Our last couple trips to my favorite place for paddling with dolphins had not lived up to my expectations.  Although we did get a couple of quick glimpses, it seemed as if the recent drilling activity in Corpus Christi Bayou had scared off the dolphins.  I orgainized a Friday morning trip to see if the dolphins were back in the area.  We launched at the Lighthouse Lakes Trails Parking area at 10:30 and used the incoming 2 knot current to make good time up the Aransas Shrimp Channel towards CC Bayou.  We were about halfway to the bayou when we met our first group of 7 dolphins.  Unfortuneately they were going the opposite direction.  We turned to follow them and although they made a few quick passes near us they soon left us behind as we struggled to keep up against that current.  We turned back to our original course and paddled to the north end of Hog Island where we stopped for lunch.  After lunch we paddled further north along CC Bayou following a pair of dolphins from the "S" curve almost to the old air-boat dock.  On the way back we encountered 2 more pods.  They both were going opposite our direction.  I turned around and did a little racing with a couple of dolphins in the first group.  They chased me with one on each side and just behind me for several minutes. Kathy and Winnie were not able to keep up that speed so I turned back to join them.  The 2nd pod of 4-6 passed us, but then turned and swam back to us.  They followed us for about 20 minutes all the way back to the Aransas Shrimp Channel. My camera batteries died shortly after lunch so I only got one good dolphin picture.  We paddled back down the Aransas Channel and took a brief detour into the middle of the three Lighthouse Lakes Trails entrances.  All together we must have seen 15-18 different dolphins. We also saw the usual white and brown pelicans, a couple of reddish egrets, several different varieties of ducks (Buffleheads only ones I could identify) and of course a wide variety of shorebirds. I was so glad to find that the dolphins were back.