the Tortuga in her happy place
Padre Island National Seashore (PINS) is Tortuga Overland’s home adventure spot, a favorite destination for long weekends, especially in the Fall and Winter. This post will be updated regularly with new information and photos from our many trips here. With the right rig and conditions, it’s easy to get far, far away in this wild place, even though the park entrance is easy to get to, located just outside of Corpus Christi, Texas.
As wind, storms, and tides are constantly changing this barrier island, it is always a new adventure no matter how many times you come back. Beach combing, wildlife, and the weather offer new experiences in every season and on every trip, making no two trips alike.
With a tagline of “the Longest Stretch of Undeveloped Barrier Island in The World,” PINS separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Laguna Madre, one of a few hyper-saline lagoons left. The park protects 70 miles of coastline, dunes, prairies, and wind tidal flats teeming with life. It is a safe nesting ground for the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and a haven for 380 bird species. It also has a rich history, including the Spanish shipwrecks of 1554. (NPS.GOV).
Basics. Finding the park entrance is easy enough and needs no special explanation. The park offers a well provisioned and stocked visitor center, camp store, and a day-use public beach with shade structures, picnic tables, and a protected “no driving allowed” section of beach. The rangers offer nature walks, birding trips, and if you are lucky – sea turtle hatchling releases. There’s a surface lot for RVs that is right on the water but very basic – no hookups (but a dump station is available). The Tortuga sometimes stays there for a night on the way in or out as a staging or clean up area, or at the nearby Mustang Island State Park (on the way to Port Aransaa) where electric hookups are available.
The beauty of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Some people scoff at the idea of the Texas Gulf Coast being a place worth visiting, thinking it’s a warm, muddy, seaweed covered brown bathtub. Maybe, but when you spend enough time here, you find the astonishing beauty. Padre Island National Seashore is a truly unique spot. We’ve seen deer and coyotes walking along the beach, herds of stingrays just off shore, sea stars as far as the eye can see, and all sorts of exotic trees and other flotsam and jetsam washed ashore.
Sign warning of driving conditions past mile 5
Beach driving. The special part of PINS is the ability to drive as far as your abilities can take you down the entire barrier island (note: there is a channel separating North and South Padre island… so you have to turn around to get back out – no through-driving is possible). On most holidays and during the summer you will find people gathered along the first few miles of beach, but as you travel further down, the number of people dwindles and you will soon find yourself alone.The reason most don’t travel more than just a few miles down the beach is the ominous sign at about mile 5, warning people to have high ground clearance 4- wheel drive vehicles to get past the increasingly narrow beach and soft sand that usually begins appearing. (See the extreme example to the right, pulled from an internet forum…) After 7 or 8 miles you will seldom see anyone except the avid fisherman charging down to their favorite spot. You will see a few people camping, most in trucks with tents, but with plenty of space to spread out.
example of gnarly beach conditions (this is from an internet forum, not a Tortuga trip)
During low tide the beach is nice and wide and can reach almost 300 feet. There will be a clear line running parallel to the sand dune where you can distinguish the moisture in the sand. On wet sand the footing for the Tortuga is firm and traction very good, but after a long day in the sun the sand near the dune line will dry and traction becomes questionable. If you observe a single track from multiple vehicles, anticipate reduced traction and adjust appropriately. Of course, the Tortuga’s 4 wheel drive and locked differential made easy work of the small patches of soft sand we encountered.
Conditions note – check with Carol: It’s important to understand the weather and tide conditions when driving very far down the beach here. With multiple high tides and occasionally unexpected storms, the beach you drive down can be consumed by the waves leaving few exit options for those that are not prepared. The cost of poor judgement can be high. The stories of stranded vehicles are epic and the cost to recover is in the thousands of dollars. On the Tortuga’s 2015 New Year’s trip there was a very nice Tahoe well equipped for shore fishing in the gulf, up to its belly in the sand with no one around and coastal surge coming in from a winter storm. Wonder what happened to it?
Enter Carol, a park ranger at the park and in Tortuga’s opinion, a national treasure.
Carol records the conditions line at the park on Wed-Sun. 361-949-8175. Listening to her detailed, folksy conditions updates are always a favorite part of planning a trip to PINS. Also, as we learned during our New Year’s trip, it’s a good idea to have a NOAA weather radio (your cell phone probably won’t get much service) so you can stay aware of any changes in weather (which can happen suddenly.)
