Dolphin Watch Nature Tour

One of our favorite activities on Port Aransas was to go on a Dolphin Watch Nature Tour.

Here we are waiting to get on the boat.


This picture is here purely to document that I was indeed on this vacation. And that my hair type does not agree with humid, salty wind.

We actually asked a man on the boat to take a picture of our family together at the front of the boat. You could see the water and the harbor and I thought it would look nice. He pointed to his wife (who was sitting down) and said "She takes better pictures than I do", so I gave the camera to her. She didn't stand up. And she didn't center it. It was so sad that it was really just funny. All you saw was in the picture was our family on the very right edge of the picture, the rail of the boat and the sky. And SHE was the one who took better pictures. Next time I'll ask someone who has a nicer camera than me. That is surely a sign of someone who could take a good picture!

We were on this boat. This is actually a picture off their website. You can click on the picture to get to the link.

So we finally started off.

We saw TONS of dolphins!
Jumping dolphins.

Several dolphin mothers and their babies.

But the touch tank was where my kids wanted to be.
When we got on the boat, they already had some crabs, fish, starfish, and a seahorse in the tank from the last boat ride.
Halfway through our trip, they threw out the nets and let them drag behind the boat.

They pulled them up and then dumped the contents in a bucket.

They then took the bucket back to the touch tank and took each sea animal out and told everyone all about them. It was very interesting and very educational. The crabs with claws were thrown back in along with any other dangerous animals. They took the barbs off of the little stingray and told us they would grow back and then threw him in the tank.

The kids were then able to pick up and touch any of the animals and fish in the touch tank. There were quite a few crabs with sea anenomes on the backs of their shells and my middle loved to touch all the anenomes and pick up the crabs.

There were squid, several unique fish, a sting ray, and several varieties of starfish and crab that were added to the tank.

There ended up being quite a few minnows who apparently don't survive out of water long. They took them to the back of the boat and let the kids throw them to the seagulls.

The kids had a blast doing this!

As soon as they were done, the kids went back to the touch tank. They absolutely loved getting to see all these animals up close!

This is one outing that we would highly recommend if you are ever in Port Aranasas, TX!