A night with the stars at Padre Island 🌌🌟🌚

yessenia (50)in #travel • 6 years ago

Padre Island National Seashore protects the world's longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island. It's located between Texas coast, in the USA, and the Gulf of Mexico.

This is one of my story during my visit in Padre Island, I hope you enjoy it!

The black and starry night sky makes a very good complement with the working hand held by my fingers. I feel safe being close to my husband, but I feel a sense of terror when I see the sea a few steps away and realize that it's as infinite as the sky.

We are in the "Malaquite" camp in the National Park of Padre Island and, of course, we have set up the tents on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

It is very accessible to get to this part of the beach, there is only one road that leads to a payment booth, we pay $ 20 USD for 7 days and by the same road, later, there are signs to enter the camp.
Inside, there is a small house to pay for the space where you are going to stay, the cost is $ 14 USD per day and you can choose between 48 places to park your RV, car or any means of transportation, also you can find locate bathrooms and showers to do more comfortable your stay. But hurry up! That the weekends are over soon! So the best thing to do is go from Monday to Thursday.

Behind the registration area there is a narrow path of a very fine, white sand which, when stepped on, was very heavy. On both sides grows a plant with purple flowers.

We are facing a very rough view of the sea, where the waves break all their strength against the sand. In the distance, where the sea is lost, I see the beginning of the sky, a very thin line of difference and I watch how the sunset occurs while the sun has been lost among the dunes on the west side.

In a few minutes we were amazed by the darkness of the place and we could observe the space in its immensity.
The moon had not yet appeared on the horizon, which caused the celestial bodies to shine with all their intensity. I took off my shoes and prepared to walk through the wet sand to cool our feet with the cold, salty water of the Gulf. There was a pleasant conversation all of us sitting on the shore of the sea, we didn't want to go further inside, because we couldn't see and we don't know how to swim.

Suddenly my mom felt the touch of something strange against her leg and after a few minutes my husband exclaimed the same, so we all got up to go to the camp for our lamps and inquire what was happening. Funny was our surprise when we returned, we saw that small ghost crabs came out of the sand. We narrowly stepped on a few, but they are so fast that they disappear in the blink of an eye.

Source: News and Information Vol. 2

We entered the waves in search of what was happening above us minutes before and we could see, thanks to the light of the lanterns, that they were small fish. As we didn't have anything to do we arranged to catch them, but we returned them to the water.

We saw a group of lights approaching and we realized that they were the people of the camp and they began to run and scream in the sand trying to catch, as it seemed, the little ghost crabs. The truth is I'm not sure if they came back or not, since the most correct thing is to return them so as not to diminish their population, or they were killed, it's an unknown that will remain in the air.

In my humble opinion I believe that we as beings of thought have the responsibility to care for and protect the habitat of other species, to live on a beautiful planet and, unfortunately, we are doing the opposite.
Our phones failed to capture the beautiful image of the stars and I am sure that the Milky Way could be appreciated, a fact that would confirm in the following days when reading an informative newspaper of the Park.

Source: News and Information Vol. 2

After a few minutes we felt very tired and decided to go to sleep. We entered in our tent houses and fell asleep listening to the waves of the sea and feeling the breeze that made the humid environment more pleasant. That's why about three in the morning I woke up and a beam of light entered through the opening. I looked outside and it was the shining moon, all yellow, giving a beautiful spectacle, next to it were the clouds and their reflection in the sea accompanied it.
I would definitely return to contemplate a night like that.
I couldn't take a photograph of the beautiful dark sky, I hope next time be more prepared to be able to show you a night at Padre Island.

All photographs were taken with my cell phone Moto E 4 plus.