b'E c o n o m i c sPADRE ISLAND is a true wonder of the natural world. It is the longest barrier island on earththat is, an island which runs along a coastline, forming a barrier between the ocean and the mainlandand it is the second largest island in the United States, Long Island, New York, being the largest. The northern boundary of Padre Island is Packery Channel, where Mustang Island begins as you travel north to Port Aransas on Highway 361, and the island extends south for 130 miles to the mouth of the Rio Grande at Boca Chica Beach, where Elon Musks SpaceX launch facility operates.Famed Spanish conquistador, Alonso lvarez de Pineda, is credited with naming Corpus Christi Bay on its namesake Roman Catholic day of celebration in 1519, and shortly thereafter christened this massive barrier island Padre Island (father island), and the equally impressive inshore bay that separates it from the mainland, Laguna Madre (mother lagoon). Together, these wondrous geographic features were uniquely formed over millennia of erosion generated by the Gulfstream, the most powerful clockwise current anywhere in the oceans of the Northern Hemisphere.Padre Island and Laguna Madre together are one of the continents most important and impactful coastal ecosystems, most of which is a protected national park, the Padre Island National Seashore (PINS), the countrys longest national seashore. Over half of all bird species in North America have been positively identified at PINS, as the zone serves as the last (and first) coastal haven where dozens of migrating spe-cies stop-over on thousands-of-miles journeys between summer homes in the Northern American Plains, Canada and Alaska, and winter homes in Mexico, Central and even South America.The primitive gulf beach on PINS, where only real 4X4 vehicles can operate, is a journey back in time into one of the worlds most purely beautiful coastal environments where, less the technology we bring with us, very little has changed in three thousand years. Just as untouched is the Upper Laguna Madre, the section north of the Saltillo Flats south of Baffin Bay, which is one of only six hypersaline inshore bays in the entire world. Hypersalinity is qualified when a bays salinity level is greater than that of the connected open ocean and creates an ecosystem equal in fertility to the Gulf of Mexico, in our case, but in a much restricted area. The result is biodiversity on steroidsthe Upper Laguna Madre is home to more species of finfish than any inshore bay in Texas, and the plentiful seagrass beds are habitat for the largest and healthiest crabThe Hidden Gem of Flour BluffFew Corpus Christians are aware and flounder populations and provide ideal spawning waters for the most popular gamefish: Redfish,that a residential canal system exists in the Bluff off Laguna Shores Speckled Trout and Black Drum. Bioactivity begets bioactivity, so in an ecosystem with a greater varietyRoad, and that it was the citys very first canal-front community. of fish and crustacean species, you will find a greater assortment of birds, marine reptile species, andDevelopers and new residents have found it and are rebuilding much both land and marine mammals. of the neighborhood home by home, and lot by lot.60 THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'