When my son was a toddler, my wife and I brought him almost as soon as he could walk. I'll never forget the wonder in his face the first time he saw the ocean. I feel some of that sense of awe when I look out across the island this morning. The nation's longest undeveloped barrier island stretches for almost 70 miles south of Corpus Christi to Port Mansfield. Unlike developed South Padre Island at the southern tip of Texas, where college spring breakers flock, the national seashore lives with nature on its own wild, harsh, and often unforgiving terms.
Most visitors see just the first few miles of South Beach.
Vehicles get stuck and break down. You're just not going to see anything like this anywhere else in the country. From late March through July, teams of volunteers and park employees also cover the 70-mile length of the island daily looking for small, rumpled piles of sand that mark the nests of the world's most endangered sea turtles. When a nest is spotted, Dr. Donna Shaver, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, races to recover the eggs of Kemp's ridley sea turtles. For more than 20 years, Donna has worked to establish Padre Island as the primary nesting site for the turtles in the United States.