Three couples from Austin were visting at Port Aransas for a weekend of paddling and playing in the surf.  One of the couples whom I had guided on a trip to the Port Aransas lighthouse was kind enough to invite me to join them on their trips.  Saturday morning we met at Wilson Cut on Mustang Island for the trip out to Shamrock Island.  Wilson Cut is a 1.25 mile long oil field channel cut into the back side of Mustang Island that allows boaters to easily access the bay side of the island.  The higher than normal tide had flooded the flats along the channel so we did not see as many feeding shorebirds as we normally do on the way out to the bay.  At the end of the channel 2 of the paddlers caught a glimpse of a dolphin fin, but it quickly disappeared.  We paddled over to Shamrock Island and took advantage of the high water to explore the lagoon inside the island.  Although the huge nesting flocks were gone, we still saw a few interesting birds including ibis, osprey, tri-color herons, great egrets, and possibly a Carcara.  We crossed back over to Glen Cove on the back side of the island for a short beach break.  I dropped back to join one of the slower paddlers (she was in a short white-water SOT) and her husband.  Suddenly we were joined by three dolphins.  They made a couple of close passes and then moved out to deeper water.  We followed for a little while, but with the others already on shore and facing a headwind, we gave up and joined the others on the beach. The high water let us paddle into Glen Cove and across the flats back to the launch.  After lunch at their condo, we went down to the beach for some surfing.  I only made about 8 runs, but a near endo, lots of uncontrolled side-surfing, and getting pounded by some dumpers on the way out really tired me out.  They got some good runs in on their SOT's and did some boogie boarding. I finally got a couple of good controlled runs on the smaller inside waves.  I was so tired that I decided to pass on the Sunday trip.