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We have done this basic trip several times but it has been four years.

Trip Description:  We will meet at Bayland Park, just over the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, at 9:00 AM.  We will launch at 9:30 AM.  This is a medium length (9 -10 miles) bay paddle rich in history.  We will launch near the site of the Goose Creek shipyard, which built blockade runners during the Civil War.  We will paddle out into the historic Goose Creek Oil Field (discovered 1903), site of Texas's first offshore rigs and one of the birthplaces of the Petroleum Age.  This small field has produced to date over 150,000,000 barrels of oil, and is still producing, as we will see. Discovery of this field led to the construction of Humble Oil's (now Exxon) Baytown Refinery, which is now the second largest in the US, and the development of Baytown. Once across the Goose Creek field, we will continue down the bay to a spoil cell in the middle of Galveston Bay where one of the very few southeast Texas tideraces may be running for us to play in. Lunch will be on a shell beach in a cut through Atkinson Island where we can watch the BIG BOATS traversing the Houston Ship Channel. We will NOT get out into the channel. On the way back, we may encounter the remnants of the Baytown -LaPorte Causeway, once the only way across this part of the Bay.  Hurricane Carla destroyed the Causeway and Ferry landing in 1961.  If we can find it, we may get out on Hog Island, and walk along the old road to the (now defunct) ferry terminal.  Kind of post-apocalyptic!

For extra credit - where does the above scene come from? No, it is not an actual photo from a previous trip.

Directions: From Houston, follow 225 towards La Porte, take 146 north to Baytown.  After crossing the Fred Hartman Bridge, bear right on Business 146 to take the first right after the bridge into Bayland Park. Or, if approaching on I-10 from the west, take Exit 788 onto Decker Drive/Texas Spur 330 South. Continue onto Hwy 146 South, then exit for Robert Lanier Drive/Missouri Street. Continue on Robert Lanier Drive to TX Hwy 146 Business North. Turn right into Bayland Park.