beach, but most beachfront property on
Mustang Island is private. In addition, where the public is allowed, they
must pay for the privilege of also driving their cars and trucks onto the sand.
The only place where we could access the water for free without fear of being
run over was at a small stretch of waterfront near the pier in downtown Port
Aransas. We got out for a while, and the beach was windy and exposed, but we
did find some interesting animals.
Both dangerous and fascinating were the gelatinous blue and pink Portuguese
men-of-war, a relative of the jellyfish, marooned on the beach [below right]. Their stinging
tentacle can grow as long as 6 feet and can cause serious pain. Fortunately,
Cameron knew immediately what they were because he'd done a third-grade research
project on jellyfish (smart kid!), so we didn't touch.
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Also littering the beach were many
odd-looking cabbagehead jellyfish, chunky white jelly-heads without any
tentacles [left]. These are harmless to humans. |
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On a miniature car ferry we took a 5-minute ride from Port Aransas on Mustang
Island to Aransas
Pass on the mainland. Then we headed back to Corpus Christi. We ate dinner at Blackbeard's Restaurant.
The fish and chips were average, but the salsa was so good that we carried a
heavy jar home in our suitcase. Our day's explorations had not been very
fruitful, and we hoped for more interesting sights the following
day.
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USS Lexington Museum
The next morning we spent about three hours exploring the USS
Lexington Museum. This turned out to be fun and fascinating for all of us.
Cameron enjoyed exploring so many mysterious nooks and crannies; Jan was
interested in the many technical details, such as the catapults for the
aircraft; and Amy imagined what it would have been like for her father to live
on a similar carrier, the USS Oriskany,
during the Korean War.
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The USS Lexington CV-16 is a
vintage wartime aircraft carrier. Commissioned in 1943, she served the United
States longer and set more records than any other carrier in the history of
naval aviation.
The Lexington joined the Fifth Fleet at Pearl Harbor. During
WWII, she participated in nearly every major operation in the Pacific Theater
and spent 21 months in combat. Her planes destroyed 372 enemy aircraft in the
air and 475 more on the ground. She sank or destroyed 300,000 tons of enemy
cargo and damaged an additional 600,000 tons. The ship's guns shot down 15
planes and assisted in downing five more. The Japanese reported the Lexington
sunk four times, once after having been hit by a kamikaze flier, yet each time
she returned to fight again, leading the propagandist Tokyo Rose to nickname her
"The Blue Ghost."
After WWII, the Lexington was briefly decommissioned, then operated primarily
with the Seventh Fleet out of San Diego. She kept offshore vigil during
tensions in Formosa, Laos, and Cuba. Eventually she became a Navy Training
Carrier. The ship was decommissioned in 1991 and turned into a museum. |
| We were able to self-guide a tour of nearly the entire ship, from the engine
rooms [right] to the bridge. We walked through the commander's stateroom, the galley,
the post office, the sick bay and pharmacy, the officers' and crew's quarters,
the pilots' ready-room, the combat information center, and many other areas. We saw the anchors
and the 3-in. and 44-mm gun mounts, as well as a number of special exhibits
honoring various crews and events.
On the flight deck [above], we viewed 19 aircraft, including an F-14 Tomcat, A-4B
Skyhawk, F-4A Phantom II, A-7B Corsair II, and AH-1S Cobra helicopter.
With one
small question, we started a museum volunteer, a former Lexington crew member,
talking for 15 minutes about the ship and his experiences. He was obviously
happy to share his knowledge and proud of "his" ship, and his
enthusiasm was infectious. |
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Ship facts: Crew: 1,550 crew § Flight deck: 910 ft § Height: 52 ft §
Decks: 16 § Flight deck landing area: 90,000 sq ft § Hangar bays: three §
Displacement: 42,000 tons § Speed: 3+ knots § Range at maximum speed: 4,131
miles § Propellers: four, 16 ft in diameter § Fresh water production:
180,000 gallons/day § Fuel storage: 1,500,000 gallons ship's fuel, 440,000
gallons aviation fuel § Anchors: 15 tons § Medical facilities: 20-bed capacity
surgery, two doctors, two dentists § Food service: crew daily consumed 660 lbs
of meat, 164 gallons of milk, and 97 dozen eggs.
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Padre Island National Seashore
We spent the afternoon at Padre Island National
Seashore, just a bridge length from Corpus Christi. It was so
much nicer than Mustang Island!
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Narrow Padre Island is about 60 miles long, spanning from Corpus Christi to
Port Mansfield, Texas. To the north is Mustang Island, and to the south is
South Padre Island, which reaches to the tip of Texas at Port Isabel. All three
are barrier islands, a chain of islands along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that
guard the mainland from the onslaught of storms.
Padre Island is unique in that
it has not been developed. Even hiking and driving in the dunes are prohibited
to preserve the grasses that hold the dunes in place. The beach, dunes,
grasslands, and tidal flats are shaped and reshaped daily in response to winds,
waves, tides, and the occasional violent battering of tropical storms and
hurricanes.
Like many barrier islands, Padre Island is slowly expanding
toward the mainland as winds and storms deposit sand on the its west side. |
| The beach at the Malaquite Visitor Center, at the north end
of Padre Island, was nearly deserted, yet we had use of all the
facilities, including a park service information center, small gift shop,
and bathrooms with showers. On the beach were wooden cabanas with
tables.
We settled into one, then spent a relaxing, sunny, secluded afternoon
on the soft, hot sand. We wandered the beach inspecting shells,
unusual seaweeds, crabs, and expiring jellyfish. Cameron built a major
public works project to hold back the sea, while Amy and Jan read and
napped.
At one point Jan and Cameron discovered that the
eastern seagulls would flock around their heads like marionettes on strings if
they offered a few crackers [right].
We also saw sandpipers, terns, and brown
pelicans. A pair of sand chipmunks skittered into and out of holes nearby
if we sat still. |
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Dinner that night was a bit of a disaster. In a search for "just
pizza," we ended up at Panjo's Pizza, which on first inspection resembled
the old Shakey's in Seattle. However, the staff were inattentive, we
waited ages for a simple order, and the pizza was only slightly better than the
tasteless cardboard grocery-store variety. Oh well....
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