DESTINATION: 50-60 Miles offshore Gulf of Mexico to the edge of the continental shelf and beyond into 1000-2000 + ft of water.

TRIP LENGTH: 12 HOURS 6:00am to 6:00pm

LEADERS: Mary Gustafson, Petra Hockey, Brad McKinney, Randy Pinkston, Dwight Peake and Eric Carpenter.

COSTS: TBA

Eric Carpenters Commentary: These Gulf of Mexico trips don't yield huge numbers of birds but we seem to always make up for it with a high quality sighting or find. Last year's July trip had crippling looks at a Greater Shearwater near the boat. The year before, the headline was a Sooty Shearwater sitting in the water right next to the boat, a first for me in Texas waters. Three summers ago, we had great looks at a Greater Shearwater on one trip, and a cooperative Long-tailed Jaeger on the other trip. The year before that, it was the mixed species flock that included a Brown Noddy and a Brown Booby. And...I'm sure many has heard me mention the Yellow-nosed Albatross we had in 2003. it is possibilities like that that keep me coming back for more. And of course, when there aren't great birds around, sometimes other marine life steal's the show. We routinely get bottlenose dolphins plus have had encounters with whale sharks, atlantic spotted dolphins, risso's dolphins, short-fined pilot whales and even sperm whales.

BIRDS: Uncommon to regular species include: Cory's and Audubon's Shearwaters, Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, Magnificent Frigatebird, Masked Booby, Bridled and Sooty Terns, Pomarine Jaeger; Rare and Accidental Species: Yellow-nosed Albatross, Greater, Sooty and Manx Shearwaters, Leach's Storm-Petrel, Red-billed Tropicbird, Brown Booby, Long-tailed Jaeger, Parasitic Jaeger, and Brown Noddy.

COMMENTS: The Osprey and Osprey II are both comfortable boats with walk-around bow, ample seating on the outside and an air conditioned cabin. Friendly and experienced leaders.

Directions to the Osprey II on SPI;