The Mighty Platypi

Our summer campout was held last weekend at Goose Island State Park in Rockport.  The mosquitoes were horrible, so we didn’t spend much time in camp!  Instead we visited the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi and took a Dolphin Watch Nature Tour on one of the boats from Woody’s Sports Center in Port Aransas.  The kids had a great time handling the fish, jellies, and crustaceans that were caught by the tour guide.

At Goose Island State Park. This is Goose Island itself. The seawall drops off into about 3 feet of water.	At the Texas State Aquarium.	The "Diver in the Water" show at the Texas State Aquarium.
The touch pools at the Texas State Aquarium.	The boat ride we took had a touch tank where they would put fish that they caught for the kids to touch and see up close. In this picture I’m holding a sea slug that they caught on a previous trip that day.	Riding on the boat from Woody’s Sports Center in Port Aransas, Texas. I highly suggest this boat tour, it was fantastic!
This was a nursery pod that we saw on our boat tour.	Finley is standing on the upper deck by the captain. The captain let several of the kids drive the boat for a while.	The man in the checkered shirt was the tour guide. He’s showing the kids what they caught earlier.
The guide is about to throw the test net overboard to see what we can catch. He said this was the sort of net that shrimp boats throw out to check the water for shrimp before they throw out the real nets. We only caught one shrimp, which he told us would make the shrimp boats look elsewhere instead of dropping their large nets.	Eric watches the net being trailed behind the boat. The tour guide is holding the line in the background, talking about how the net works.	This catfish has barbs on its fins that were able to cut through a tin can. The tour guide has nine and a half fingers and was missing an eye, all from a single shark that he’d caught ten or so years before.