It has been a busy time around the campus here. Realtors and prospective buyers are all over the place. The weekly open house was on Sunday and there seemed to be quite a crowd. One guy even opened my front door and walked in. He said, " Is this condo for sale?". He said he saw the for sale sign in the window, next door, but that door was locked.
Rau and Robin Stech have been living in 604, but today they closed on a house in Peninsula Oaks. They seem pretty happy. They have a hummingbird feeder on their deck and this time of year the little fellows are all over it. Today it was out of food and the birds hovered even on the deck of 603 looking for a handout.
There was a meeting about Cedar Bayou ten days ago. There was standing room only. Guide, Marvin Landers, reported on the meeting in the Herald. There is just no good news. The agencies who should want it open the most continue to object, even Texas Parks and Wildlife will not support opening the channel. Republican Governor Clemens ordered it closed and it has never been the same since.
The lights on the pier continue to seem to be attracting more and more small fish every evening. I can catch small trout two at a time, but not keepers yet. If the larger trout ever come back to Aransas Bay, there will be great fishing on that pier. We still have locals coming out to fish and trespass. One group told Pop that they were told it was a public pier.
My google stats came back today. Normally, about 70 to 80 people log on to the blog in a week's time. Last week exactly 100 different users logged on. It appears since many are referred by search engines, that the real estate interest has prompted many to search for Kontiki and they end up reading this blog. There were visits from 21 different states.
We have been having bad sewer backup problems. John and Scott have been dealing with it the last three days. The problems are all on the bayside. It is really stinking up the place.
There seems to be a lot more people bringing boats to Rockport. I noticed that the Racquet Club has converted one of their tennis courts to boat parking.
Chris and Karra took the weekend off to visit South Padre Island. I saw them back today. I hear they are streamlining some of the operations. The rental office will be closing at 6 pm after Labor Day. Colette will clean the Phase I condos and Gracie will be working on Phase II units. There seem to be other changes in the works. I understand that Chris and Karra may stay for another couple of months.
Last week the contactor failed on my AC unit. That's no big thing. Air Mart wanted over $100 to come out to repair it. Rob and I put our heads together and took the old one out. I went to Freeman's in Aransas Pass and paid $23 for a new part. I came back and we wired it in. I turned on the power and whoops, one wire was wrong. We had 110 volts on the 24 volt components. Air Mart came and it was only $275 to get me up and running again. There is an upside to this. I discovered that the coils to the condensing unit are totally oxidized to dust and crumbles. That is why the upstairs was so warm. The unit is only 7 years old. This happened to Jim(210) when his unit was only about 3 years old. I looked around at other units and many are also operating at less than optimal efficiency. Unit 501 has the last of the original units and it seems to be working well. They just don't make them like that anymore. I'll not have another Rudd air conditioner.

Mike, who is the contractor who put on our new roof last summer, just purchased this boat. He took it for spin Sunday and really nailed a shallow reef. The winds were light all weekend and the jet ski people had a blast. However boaters have much more difficulty spotting reefs when the winds are light. Mike is coming back Wednesday to put the boat in a local storage facility.

When Chuck and Sandy(107) return this fall they will have an addition to their pet family. Willow had a pup, Cinder, and she will get to visit Kontiki. Cute, isn't she?
Chuck said he had a bad experience with Texas electric deregulation, thank you Governor Perry! Chuck had gone with an electrical provider that went out of business. When that happens, you get assigned to the provider of last resort. He was charged $312 for seven days of service before he could lock in with another provider. My bill this month was not that much for the entire month.

This is the new fish cleaning stand that I mentioned in an earlier post. It appears small when viewed in the context of the huge pier. I have not yet seen anyone catch a keeper anything off the new pier so it may be sometime before the cleaning stand get its first use.
I heard this morning that as many as nine condos are now under contract. Yesterday Cleve and Lynn Woods, owners of the local Sears outlet, came by to look at condos for a possible purchase.

Albert & Al Neubauer caught & released these two 33" & 31" oversized reds out of Marker 37 - across from Bird Island. (They were caught 08/22)

Real estate activity remains brisk. Four condos were put under contract last weekend. The open house was held in 205. I believe the newest condos under contract are 207, 401, 605 and 711. There is a lot of traffic driving through the complex every day as they look at the for sale units.
Rob is busy remodeling some of the individually owned units. He is working on four this week. That will leave only a handful of units not remodeled. All units in the 200 and 400 buildings will be completed.
Last evening was a slow evening for rentals. Only unit 401 was rented. I understand that there is a likelyhood that there will be 100% occupancy of units by winter Texans this year.
Rob picked up the new fish cleaning stand for the new pier yesterday. It is really big and all aluminum. There is even a fabric 'T' top on it for shade. When that gets mounted the pier will be complete. The only problem is we are going to have a lot of folks who are not owners or guests who will drive up on the property to use the pier. When Ed Block(former owner of 306)was on the board he always advocated for a security gate like the one Sea Shell Shores uses. That may be necessary to control access to the property as well as to the pier.

