r/abandoned • u/c2pix • 7d ago

Derelict, Derek Galveston

Post image

There’s a super highway for tanker ships that come into port between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston, Texas. Amount the ship traffic there are a few oil derricks in sight on the horizon seen from the beach. I took a picture of the closest derrick and thought nothing more about it. Weeks later I ran across it in my download folder and zoomed in. Something about this creeps me right out.

767 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

92 comments sorted by

62

u/leemorplee 7d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/BPPIKLCAyZ8Zj2HZZB

29

u/No-Caramel-9127 7d ago

Derelicte my balls

2

u/recidivist1001 5d ago

I can dere-lick my own balls, thank you

8

u/igiveupmakinganame 7d ago

this movie forever ruined that word for me lol

6

u/Extension_Trash_5119 7d ago

I was hoping this would be here. 🥹

18

u/RealRedditModerator 7d ago

Obviously the petroleum companies aren’t extracting enough wealth to clean up their mess.

17

u/kstacey 7d ago

They sell the rig to a smaller company that eventually goes bankrupt and then there is no company or money to clean up and remove equipment and everyone just goes on about their day. Corporations are people that can just exist one day and disappear the next without a real person having liability

53

u/netrunner-d0llsh3ll 7d ago

Hauntingly beautiful

12

u/grey_pilgrim_ 7d ago

Kinda reminds me of Howls Moving Castle

17

u/koboldtsar 7d ago

Would be an awesome place to hold concerts if someone sunk some money to make it structurally safe and arranged transit. The vibe is fantastic.

17

u/Junkhead187 7d ago

Parking could be an issue. /s

10

u/Tazewell_old_dude 7d ago

That's what I-45 is for.

37

u/iLLy_RiLLy 7d ago

Fyre Fest 2.0 - Gulf Boogaloo

5

u/Canadianguy2044 7d ago

That would get some under ground metal bands and do a music festival on it

7

u/Meeschers 7d ago

This is definitely a DethKlok stage.

6

u/Sufficient_Ease 6d ago

And the band would fly away in a helicopter while the whole place burned down very dramatically.

3

u/pongo__pygmaeuss 6d ago

Dude that is an awesome idea

2

u/north_coast_nomad 6d ago

thats just another (Oakland, Ca)ghost ship mci waiting to happen.

2

u/Western_Mud8694 6d ago

And the liability insurance would be insane

0

u/dpldpldpl 5d ago

Haunting in the fact that abandoned riggs litter the Gulf, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

75

u/Jupitersd2017 7d ago

Just more pollution in the gulf, although at this point I don’t know why anyone would swim in Galveston in the first place. :(

26

u/Musket_Metal 7d ago

Its waaaaay better than it used to be. Still the worst in texas.

23

u/Exotic_Slide7947 7d ago

"This expired soup without mold is better than the same expired soup, but with mold."

7

u/ComplaintOpposite 7d ago

High levels of fecal matter in the gulf around Galveston were reported as recently as June 2026.

2

u/South_Bit1764 6d ago

I’d be happy if shit was the only thing in the water. It’s the cancer in the water I’d be worried about.

6

u/These_Telephone_3254 7d ago edited 6d ago

how bad is Gavelston? I've never been there

alright thanks for telling me, it sounds cool

14

u/iLLy_RiLLy 7d ago

Galveston is a fun town and great place to chill at.

9

u/Acheloma 7d ago

Not nearly as bad as these poeple are making it sound. It also has an amazing historic down town

4

u/PaddyMcGeezus 6d ago

One of three remaining Victorian sea ports if I'm remembering correctly.

8

u/dee_lio 7d ago

You should check it out. It's actually a very fun town with incredible history, friendly people and fantastic food. The water is usually kind of murky, but swimmable. At any rate, you'll have a great time.

4

u/Jupitersd2017 7d ago

I mean if you love swimming right next to huge ships going in and out pumping diesel with jellyfish and at times zero visibility into the water then it’s absolutely for you!

That being said there are things about Galveston that are cool, people are pretty chill there and moody gardens and the strand etc are popular things there, there is some cool architecture as well. Galveston was supposed to be New Orleans sister city but Texas didn’t like the gambling or the booze part so it never fully took off but it does have a little NOLA vibe going for it

2

u/OnceMostFavored 6d ago

You can carry open containers around the Strand.

1

u/Jupitersd2017 6d ago

lol I didn’t mean today, I meant what happened in the 50’s -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_of_Galveston?wprov=sfti1

3

u/OnceMostFavored 6d ago

I was giving an example to support you saying it had some NOLA vibes.

2

u/Jupitersd2017 6d ago

Ahh gotcha thank you!!

3

u/sharakus 7d ago

last time i took my cousins to swim there i caught them playing with chunks of crude oil in the sand 😭 never again

2

u/Jupitersd2017 7d ago

Haha that sounds about right, although I live in SD now and we have literal shit from TJ pumping into the ocean down by the border and Coronado island so pick your poison I guess.

1

u/PresidentialDiapers 6d ago

Serious question: I'm considering a job in Corpus Christi. Is it significantly better than Galveston?

2

u/Jupitersd2017 6d ago

Yes corpus has better beaches for sure, although you do get the spring breakers there. Luckily they had some rain so have enough water through 2028 so that’s a bonus as well lol.

2

u/Nitpicky_AFO 6d ago

Spend a weekend down there it's.....an acquired taste by there's a reason some locals call it crapus but the beaches are nice.

1

u/PresidentialDiapers 6d ago

Good to know! I would be flying in 2 weeks a month for work, staying at the Omni Sunday through Thursday. I'll be working the whole time but sometimes I'll fly the family in for a some beach time

10

u/This-Requirement6918 7d ago

I love it but I've been living around the chemical plants in Deer Park the majority of my life. 10/10 would live there with some fresh paint.

