Today is definitely a Chamber of Commerce day. The weather does not get any better than this. Now if I could find the fish, all would be well. I did finally catch something on the pole off the deck. Tuesday morning a pelican spotted my perch and thought he had found a meal. I brought him in and John(guest in 103) helped me get him loose and he seemed ok. John said he caught one small trout off the wall. He wanted to taste trout again so he kept it.
Someone came by yesterday to measure the tennis court fence. He said they did it all and could put up better lights and a playback board if we so decided. I hope the board decides to do that. They have removed the fence from around the motel tennis court to begin the process of revamping the entrance area. Ron is working today to remove the oleaders from between the road and the old tennis area.
I reviewed the financials for December on Tuesday. I found that we purchased owner parking decals. The rental office has 250. I've heard owners ask about them since we have not had any for three years. I also saw that Charter Cable is going up on their rates beginning this month. There was a charge for a repair to the golf cart. I'll have to ask Justin about that. It seems like I've seen the cart used every day. Maybe the charge should have been for the motel cart.
Ron has removed all the marginal window screen from the condos. He said they are having new ones made.
The winter Texans had their first Wednesday covered dish get together yesterday. I looked like about 25 people. Usually there are more, but I guess they have not all arrived.
Gas prices jumped here. They were at $1.36 early in the week and now they are at $1.59 per gallon.
The tide is as low as it has been all winter. It is such a nice day, but I doubt any boats can get out. The dredge equipment is across the channel again anyway.
Tuesday, I visited about an hour with Perry Trial of the Parks and Wildlife service. He manages the fishery for the Corpus bay system. He showed me a lot of charts and graphs about fish populations from their recent surveys. The flounder population is almost nonexistent. There is a meeting here in Rockport on the 14th for public input, but it looks like drastic measures will be taken to improve the flounder situation. The data for the last two years for trout in Corpus show numbers at historic lows. The juvenile trout population is almost off the top of the charts. He says we should see a lot more trout in about 18 months.
After that visit, I talked at length with the Rockport Harbor Master, Keith Barrett. We discussed our Kontiki breakwater problems. There seems little doubt that we will be throwing good money after bad if we try to repair what we have. Even though we were assessed our share of the $25,000 for the redesign, I don't think there is any relationship between that number and what it will take to get it done right. Keith felt that we need to contact Coast and Harbor Engineering out of Austin for an evaluation. Otherwise we are just guessing what it will take. Rob said that he and Justin met with Belaire Environmental and they think they have a plan. Belaire designed what we have now. Belaire deals with environment issues and I'm not sure what experience they have with construction design. Keith said that putting shoreguard in eight feet of water will never work and will need constant maintenance. He gave me a disk with a power point presentation from the Austin group concerning the channel at Key Allegro. Their channel is not as large as ours and the estimated cost was almost $2,000,000. Rob told me that he was planning to begin repair soon on our pier. I told him that I would wait until the breakwater redesign is complete. The end of the pier is tied into the breakwater and the redesign may impact the pier. The Austin group's study showed that a lot of sand comes in when waves splash over the wall. We have a lot of that. My best guess after the conversation with Keith is that we are going to have to back off the breakwater to only four feet below mean low tide. I think it would be well worth the cost to have engineers with this kind of experience give us a design that they would stand behind. Now, if we could afford to build that, that's another question.
Someone came by yesterday to measure the tennis court fence. He said they did it all and could put up better lights and a playback board if we so decided. I hope the board decides to do that. They have removed the fence from around the motel tennis court to begin the process of revamping the entrance area. Ron is working today to remove the oleaders from between the road and the old tennis area.
I reviewed the financials for December on Tuesday. I found that we purchased owner parking decals. The rental office has 250. I've heard owners ask about them since we have not had any for three years. I also saw that Charter Cable is going up on their rates beginning this month. There was a charge for a repair to the golf cart. I'll have to ask Justin about that. It seems like I've seen the cart used every day. Maybe the charge should have been for the motel cart.
Ron has removed all the marginal window screen from the condos. He said they are having new ones made.
The winter Texans had their first Wednesday covered dish get together yesterday. I looked like about 25 people. Usually there are more, but I guess they have not all arrived.
Gas prices jumped here. They were at $1.36 early in the week and now they are at $1.59 per gallon.
The tide is as low as it has been all winter. It is such a nice day, but I doubt any boats can get out. The dredge equipment is across the channel again anyway.
Tuesday, I visited about an hour with Perry Trial of the Parks and Wildlife service. He manages the fishery for the Corpus bay system. He showed me a lot of charts and graphs about fish populations from their recent surveys. The flounder population is almost nonexistent. There is a meeting here in Rockport on the 14th for public input, but it looks like drastic measures will be taken to improve the flounder situation. The data for the last two years for trout in Corpus show numbers at historic lows. The juvenile trout population is almost off the top of the charts. He says we should see a lot more trout in about 18 months.
After that visit, I talked at length with the Rockport Harbor Master, Keith Barrett. We discussed our Kontiki breakwater problems. There seems little doubt that we will be throwing good money after bad if we try to repair what we have. Even though we were assessed our share of the $25,000 for the redesign, I don't think there is any relationship between that number and what it will take to get it done right. Keith felt that we need to contact Coast and Harbor Engineering out of Austin for an evaluation. Otherwise we are just guessing what it will take. Rob said that he and Justin met with Belaire Environmental and they think they have a plan. Belaire designed what we have now. Belaire deals with environment issues and I'm not sure what experience they have with construction design. Keith said that putting shoreguard in eight feet of water will never work and will need constant maintenance. He gave me a disk with a power point presentation from the Austin group concerning the channel at Key Allegro. Their channel is not as large as ours and the estimated cost was almost $2,000,000. Rob told me that he was planning to begin repair soon on our pier. I told him that I would wait until the breakwater redesign is complete. The end of the pier is tied into the breakwater and the redesign may impact the pier. The Austin group's study showed that a lot of sand comes in when waves splash over the wall. We have a lot of that. My best guess after the conversation with Keith is that we are going to have to back off the breakwater to only four feet below mean low tide. I think it would be well worth the cost to have engineers with this kind of experience give us a design that they would stand behind. Now, if we could afford to build that, that's another question.
posted by Kontiki at 2:06 PM
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