My friends Kurt Denson, Alan Friesenhahn, and Bret Ferguson went with guide Mark Otto and picked up this mess of trout south of Marker 37. They caught and released one red.

It must be nice. Pat and Sibyl(602) sent these pictures from Colorado where they are staying with until the south Texas heat decides to back off a bit.

Rachel sent me these new reduced price lists this morning. The bayside units are marked down about $80,000. They are not going to last long at these prices. Rachel says,"Give me a call".

To increase the size of the document, left click on the image.

These white pelicans were at Sailboat Pass last week. The picture will look better if you click on it to enlarge it. I counted over forty pelicans in the area. I don't know if these are early arrivals from the north or just some who missed the bus going north last spring.
My friends, Joyce and Pete Velasquez, have a contract on the purchase of unit 710. They are planing to close on August 31st. Pete taught Chemistry in room 109 while I taught Physics in room 107 for over 25 years at Highlands High in San Antonio.
I just don't remember the upstairs bedroom being as warm as it has seemed this year. One three bedroom owner installed a window AC unit to help cool the bedroom. Another owner commissioned an AC contractor to study the problem in their three bedroom unit. He suggested keeping the bedroom door open to allow the air to better circulate or at least to be sure that the door is not being sealed off at the bottom by carpeting. It is intersting that only the 600 building units have a single air register in the den area. Other units have two registers. I have tried closing off one of the vents, but it still does not really get cool upstairs.

I mentioned that Scott caught my limit, his limit, and released two reds on our trip to Sailboat Pass last week. This picture will show my catch next to his. Mine was the really big Ladyfish on the left. I wasn't totally shut out. We used the Ladyfish in the perch trap so it was worth something!

From Scott.
Here are three more pics.
One is the six fish from Friday's trip
Second is a picture of Amy holding the largest snapper that she caught. It is 24" long.
The third is a nice picture of a shrimp boat late morning on 8/14/09.

Below is the story of Friday's trip:

As the Gulf stays fairly flat we are taking advantage of every moment. We (Amy, Meg Meredith and me) went out again on Friday. Left Conn Brown around 10:30 am. We had two objectives: (1) trade beer for shrimp again because is was effortless and incredibly beneficial on Wednesday and (2) catch our limit of Snapper.

We started looking for the Captain Bligh again for our shrimp trade. However; this proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. Neither he nor any of his fellow shrimpers were in the same vicinity. We went from south to north covering a 10 mile stretch until we found a cluster of shrimpers but he was not to be found. I lost track of the number of boats we approached; at least 10. No one wanted to trade. Wednesday's barter was deceptively easy. I will always carry beer with me in anticipation of making a trade but I will no longer consider it a sure thing.

After the unsuccessful search for shrimp we moved on to rigs for the Snapper. Since our search for shrimp took us so far north, we found ourselves a long way from the rig that was so productive on Wednesday. We tried several new rigs and came up empty. Rather than trying more new rigs I made the decision to make the run to Wednesday's honey hole. As luck would have it there was a boat parked in "our spot" on the rig. We made several attempts at drifting lines around the rig but found nothing. Another 5 miles out was a spot with reported under water structure. We went for it and it has turned into my new favorite fishing spot. We picked up one snapper that measured 17". We picked up another 5 ranging from 21" to 24". We had several large pulls that spit the hook. We could have picked up our last 2 to make a limit but the seas were getting rough and it was getting late.

We were 30 miles from the jetties at this point and the water was choppy. We were going with the waves but it was still a rough ride in the Mako21. Sitting in place and catching fish is the easy part about this offshore stuff. Riding in a boat for an hour and half in rough waves after being in the sun all day is the part that makes it an exhausting experience. Oh but don't forget about unloading and cleaning the boat; then cleaning the fish. Meredith and I finished cleaning fish at 11:00 pm last night.

All that being said, I would not trade it for anything. My family and I enjoy the experience and the freedom of being in the crystal blue waters of the Gulf.

