2 black drum for dinner, the fishing here in Port O’Connor was excellent!
So what have we been doing since Matagorda Bay? Fishing of course. Spent spring break in Palacios, a small coastal town another 1 hour south. The RV park there was combined with a marina so it was right on the water. No real beach to speak of in the area so it wasn’t crazy busy with spring breakers which is what we were hoping to avoid so mission accomplished.
The town itself was nothing special but it did have a 3 mile seawall that was good for walking and running. Didn’t have much luck in the fishing department here, not a single keeper the entire week and we fished almost every day. Starting to think we’ve been cursed by the monster one I caught at the previous place.
Here’s a few pics from Palacios
A week there was more than enough for us so we headed another hour further south down the coast to Port O’Connor. Found an RV park there called Beacon 44 that had great reviews online so decided to check it out. It lived up to the praise, so much so we extended our one week stay into 3 weeks. At $250/month plus electric it was worth staying put for a while. Very sociable place, the owners live on site and sometimes put on potluck dinners in the rec hall. While we were there they did up beer butt roasted chicken, smoked briskett (a big hunk of beef) and ham for Easter. The rest of the park guests brought a dish of some kind and man we pigged out. Even though I don’t eat meat, I still enjoyed all the other stuff the other, mostly local Texan campers prepared. Corn bread salad was my fav. Have to try it out on my friends and family when we get back to Canada.
Gorgeous weather during our stay here, sunny, highs in the 80s most days with a couple in the 90s..they were HOT! Not much in town to do other than fish so that’s what we did, at least every other day. Finally broke the monster fish curse and caught lots. Everything from more black drum (same as my monster but none close to that big) sheepshead, whiting, red fish and our first shark. Dave caught it, a 31” bonnethead. You can only keep certain types of shark when they’re over 24” so we thought we’d give it a try. Neither of us have ever eaten shark before and I know that ethically, there’s quite a bit of controversy surrounding their consumption. But we had it and didn’t want to waste it, so we ate it.
Score another one for the internet, looked up online how to clean it and glad we did because if you don’t do it right, you’d waste it. Sharks pee through their skin (who knew?) so there’s certain things you have to do to make sure the flesh is edible. I won’t gross you out with all the gory details but we did what we needed to do and both Dave and I agree that shark fillets are delicious. No bones to worry about either since the skeleton is all cartilage.
The morning after we ate the shark, Dave woke up with vertigo. Payback? Food poisoning? Who knows, weird co-incidence? He just turned over in bed, and the room spun. Not good. He got up and it didn’t get up any better, worse in fact. So much so that I took him to the ER in nearby Port Lavaca, about 30 minutes away.
To make a long story short, they did a bunch of tests and started him on IV right away. The results of his blood test showed extremely high levels of myoglobin and that’s a bad thing! It leaks into your bloodstream when you develop a condition called rhabdomyolysis. People with this condition have some sort of damage to their skeletal muscle tissues ie. heart problems (which they ruled out with various tests) or extreme exercise (no he hadn’t run any marathons) to name a few. They were quite concerned about the high levels in Dave’s system because it produces breakdown products that can clog your kidneys' internal structures. If enough myoglobin passes through your kidneys, it can damage them and lead to severe problems that include kidney failure.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/460717-myoglobin-kidney-protein/#ixzz1sFBgKLjs
To get it out of his system, they pumped him full of liquid via an IV. He had to stay in the hospital overnight to get enough fluid in him until they were happy with his results. Turns out the cause of all his problems was....DEHYDRATION! Yes, it caused the dizziness too. So he got sent home with Drs orders to take it easy and drink LOTS of water. In hindsight, he had been working out quite a bit more than normal ie. doing weights and running in the mid day heat over the prior 2 weeks. It was just a bit too much exercise in too much heat (not used to it yes) without enough water. Dehydration causes your muscles to continually cramp up which creates the myoglobin and it gives you vertigo. We didn’t know that so I’m very glad I took him to the ER.
The nurses and the doctors there took excellent care of him, very professional and helpful. Good thing we had our out of province health care because the bill to look after him totaled almost $5,000! We were happy we only had to pay our $250 deductible. Glad this happened here vs. when we hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the beginning of May. You can be sure we’ll both be well hydrated before we do that hike and that we’ll have plenty of water with us.
Anyways, Dave’s back to his “normal” self now but exercising earlier in the day when it’s cooler and drinking plenty of water.
Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that Dave spent his hospital stay in the maternity ward. I’m not kidding! Those of you who know Dave well, will appreciate how ironic that is. Lucky for Dave he was the only “baby” in it and there were no additions to our family when I picked him up the next day. :-)
Check out the Port O’Connor Pictures!
Heading for the beach in Port Aranasas after Easter, that update coming soon.