Unofficial NTWR Trip to Bird Island Basin

Bird Island Basin - 2003

(sorry for the delay on getting this online... It's been windy or I've been sick)

In 2003, windsurfers from the North Texas area once again descended upon one of the premier flat water sailing locations in the country - Bird Island Basin in the Padre Island National Seashore. Our first trip was in March, with a small but respectable crowd. We had some good sailing and enjoyed warm weather. And our now infamous Thanksgiving week trip was just recently completed.

While I've got some decent sailing shots this year, the really good wind never gets documented... Why? Cause either we're all out sailing when it happens or the wind is blowing the camera around so much that the shots don't come out!

Enough talk... On to the pictures. Hope you enjoy them. Click on the thumbs for a full size image. (NOTE: The original digital images are huge. They've been resized to load faster. Drop me an email if you'd like an original.)

First off... Here's the wind gusts chart for the week according to the TAMU weather station at Bird. Here's a link to the station - click here.	And here's the chart for wind speeds during the week.
The Rolling Dog House. It's so big I can't get it all in one frame! Here we are Sunday a.m. I took a bunch of pictures to make up for the fact that I took none on Saturday (it was windy after all).	This was the second trip for the Blackburn clan. They figured out this year that they could use the truck as a wind block for the camper.
It's a view looking south from the top of the Lance. That's Richard's van in the foreground (it's for sale) and Worldwinds in back.	A shot of Brad's VW (quite an upgrade from the Jetta he was in last year), the front of the Tripper Toyota and the back of Richard's van. We ended up packing in quite tight till the big RV in the background left. Bird was crowded.
The flat water is deceiving... We're actually having a really good day.	Here's my wife, Lynne, coming in on her Go 165. By consensus, we gave her the award for Fastest Woman Speed Freak during dinner on Thursday.
Some of our Winter Texan friends, Rita and Lorn. Like my wife, Rita is also a South African, but lives in Canada now. I can't remember a trip when I haven't seen Rita and Lorn at Bird.	A new record wind gust for my weather station. This 73 mph gust occurred at 1:12 am on Monday, Nov 24th. We saw repeated gusts into the high 40's in the hours preceding this reading. It was a tough night for sleeping, no matter what you were in.
After a great Saturday/Sunday one-two punch, most of us weren't motivated to head out in the Monday morning chilly north wind....	Richard wouldn't even come out of the van till after lunch when KP arrived with the keg.
Jeff didn't want to come out of his van either...	Always the Top Dog at the beach, Max enjoys a bit of sun.
Kevn and Ty arrived around noon on Monday. We had the keg tapped by 12:30. We didn't even bother to take it out of the truck till later.	We don't do cheap beer either. A can of Spaten Oktoberfest that almost lasted the week. That was on top of 10 gallons of Dog House Homebrew.
Richard and Robert making sure that the beer is of suitable quality.	Kevin and Ty tell Bob and Pam about their 4 hour trip from McKinney to Hillsboro (it should take 2 hours).
We enjoyed happy hour around a fire most nights. Tuesday night was no exception.	Someone braving the colder weather on Monday afternoon.
I am trying to thaw the turkeys on Thursday morning because I was too busy sailing on Wednesday to deal with it. We ended up smoking two birds and deep frying two birds. The totaled just over 70 lbs. We didn't have many leftovers.	Lamar and Edna came down late Wednesday.
As the week progressed, we got pickier about what we'd go sailing in. Here's some of the guys waiting for the wind to come up on Thanksgiving day... Or maybe they're just guarding the smoker.	And here's what the guys were watching... Scott taking his daughter Ruthie for a ride.
A couple of ladies heading out. Bird Island is very popular with the women. The female/male sailor ratio has always been high here. My wife says that it's because the water is flat even when the wind is high.
Thanksgiving evening was another cool night with winds in the 20's. We put up some tarps as wind blocks after sunset so we could eat. Mother Nature responded by cranking it up another 15mph. Night sailing anyone?	Cajuns and Texans getting along just fine. I wonder if that highly powerful Bird Island Barleywine had anything to do with it....
While KP and Stew (in shorts) didn't think it was that cold, the others were bundled up against the wind chill.	Thanks to a last minute reprieve from his wife, Phillip was able to slide down for the tail end of the week.
Winds at Bird are never kind to tents. Here's Mickey's tent after the winds Thanksgiving night. While we saw 59 mph that night, it was probably a minor 40 mph gust that got them about 4 am. The lump in the tent is Mickey's sister sleeping.	Max, Lance and Dirk enjoy some playtime.
The park service claims that some day they will organized camping at Bird.... Until then, we'll continue to throw down where ever we can find a place to park our toy boxes.	But we would later mourn the passing of a good friend.
Walter and Holly stayed in town, but made it out for the sailing.	No, Don... I will not go away. Here's Don J and Jon V of Worldwinds. I think they're hiding from the cold on Friday - all 55 degrees of it.
Friday was a slow day. It started off kind of cool with lots of hung over people. It later degenerated into a beach band. About 5 of us took turns entertaining the rest of the beach. We're still not sure if they were laughing with or at...
The Mariner Sails transport team about to hit the road for home on Saturday. That's Lamar and Edna's rig parked next to the Rolling Dog House.

As usual for Bird, there were some interesting rigs at the beach. Some that I've not seen or mentioned before are shown below:
Jim from Tennessee has a great set up on his van. Highly organized and a worth dinghy for his Allegro Yacht.	And here's the meter on the back of Jim's Yacht. Jim and his wife are some of the people who survived the October 2002 storms at Bird. They were fine, though their bus needed $26k of repairs.
This slick aluminum trailer belonged to some Canadians (I apologize to them for forgetting their names). Sort of an oversized coffin. They towed it with a Subaru Baja and said it pulled quite nicely.	Here's a shot showing the gear inside. Note the drop down tailgate. This was definitely one of the best constructed aluminum trailers I have seen.
Robert is one of the hard core Corpus locals. His trailer is pretty hard to miss.	Our Cajun contingent came down in with their custom painted trailer. The boards have to ride outside, but sails and masts are protect. The trailer also has an outside shower with a 20 gallon tank and a bilge pump for pressure. Very slick.
Here's Stew showing off the attic he built on to his Astro van. He can get something like 8 sails in there, which freed up space for a bigger bed in the van.

Richard W has also posted a few shots he took during the trip. You can find them HERE.

Thanks to all the subjects of the above photos (willing or otherwise). You're famous now.

And lastly, thanks to all the folks who took the time to join in on this circus we call Bird @ Bird. While I humbly accept the role of ring leader, the show does not go on without the performers. And boy howdy do we have a cast of characters as the photos above document. It was good fun.