From Scott(702)

August 12, 2009 – Offshore trip

As usual getting on the water by a decent time is nearly impossible. We (Amy, Meg, Meredith and me) left Conn Brown around 11:00 am. Our objectives were to maybe trade beer for some shrimp at one of the shrimp boats, catch several King and get a limit of Snapper. The waves were around 1’ and 5 seconds apart. It was a great day to have a small boat in the Gulf. On the way to our first stop we came upon a thick batch of birds circling and diving along with many visible fins swirling and splashing. This peaked our interest so we quietly motored into the mêlée. We found ourselves sitting on top of a massive school of unidentified fish. They were about 12” long and looked similar to mullet. There must have been a thousand of them. The fins we saw were half a dozen sharks in the 4’ to 6’ range. They were within 10’ of the boat. It is like having our own aquarium.
Our first official fishing stop was over what turned out to be some non-existent structure. No structure . . . no fish. There was a shrimp boat about a mile away so we left our lines on the bottom and trolled them toward the shrimper. Within 5 minutes one of our lines started to sing. Meg grabbed the rod and brought to the boat a 36” King. We trolled again and brought in an undersized King; threw him back. The shrimp boat produced nothing. We then headed further out and stopped behind one called the Captain Bligh. As we pulled up behind it a guy onboard hollered at us, “Trade beer for shrimp?” I quickly took him up on his offer. I offered him a 12 pack that I put on the boat for trading and he asked if we had anymore. I obliged and pulled my personal six cold beers out of the cooler. The trade was made . . . 18 beers for an approximate 40# sack of headed shrimp! I estimate market price for the shrimp to be around $7/lb times 40Lbs = $280 of shrimp for about $15 of beer. Good trade Indian. This fishing thing is great. We then trolled a little more and picked up a 30” King. They love the red and white Snapper Slapper tipped with a piece of cigar minnow. I had wanted to try some unmarked structure spots so we headed further to drop lines on them. We made five more stops unsuccessfully that took us 20 miles out. At that point I saw a rig another 5 miles out and we decided to go there try it and then head in. The rig proved to hold some nice sized snapper. There was no one at the rig so we tied on and commenced to catch 5 beautiful Snapper. The smallest was 20” and the largest was 24”. We had several things on the line that pulled like a freight train then broke the line in the rigs. That is exciting!! We lost 3 good lures to some very large fish. This is the price you pay for going after these monsters.
We came home with 5 large Snapper, 2 Kings and a 40# bag of shrimp. My numerous “pay your dues trips” are starting to pay off. We all had a great time and the freezer is full.

One of my San Antonio friends picked up this keeper in Baffin Bay this last weekend.

There are still some keeper trout around Kontiki. My son in law, Matt, captured this one off the back wall this last weekend. He caught it on live perch.

The lights went on in Georgia last night. When our new pier lights came on, anyone looking to the west from Georgia probably thought the sun was rising from the west. We have a lot of light! I went out and pulled in the first trout albeit not a keeper. I can now have a plaque made that notes the first trout pulled from under these super lights. Rob and Tony are putting the final touches on the pier today.

Scott and I did find the reds today. The tide charts showed the low tide was just after 1 pm. We were fishing by 12:30 pm at Sailboat Pass. By 3:30 pm we had had nothing to put in the boat. The water temperature was 92 degrees. Suddenly the flats heated up enough to force the reds into the deeper channel where we were anchored. By 4:30 pm Scott had boated his limit, my limit, and thrown two back. I decided that I had had enough fun watching Scott wrestle the reds and we headed back without me catching even a small red. We used cut mullet on the bottom. The one he is holding was 27 inches. Scott gave me the privilege of filleting the big one.

The new pier fishing lights may go online tomorrow. Shown above are the smaller fising lights that are up and down the pier on every other post.

Above are the powerful focused lights that illuminate the water at the end of the pier. We have all heard about trout boiling the water under the lights. In this case the lights may boil the water.

The new pier drew its first power today. The lights that light the walkway are all connected and working. The lights are on in the picture, but it's hard to tell. It does look nice at night. The fishing lights will be going up soon.
Nancy Jacobs had another open house this Sunday in 205. She said there will be an open house each Sunday. She said there are just too many second homes on the market in Rockport and the market is flooded. Justin and Rachel are gone for the week. They are in San Diego visiting his family. They plan to take in Disneyland too.
For a late summer week, there are very few guests here right now. I'm sure the weekend will be full.
Last Thursday, three of us went to Sailboat Pass and had no luck at all. Scott and I plan to try again tomorrow on the falling tide. Last week on the way in we came upon a boat that needed a tow. Just as we pulled alongside, a tow service showed up. They only wanted $200, but the boater said he would prefer that we tow him in. We were almost back to Conn Brown when a Coast Guard boat came roaring from behind with sirens and lights. They passed by us. When we got to the dock every emergencey responder in the county was at the dock. It was a traffic jamb in the water as well as on land at the ramps. The story I hear is that a boat collided with a barge. A man on the boat went overboard and the boaters went off and left him in the water. Another large boat came by and picked him and brought him in. He was transported to the emergency room, but I have not heard how he is doing.

I was saddened yesterday to hear of the death of Edd Bowers only son. He died on July 25th at age 58. Edd's daughters are both here at Kontiki now.
I had the chance to visit with Becky and Donna at McDonalds on Tuesday. They are both doing fine.
Rob and Tony are working on wiring the new pier. It is really a big project. While in the water yesterday, Rob came across the old "green fising light" that we had installed about ten years ago. It did not seem to be in a deteriored state. I guess they are designed to withstand the ravages of seawater. Those lights were popular at the time, but never really attracted the fish as expected.

