b'P a d r eI s l a n d PADRE ISLAND CANALS NOW DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO GULFA decade after first proposed as part of the original Schlitterbahn development, the Don Patricio Bridges were inaugurated into service last spring, creating a water connection under Park Rd. 22 (SPID) on North Padre Island. Situated half-way between Commodores Dr./Hwy 361 and Whitecap Blvd., the new canal connection is navigable only in a kayak or canoe, but the benefit to thousands of canal-front homeowners is the new source of Gulf waters that flow through Packery Channel, and then Lake Padre, and then under the new bridges.Before the new connection, the Padre Isles canal system was fed fresh water only from Upper Laguna Madre, on the back side of the island. Until Packery Channel was completed in 2006, there was not a single, open passage between the Gulf of Mexico and inshore bays, from the Port Aransas Ship Channel to the north, to Port Mansfield to the southa stretch of almost 90 miles.Within weeks after Packery Channel was opened, feeding fresh, blue water into the stagnant and shallow Laguna Madre and lower Corpus Christi Bay, improved clarity was immediately noticed, and today we have become accustomed to clear views on sunny days of the underwater features of Laguna Madrea view that did not often exist in the same location, before 2006.A full water connection into the original, north section of the canal system is in the process of completion throughand thanks tothe emerging White-cap NPI development. The bridge on Commodores Dr. will connect the new, seven-mile canal system to the wide canal that runs along Cabana St., which is currently a water-flow dead end. Residents living on what is one of the very first Padre Isles canals look forward to enjoying the improvements to water quality that have already been noticed by homeowners closer to the new bridges.128THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com'