A view looking west towards Port Isabel. One of my favorite photos, this one was taken in November, before most of the Winter Texans are back. I think it was the year after the causeway collapse in 2001. The island takes on a different feeling during that time....it becomes an island again, home to an assortment of people and critters that would make John Steinbeck proud. My friends Paul and Cheryl are among them. They live aboard the Freedoms Hope, a big old steel hulled Ketch with their two kids, Machai and Shey, both boys. Every year Paul makes ramblings about going cruising, but I think they must still be a long way off, the island seems to reel him back in each time. He's an accomplished Kiteboarder, surfer and windsailor, and works as a physical therapist in the area. I met him when the causeway was down, and we had to commute via ferry boat each morning to Port Isabel. Freedoms Hope is full of kids toys, and sometimes we joke that the "diaper sail" is flying when Cheryl is drying the laundry on a clothesline streched between the main and mizzenmasts, laundry which consists mostly of baby Sheys diapers. They're real sweet folks, Cheryl is a vegetarian who doesn't have an ugly bone in her, and is at peace with the world. They have a bumper sticker on the back of their van that says "visualize world peace"...I think "visualize whirled peas" might be a better one though. Cheryl is an artist. A few years ago she was commissioned by the man who now is the Sea Ranch Marina Mogul, Daryl Golden to paint he and his wife, standing in front of a confederate flag rippling in the wind. She captured the pair well, but ignored my suggestion that she paint them with KKK hoods over their heads....
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