Fishing suffers from saltier seas
By David Sikes
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

CORPUS CHRISTI — The most visible effect of the drought on Coastal Bend bays has been the southward migration of fishing guides and other anglers from Rockport and Aransas Pass.
The early morning ferries at Port Aransas have been crowded with bay boats, guides and anglers who have experienced difficult trout fishing in their home waters of Aransas Bay and northward. The upside is that redfish and black drum fishing has been good, guides said. But guides and anglers who target summer trout are enjoying greater success south of the JFK Causeway.
Rockport guide Jay Watkins said this is the worst trout fishing he has seen since the aftermath of the last fish-killing freeze in 1989. Like many upper Coastal Bend guides, he’s spending much of his time in Laguna Madre and Baffin Bay.
Rockport guides generally blame an extreme low tide, near 90-degree bay temperatures and unseasonably high salinities. Texas Parks & Wildlife fisheries biologist Karen Meador hesitates to speculate on why fish won’t bite, but she can attest to the extreme conditions.
Usually this time of year the Coastal Bend’s northern bays, which are fed by creeks and rivers, are not nearly as salty as the Gulf of Mexico, which is around 35 parts per thousand.
Just this past week the salinity of Aransas Bay was greater than 40 ppt for the first time since 1997. It was 41.5 ppt.
The average salinity around Rockport now is 37 ppt, compared with the seasonal norm of about 25 ppt, Meador said. This is a significant difference, she added.
But it’s not nearly as dramatic as the salinity extremes during the past year or so. The freshwater inflow in late 2007 was substantial, leaving some of the river-fed bays with prolonged single-digit salinities.
“Usually this process is much more gradual,” she said. “I haven’t seen that kind of dramatic one-year fluctuation in 30 years.”
High salinities generally result in poor survival for newly hatched fish. And Rockport bays already were suffering a dip in their trout population. The upside is that last year’s trout spawn was successful and just a few years ago Rockport’s trout population reached a record high. Unfortunately, today’s trout dip puts it at the lowest point since 1986, Meador said.
Several fish kills have been recorded in the Rockport area recently, but small fish kills occur most summers, Meador said. Low levels of dissolved oxygen usually are to blame. Hot, salty water doesn’t hold oxygen well.
This year's fish kills mostly involved water and fish trapped by a falling tide. With high winds and heat, it doesn’t take long for oxygen to deplete and fish to die, Meador said. These die-offs occurred earlier than usual this year, Meador said, which could mean the worst is yet to come.
Under these conditions, upland runoff from a good hard rain could spark an algae bloom, which would further deplete dissolved oxygen in the bays, she said.
Certain submerged vegetation also has had a difficult time surviving in high salinity, Meador said. She has seen a decline in widgeon grass, which could bode poorly for ducks and duck hunters. However, if stock tanks on San Jose Island and elsewhere remain dry, this could play into the hands of duck hunters by concentrating waterfowl in the bays. Teal season starts Sept. 12 and duck season opened last year on Nov. 1. This year’s date hasn’t been announced.
In the Laguna Madre, where fish are accustomed to high salt levels, TPW biologist Kyle Spiller said he’s measuring some extremes. The Laguna Madre has gone from 36 ppt salinity in January to 45 ppt in June and average salinities into the 50s in July. The highest salinity recorded this summer was in Laguna Salada. It was 71 ppt in this finger of Baffin Bay.
High salinity has caused crews at the CPL/CCA Marine Development Center, known as the Flour Bluff Fish Hatchery, to alter operations. They know from experience that hatching and rearing redfish and trout in salinities beyond 45 ppt can limit success. So hatchery biologists are taking measures to allow these tiny fish a longer acclimation period in saltier water at the facility before releasing them.
In the previous wet year, Laguna Madre/Baffin Bay salinities averaged 28 ppt in January, 42 ppt in June and 34 ppt in August.
But again, Laguna Madre fish have evolved to withstand hyper-salinity.
Seagrasses might suffer some, Spiller said. And decaying seagrass could lower the bays’ oxygen level even more. Spiller said if fish spawn in parts of the bay with low oxygen and high salinity, spawning success could suffer.

The case of the missing perch trap has been solved. When checking for it at the first light of day today, I saw it along with other traps and bait buckets neatly stacked beside the maintenance shed. I found that we have a new employee, Scott Culberson, who is vigorously purusing a cleanup of the grounds. He had removed all the items that had been tied to the crosspier. Some of the items had been there for some time and there ropes and strings from nearly every post. I briefly vistited with Scott and he seems to have great energy and ambition to improve the landscaping.
Randy(308) went out to Sailboat Pass this morning, but not have any luck.