We woke up
to freezing winds and sea fog blasting across the water. Being an inside sort
of day, we went to the Port Isabel museum complex. Firstly the Port Isabel
Historical Museum, with one of the largest collections of Mexican artifacts
from the US Mexican war. The museum is in a historical building that used to be
the town general store and has a fish mural across the front façade that was
painted by a local fisherman in 1906.
Port Isabel
was first settled by the Spanish in 1523, but the settlement was abandoned not
long after. A small fishing village was on the site from the 1770s and there
was a fort established in 1845 due to a dispute about the location of the
Mexican border. The fort was a significant outpost during the war with Mexico
from 1846-48. The California Gold Rush brought prosperity, with prospectors
arriving by boat, buying their supplies here and then travelling overland to California.
In the 1950s and 60s the town was known as “the shrimping capital of the
world”.
Our next
stop was the Treasures of the Gulf Museum, focusing on 3 Spanish ships that
sank in 1554 approx 30 miles to the north of Port Isabel, carrying cargo of gold
and silver. To date 2 of the wrecks have been salvaged, with one remaining the
subject of treasure hunts even today. Most of the 200 survivors of the wrecks
were killed by natives as they attempted to find their way to civilisation,
with only 2 making it. The museum had some samples of the silver the ships were
carrying. Instead of bars they are irregular shaped discs of silver made by
simply pouring the molten silver onto the ground in puddles.
We then
drove over the 2.6 mile long causeway to South Padre Island. The bridge portion
of the causeway had its own “Tasman Bridge” style collapse in 2001 when a barge
hit the bridge, bringing down 3 spans of the bridge and causing 8 vehicles to
fall into the water.
South Padre
Island is a sand barrier island that stretches for miles along the coastline.
The island is built up like Surfers Paradise at the south end, but as we drove
north it is pretty deserted. We headed north for a while, with the pounding
surf on one side, and dunes and the relatively calm lagoon on the other.
Driving back, we stopped in at the Sea Turtle centre, where they rehab injured
turtles before releasing them back into the ocean. Most of the tanks were
covered over with insulation to keep them warm, but there was a baby turtle in
an inside tank and two tanks with viewing windows.
Coming back
over the causeway the wind had really picked up and we had a bit of trouble
with the RV awning unravelling. We couldn’t pull over, so had to keep driving.
No major dramas as the wind was blowing the awning up onto the van roof, so
once we got back to the RV park we were able to secure everything again.
Click the link
below to see where I am located.
If the above link
does not work, try this link:
No comments:
Post a Comment