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COPYRIGHT 2001 Texas Monthly, Inc.
HEADED FOR THE BEACH THIS SUMMER? ESCAPE THE CROWDS AT THESE FIVE OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES WHERE THE COAST IS ALWAYS CLEAR.
THE LONG LANGUID COASTLINE OF TEXAS TAKES ITS OWN SWEET TIME SEDUCING THE SENSES. THE TEXAS COAST IS THE SIMPLE ESSENCE OF THE SEASHORE EXPERIENCE: SUN, SAND, SURF, BREEZES, DUNES, WETLANDS, WATERFOWL, AND VAST, TRANQUIL BAYS, ALONG WITH ITS MOST COMPELLING ASSETS, THE THIN, ELEGANT ISLANDS AND PENINSULAS THAT BARRICADE THE TEXAS MAINLAND FROM A STORMY SEA.
Finding that wild coast can be done with just a little bit of effort. You can discover hidden places as remote as far West Texas, but tempered by the constant calming roar of the surf rolling over sandbars in harmony with the squawks of shorebirds, unspoiled by the buzz of Jet Skis and the beat of boom boxes. You don't have to be an athlete or an outdoorsman to get the most out of the adventure. These five easy places--the marshes of Sea Rim State Park, the bird sanctuaries of High Island, Matagorga Island State Park and Wildlife Area, lower Padre Island National Seashore, and Boca Chica beach--are there for anyone who wants to indulge the primal urge to be at land's end, where the wilderness overwhelms the civilized and the coast is always clear.
AS WILD AS BIG BEND
SEA RIM STATE PARK
"People who've lived around here for years and see it for the firs time, they can't believe it exists," said Danny Magouirk, looking out over the tall grasses that rise out of the wetlands all the way to the horizon. "You can look for miles and miles and see nothing but marsh. No power lines, no poles, totally natural. It's as wild as Big Bend."
Magouirk is the superintendent of Sea Rim State Park, which begins ten miles after the Texas coast emerges from the Louisiana muck at Sabine Pass. The park has five miles of beachfront, but the area of greatest interest is the wide swath of wetlands that incorporates two wildlife refuges, totaling almost 75,000 acres. Magouirk was about to fire up the automobile engine that powers his airboat to take me on a ride through the marsh unit of the park. I put on the earmuffs he'd given me, and we sped into the rich wetlands, winding along watery alleys through the cordgrass. The passages were so tight I felt as if I were in a tunnel. Occasionally the grasses would part and we would find ourselves crossing wide-open flats, placid lakes, or small ponds, and then we would plunge into the dense vegetation again. Less than a minute after departing the Myers Point dock one mile east of the park headquarters, we were being shadowed by an indigo bunting, an iridescent neotropical bird on its way north for the summer. Our boat flushed herons, egrets, and ducks out of the grasses, sent fish jumping, and forced alligators, sunk deep in the mid, to scurry for safety. It occurred to me that Sea Rim is an aquatic version of a drive-through wildlife park.
This one of the least-trafficked parts of the coastline, due in no small part to the impassable condition of Texas Highway 87, the storm-battered road that once hugged the beach from Sabine Pass to the Port...
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