Baffin Bay gives Kleberg County its salty edge

Kingsville sits inland, but Kleberg County keeps going east across the Laguna Madre to Padre Island. Between those two edges, Baffin Bay opens into Alazan Bay, Laguna Salada, and Cayo de Grullo. Ranch country and bay country fit inside the same county line.

These waters belong to the upper Laguna Madre. Much of its shoreline remains undeveloped because the King and Kenedy ranches hold so much of the mainland edge. Alazan Bay has no shoreline development at all, a rare quiet stretch on the Texas coast.

The water can be saltier than seawater. Little freshwater reaches the system, evaporation is high, and exchange with the Gulf is limited. Baffin Bay sits far from a Gulf pass, so it often runs saltier than the rest of the upper Laguna Madre. That unusual water is the county's other landscape: shallow, remote, and sharply different from the streets around the courthouse.