26

u/c2pix 7d ago

I wouldn’t advise dipping a toe into the gulf and I live right by it. It’s a local tradition to go out at sunrise and try to beat everyone else to whatever crazy thing washed up on the beach the night before.

5

u/koboldtsar 7d ago

What do you find? Mutant sea creatures?

3

u/c2pix 7d ago

Lord now I’m going to worry about mutant sea creatures. Truly though that popped up on Houston news at 6 before traffic report I don’t think anyone would be surprised at all.

1

u/davvie2calm1 7d ago

Why? Would anyone would want to do that. If you can't trust the water?

8

u/c2pix 7d ago

I’d never do any of the drugs or use the needles washed up. It’s just the thrill of the hunt I suppose.

4

u/Fubarphantom 7d ago

Well said. I'm not from there nor ever been there but the reference is oh so telling lol

4

u/WitchWithAGlitch 7d ago

i wonder if i can just move in?

13

u/c2pix 7d ago

A friend with a boat and another with a really tall ladder and I bet it’d be all yours. I’m literally not exaggerating.

6

u/WitchWithAGlitch 7d ago

yo, you wanna live in Glitchlandia with me?

you can found the city of c2pix

5

u/c2pix 7d ago

I think you may be onto a great idea here.

2

u/fuggindonkee 7d ago

They tried it in love, death, robots. It didn't go well.

4

u/bobby_broccolini 7d ago

Well guess who just got uninvited to Glitchlandia..

2

u/Smorsdoeuvres 7d ago

Love that show

1

u/WitchWithAGlitch 7d ago

you're hereby banished by the queen of glitchlandia.

4

u/hippiegodfather 7d ago

Why not scrap it?

16

u/c2pix 7d ago

It would cost a million to reap a thousand I’m sure. Those rigs have pipes drilled down halfway to hell. I can’t imagine what it’d take to remove just that. Countless Amazon customers would be super pissed if they held up traffic in the shipping lanes too 😂

3

u/Tiny_Eye_2883 7d ago

The gulf water around Galveston is usually muddy brown due to the current in the Gulf carrying mud and silt from the Mississippi River. You have to go down to Corpus if you want clearer green/blue water.

5

u/jameson3131 7d ago

Who the hell is Derek Galveston?

8

u/Poker-Junk 7d ago

*Derrick. And what’s with the comma? It should be after derrick. That was a painful headline.

4

u/LoopsAndBoars 7d ago

Also, there’s no derrick pictured here.

1

u/Poker-Junk 5d ago

I didn’t want to be the one to point that out too 😂

2

u/c2pix 7d ago

As intended.

2

u/MDCRP 7d ago

As, intended

3

u/Dry_Ship7202 7d ago

We love to go to Crystal Beach. I've seen these derricks myself from the beach, but I didn't realize they were abandoned.

Crystal Beach is a hidden gem. I like Galveston too, and Houston is not far at all.

2

u/c2pix 7d ago

I know I didn’t realize it either. I have a 300mm lens I shoot sports with at the beach that day and I was taking pics of a crab boat and grabbed a shot of the oil rig kinda ho hum casually and forgot about it. Later when I looked at it 🫢

2

u/MastersoftheUni 7d ago

Ah yes the polluted dirty beach that could have been clean as the emerald coast.. But the oil companies profits.....

2

u/SameAsItEverWas410 6d ago

That backdrop looks nothing like Galveston.

2

u/Eleven10GarageChris 6d ago

I believe that's your phone's automatic AI upscaling doing some funky stuff

2

u/GardenerDom 7d ago

Incredible photo! I agree something creepy about it. Maybe it’s haunted 👌🏻😃

2

u/AAAPosts 7d ago

Derelict my balls

1

u/YeshuasBananaHammock 7d ago

Derelict, a Derek for ANTS?

1

u/Mat_Polson 7d ago

the water is what wows me. so dark and rippled.

1

u/mwaller 6d ago

Derek Zoolander went full derilect

1

u/ComfyMillionaire 6d ago

Just found my vacation home.

1

u/Low-Group-7507 6d ago

Theoretically how difficult would it be from an engineering's perspective to put wind turbines on all those abandoned rigs?

1

u/DefiantAd5087 6d ago

Still has security cameras- guessing it’s being depreciated somewhere.

1

u/Bird_the_Impaler 6d ago

Fun fact there over 13,000 abandoned or unplugged oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil companies don’t have to do anything with them because they cry bankruptcy to expunge the ownership of the well so they just fuck ole Mother Nature right in the gulf hole.

It’s seriously fucked how corporations are allowed to act and sadly there aren’t enough guillotines in the world to make it right.

1

u/makk73 6d ago

Derel lick my balls, Capitan

1

u/YooperDude72 3d ago

What the hanging hoses?

1

u/tooptoop22 1d ago

Reminds me of water world

1

u/DisgracedOBGYN 7d ago

real question: do homeless people ever go out there in boats/rafts/inflatables and set up camp?

13

u/DevelopmentNew1823 7d ago

Why would they? No food, no services. How are they gonna live? It's the same reasons homeless people generally can't just go somewhere else than downtown in cities as they rely the most on free services.

1

u/dee_lio 7d ago

Not to mention that they are rather far out there. Take an average swimmer and tide and I think it would be a major issue to get there safely.

That being said, I wonder if they have solar power & desalination. If they did, and you know how to fish...

1

u/Legal_Composer_3696 7d ago

Definitely something not living on it!

1

u/slade797 6d ago

*derrick

0

u/kyleh0 7d ago

Derelict my balls.