Heading for the port...

An absolutely beautiful day: mid-70s, clear blue sky, and light wind... it's been a while since we've seen that light wind stuff... and we were liking it! We packed food onboard Wild Blue and took a leisurely cruise to the Port of Brownsville.

About a half mile from home, we were treated to a dolphin show...


Even though a dolphin watch wasn't the goal today, we always stop to take 'em in. Nobody was jumping out of the water, but we did see a baby with one pod.

And, a little bird watching...


We also saw our first white pelicans of the season; more fun watching the brown pelicans fishing, and there were scads of them out diving today.

On the way home from up north, we picked up a stand to hold the iPad. You can see it in the following photos...


The iPad in front of the co-pilot...


We're still impressed with the chartplotter-like qualities of the iPad; especially for the price.

We pulled out of the ship channel, and dropped the anchor for a lunch stop. Joan fired up the Wallas and made us a great lunch. We watched a few boats go by (not much traffic on our way to the port), and took a couple phone calls. It's not a particular scenic trip to the port - once you are away from the coast, this area is very arid... desert-type plants and sand... and not much else...


We stopped part way into the port - several small tugs were scurrying around, so we chose to stay out of their way. There is a major seawall dredging project going on, and the usual ship scrapping and oil rig construction...


This trip was less about any destination - we were just enjoying being on the water. We swung into the shrimp boat basin before leaving the port...


Either most of the boats are out in the Gulf, or they are simply disappearing from the area; not a lot of boats at these docks.

Late afternoon on the way back...


We entertained ourselves as we neared Port Isabel by listening to the activity on the VHF: two tugs with barges were coming through the PI area enroute to Brownsville; a container ship in the port getting ready to shove off, heading towards the Gulf; and two of the larger excursion boats in the area coordinating where they were going to stop to get the boats close together for a wedding that was to take place on one of the boats... you could hear the crowd in the background on their radios... sunset and dolphins as a background for the ceremony.

We pulled into our canal after sunset, unloaded and washed down the boat; nice day...