Time to go. Unless you enjoy heatstroke and getting hit in the head with a volleyball or a hotdog bun, the best time to go is in the fall and winter. Starting around Halloween through early Spring, the crowd thins out and it’s cool enough to enjoy a fire on the beach at night. For our Fall 2015 trips, Thanksgiving and New Year’s proved to be an exceptional time for a drive down the beach, and we enjoyed the beauty and extra fun a winter storm in the gulf presented.
Trip report: 2015 mini-adventure with coastal flooding. In the fall of 2015, the Tortuga was happily nestled in a spot about 7 miles down the beach on a cold, windy, rainy day, when the adventure fisherman began hightailing back up the beach to the exit. Tortuga had been monitoring the weather forecast on and off in the week leading up to the trip and started wondering, what is it that they know that the Tortuga doesn’t? It proved to be a great value to have HAM radios. Cell coverage and WiFi are non-existent as you begin driving down the beach. Listening to the NOAA Coastal Advisory was the only way to have known that the winter storm had shifted direction. Coastal flood advisories were issued for the Tortuga Location. The normally innocent-looking swells of the Gulf
became mad, white capped waves of 10 feet or more. The beach that the Tortuga came in began quickly disappearing as the tides came in higher than expected, leaving just a small path near the edge of the dunes to escape. To keep as many options open as possible, the Tortuga started rolling north towards the exit. It was clear that the tide was coming in quickly. As each wave pulled back off the beach the Tortuga would make a dash for the next section of beach that had not been totally inundated, then wait and watch the waves reach a little further across the beach reaching for the sand dunes. After about an hour of bumpy driving, dancing in and around the waves up into the dunes at times, a park service road appeared that ran perpendicular to the beach and gained about 10 feet of elevation. It had a locked gate as the road entered the dunes so couldn’t be much of an escape route, but provided just enough distance from the tide to keep us dry overnight. As the evening approached, losing light, we backed up this road to ride out the rest of the coastal flood warning and the high tide that was about 3 hours away. While watching the waves charge up the beach, then retreat as if they were exhausted from the attempt, a sense of comfort over took the Tortuga that this location would be sufficient to keep us dry.
With adult beverage in hand, it was exciting to watch the waves coming in, feeling relatively confident that we’d secured a safe location to ride it out. With each wave that came in, we made a mark in the sand and noted the time. Even though the high tide was scheduled to be over soon, it would prove to be prudent to track the last hours. For about 30 minutes there was nothing of consequence, the waves had a pattern that posed no threat to the Tortuga, but then a series of waves caught the Tortuga and Stella (14 year old Galveston Special Street Dog) by surprise. In a reminder of the unpredictability of mother nature, in an instant, half of what was left of the beach was consumed by one wave. As we moved to back the Tortuga further up the hill, another wave immediately rolled in still 2 feet taller from where the last wave stopped. That wave hit Stella like a Tsunami, carrying her 10 feet up the beach and rolling up under the Tortuga. At that point the Tortuga backed even farther up the hill in search for the last bit of higher ground.
coastal flooding backing all the way up into the dunes (winter 2015)
Never in any real danger, it was exciting to see the unpredictability of the Gulf during a winter storm. It give an appreciation of why the fisherman were in a hurry to get out and the appreciation of why most don’t venture the extra mile.
That evening, the heavy overcast sky and the constant cold rain made one of the darkest nights we’d ever encountered. Standing away from the Tortuga, there was no remnant of light, a pitch dark, black night as we have ever witnessed. Turning on a flash light with a narrow beam scanning the tops of the dune line behind the Tortuga, we were treated by a large buck standing majestically in the rain.
The next day, the Texas blue sky returned, the pelicans filled the air, and the beach provided safe passage back.
The Tortuga will return many times to this place. This is an adventure spot that will never get old.
BOTTOM LINE: Padre Island National Seashore is a fantastic place for endless exploration and new experiences, especially if you have a high clearance 4WD vehicle.
Pros
- Carol! A national treasure recording the conditions line Wed-Sun
- Endless exploration
- No two trips are the same
- Beach combing
- Fire on the beach
Cons
- Jerks who drive too fast
- Wind can make outside meals unpleasant
- Coastal flooding danger
- Limited Service RV parking
- Dangerous swimming conditions sometimes