Port Mansfield Cut

Yesterday, Jan and I wanted to get the new Jeep Wrangler out to the beach. We decided to head northward and drive up to the Mansfield Cut. The Mansfield Cut is a dredged area that allows passage for boats to get from the Gulf to the Laguna Madre. The Laguna Madre is the body of water that is separated from the Gulf by the island. The Mansfield cut separates the southern portion of the island from the northern portion which you can get to from Corpus Christie.

Heading up hwy 100 we intended to get to the beach at Entrance #6. This entrance has no entry fee, but there is a requirement of having a 4x4 vchicle just to get to the beach. Pulling up to the entrance, we watched one Jeep Wrangler and one heavy duty dually pickup gun it and plow thru the deep sand. Un deterred, I put the Wrangler into 4H gear and gunned it. We easily made it thru down to the beach. The beach at that point is heavily packed sand, that most any vehicle can navigate. There were fishermen up and down the beach with their poles firmly anchored in the surf, waiting for the big one to bite.

The video above is us driving thru the entrance. You can see on the right a mini-van that attempted to drive thru but got stuck.

Mansfield Cut is about 25 miles down the beach at that point. There were fisherman all up and down the beach with their poles firmly anchored in the surf, waiting for the big one to bite. Once we got to mile marker 10. we encountered a large metal drum/barrel with the single word "NUDE" painted on the side. Apparently, that marks where the "un-official" nude beach is. Maybe it is packed in the summertime, but this time of year all we saw were the fishermen trying to catch some dinner.

Marks the beginning of the nude beach??

After 40 minutes or so of driving, we got to the cut. There is a large rock jetty jutting out into the gulf. The jetty had a handful of fishermen presesnt.

Mansfield Cut Jetty

After leaving the Mansfield Cut, we headed back down the beach to a nice secluded spot and had lunch. I tried to use my metal detector to find Spanish gold coins, but to no avail. The only thing I found was a rusted old pop can that I successfully sliced my finger on while digging thru the sand.

Perfect Spot for lunch

Slicing my finger cut the day short. So we headed back the 25 miles or so driving down the beautiful beach, passing each fisherman along the way, thankful that this day was an extremely low tide.