"Now he's stuck in Wanna Wanna the beachfront bar

Sippin on a coke and rum

Tide rolls in...his dreams die out

Waitin on love that won't come....true love never will come"

-Owen Temple "Wanna Wanna"

I seldom drink at the Wanna Wanna bar over on SPI. It's a true tourist place, where  during the summer folks from all over inhabit, but during this time of year it's mainly a Winter-Texan grading into a Spring Break hangout. About the only time we frequent the place is on Saturday nights during the summer when the Bongodogs are playing there.

We were going to raft up this weekend, fish, barbeque and generally lead a slothful existance along with Renaissance and Jupiter. It was the Commanders birthday weekend, and besides, he had other reasons to celebrate. It's one of two times of celebration that sailors have.

The first is when we purchase our new boats, and the second is when we sell them.

The former is the case here. The offer was accepted on the Dehler, and it looks as though the Commander is once again a commodore, at least until he sells Renaissance.

But, as usual, the weather gods were against us, and the wind was howling in gusts up to 39 knots. The Laguna Madre looked like a chocolate milkshake with long three foot high rollers sweeping through. The winds were forecast to turn to the northeast later, so we just waited and worked on boats.

Later, when it became evident that the wind was not going to cooperate, we decided to just hang it up and take the kiddies to the beach, sit under the palapa bar at Wanna Wanna and sip a beverage or two.

A good consolation prize.

We got there around 1600 and sat down with the David and Kim while the cuatitas, and Savannah-the-elder went down to the miniscule winter beach to play for awhile.

We were joined by a former student of the Commander and his wife, both who are biologists involved in monitoring the seismic profiling being done in the bay.

This work started about a month or so ago, and involves a company owned by a rather influencial Texas politician named Tony Sanchez. They came in totally under the radar, just showed up one day with an armada of air boats and started putting thousands of bamboo poles and styrofoam buoys into the shallow estuary with the intent of putting explosive charges at each point in order to seismically profile the bay for the presence of minerals (mainly, natural gas). According to the paper this would be non-invasive with a minimum of disruption to the fragile ecosystem that defines the Laguna Madre.

It has made entry and exit a real challange, and one has to dodge the minefield of floats and poles every ten feet or so.

Here at latitude 26, the estuary called the Laguna Madre is a hypersaline lagoon which averages less than 3 feet in depth ('cept for the Gulf intra coastal waterway which is dredged to 16 feet). It is a truly sensitive eco system bordered by black mangrove wetlands, its clear waters composed of vast seagrass meadows that teem with gamefish, bottlenosed dolphins, turtles and migratory birds.

The bay is a challenge to negotiate, especially with sailboats, and many areas are exposed during low tides, vast mudflats where roseatte spoonbills, long billed curlews and piping plover seek out tender and vulnerable crusteaceans buried in the sticky sulfurous mud.

I am not a greenie, or a tree hugger of any sort, but it's an arguable point that an area like this shouldn't be exploited for "minerals" unless the amount is truly significant.....and it surely wouldn't be more than a drop in the bucket if it follows the trend of any historical exploitation of this area.

The seismic evaluation shouldn't even be done. That's how sensitive the place is.

So anyway, we're sitting there drinking Cuba Libres and listening to these two tell us about what they do. The guy rides around on an airboat all day long evaluating the damage they're doing to the seagrass, the fish that are being killed by the explosive charges and other habitat damage thats being done during this exploratory phase.

....And then the company simply pays for the damages they generate.

I was shocked. Being involved in US Army Corps of Engineers permitting, I am used to my clients having to mitigate any damages incurred during the course of their projects. They repair and replace damages to habitat. I guess that when you talk petroleum though....anything goes.

I think I hate them.....

So anyway, we had a few drinks, but the air started to turn cool off of the open Gulf of Mexico, and as the sun set, we left.

I resolved to sail just as soon as possible, I need the therapy.

That is if I can make my way out of the minefield in the Laguna Madre.