Sunday, October 21, 2001

1 The Beaches

George Tuley/Caller-Times

Tourists and residents alike never fail to enjoy themselves at the city's beaches.

For beach lovers, and who isn't, there's more of it to love in the Coastal Bend.
   Total beachfront: More than 100 miles in Aransas, Nueces, Kleberg, Kenedy counties.
   In Nueces County: More than 21 miles.
   Longest: Padre Island National Seashore, 65.5 miles of shoreline, longest remaining undeveloped barrier island in the world. Follow SPID south to Park Road 22 and continue to the park entrance. About 800,000 visitors annually. Much of the beach is accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. You'll need one in order to go 50 miles down the coast from the visitors' center and see the 1913 wreck of the Nicaragua, just off the coast.
   Fee: Entrance to the seashore is $10 per car and good for a week. Parking stickers are available for as little as $5 a month at some county beaches. And at the Corpus Christi beaches, the fun is free.
   Cleanest: For the second year in a row, Rockport Beach Park was the only Texas beach to be designated as a Blue Wave Beach by the national Clean Beaches Council. The park is off Seabreeze Drive in Rockport, between Aransas and Little Bay.
   Most urban: Magee Beach, downtown Corpus Christi. Also has the tiniest waves because it's in a cove on the bay, not exposed to the Gulf of Mexico.
   Seen washed ashore: Piles of seaweed, seashells, jellyfish. In some locations, shipwrecks dating as far back as the 1500s and the Civil War era can be found.
  
  

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