January 20 was our 14th anniversary, so we sent Rusty to be groomed and we had a few hours by ourselves, lunch at Red Lobster and a tour around USS Lexington – enjoy, we did.

USS Lexington – the Blue Ghost

Lexington Bridge

The flight desk

Quad 40s now where did that mosquito go

The wrong end of the 40s

Captain Connie

The flight deck armament

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. The weather was absolutely wonderful, 75 degrees (24 Celsius if you don’t use Fahrenheit), a nice breeze and no clouds – BEACH TIME!!!

So we load the beach chairs, fishing gear, snack food and towels into the CR-V and off we go to Port Aransas and the beaches. Rusty is with us, or should I say ahead of us – on his ‘perch’ in between the front seats before we’ve finished loading the car.

Rusty’s perch

Rusty in the CR-V

A quick stop on the way to fill up the cooler to keep the food fresh and drinks cool and off we set. The way to Port Aransas is over the Port ‘A’ ferry, we should have known – holiday weekend + good weather = a 30 minutes wait for the ferry, it’s worth it though.

Finally we are on the island side and making our way to the access road down to the beach, the beach is packed – trucks/cars every 50 feet and  least 5 RVs camping on the beach. We need to explain at this point that the sand is hard packed and considered a road, so you need a beach parking permit – $12 a year so no hardship – only if you don’t have one and get caught – $500 fine.

So we squeezed into the largest gap we could find and reversed to within 40 feet of the water – amazing, open up the back of the CR-V, spread out a cover, open up the chairs and set up the fishing pole which includes setting a 4 foot pipe into the sand as a rod holder.

No fish this time, we caught a couple of Whiting last time but you can’t win every time. The only way to get the bait/tackle into the channels in the water is to wade in about 50-70 yards, cast the gear out and trek back to the beach letting line out as you go. The rod is then set into the huge pipe stuck in the sand, tension the line and wait – and wait – and wait. At first it was hard to tell what a bite was and what wasn’t, the current was dragging the gear from left to right, it finally went calmer and I got a good hit. A little girl was nearly run over as I went to get the rod (not really but she did slow me down) – I thought I had it but no, too late.

Wading out in the waves

Trekking back to the beach

The wind shelter

A couple of times when deep in the surf the waves were lifting me up, not so much fun so the new plan was to lean sideways into the waves rather than let them smash into my stomach/chest. That worked a lot better.

Connie is sunning until the wind gets up a little then its retreat into the back of the CR-V with Rusty. He’s on his new 30 foot leash and roams around sniffing at everything and nothing and occasionally jumps into the front of the car on his special ‘spot’. Time to go and change into something dry and then back to the ferry.

The loop was open at the ferry which allows cars to line up off the road while waiting, and that’s where we saw the ‘funny’ cars, not really funny as some of them sounded more like dragsters, 60’s muscle cars with huge ‘humps’ in the hood that made funny rumbling noises, and a couple of real hot rods.

Ferries at the Harbor side

A ferry at Port Aransas side

Hot rod

Another hot rod

Back on the ferry and just as we enter Port Aransas we pick up some fresh jumbo shrimp for the grill. A great Valentine’s Day.