Sean arrived early this morning to fix the leak by the Madsen's motor home. Lisa asked if I had a key to move the motor home, but I did not.

The sewage was running across the road and into the mitigation site. I hope no environmental officials see this post.

Sean dug up what he could, but it was a real mess.

The pit filled with sludge and it took almost all day to get the repair done. The broken pipe was about one foot below the level of the sludge. The white pipe is a water line.

Here is a picture of my mother taken beside our condo twenty years ago. This little palm tree is now over twenty feet tall. I guess they must grow about a foot a year.

This is how the pool looked before we planted the palm trees in 1995.

The seasonal low tide is evident in the mitigation site. I have seen this area totally dry.
The fishing has been up and down. Earlier in the week I caught about 20 trout off the pier one night with only three keepers and the next night about 15 with two keepers. I used a free lined DOA shrimp. Last night there were no trout to be had at all. I have no idea why one night they are there and the next they are not. They are feeding on very small minnows.
Fishing off the bulkhead has produced only hardheads.
Christmas confectioneries have been exchanged among owners who are here for the holidays. They are so tasty and they don't last long in this condo. Doris and Dick Martin(guests in 209) brought over some really yummy cookies.
The work on the tennis court lights is still a work in progress.

This cargo van arrived yesterday morning. It was Sean who works for J.R. He said he was here to trench along the tennis court so that both ends of the tennis court could be lighted by a single switch instead of two.
He unload a ditch witch and headed toward the tennis court fence. I told him that with all the buried electrical and water lines we have it was almost certain that he would hit one or the other. He said he would stay close to the fence. Within minutes as you can see, an electrical line was torn up. This line feeds the cabana and pool lights. Then a few minutes later my doorbell rang. It was Martin and Sean asking if I knew where to turn off the water. I knew what that meant. I went over to the end of the 700 building and turned off the valve. By this time the tennis court was flooded.
I explained to Martin that there used to be a trench at the corner of the tennis court to drain off the water. Within minutes Sean had his shovel and was reopening the old trench to drain the court. I'm sure he felt badly about making such a mess.
Sean left just after noon. Later another worker arrived to wire the circuit. He was not too happy to see that Sean had buried the conduit without the wire inside. He worked on it a while, but was unable to get the wire through the buried cable. He said it would have been so much simpler to just put a switch on the other end of the court like it used be. I guess this is what the board wanted, but did not know it would be this big of a project. No one came out today to do anymore on the project.
Later Monday the lift station blew out another capacitor. That happens all the time. Either we need to use a 440 working volt capacitor or find why the circuit is exceeding the rated 330 working volts of the capacitors that we now use. J.R. came out and found we had one new one in the electrical compartment and put that one in. The red light is still on. He thinks the high pressure pipe is cracked just above the pump and it may need to be repaired. J.R. will ask some friends who work for the city to come by and check our circuits to see why the capacitors are bursting. J.R. has a lot of friends with expertise in many areas. He is a rich resource.

Our pretty St. Augustine lawn is taking a beating with all the recent rains. A large number of what is called "Brown Patch" have developed. It is a fungus that spreads rapidly in the grass. Scott Culberson was treating it weekly to keep it in check, but he has been gone for three weeks.
The mosquito population is the greatest ever. The HEB cottages still have about two acres of pond from the rain right in front of their cottages. I don't know how they stand it. The winds have been light and night and day the mosquitoes swarm over anyone who goes outside. Even if you cover well, they find a way to get into any place they can find skin and even attack right through fabric. The wind is predicted to pick up tomorrow and maybe it will blow away some of the pests.

These are just two areas of the tennis court that are buckling up. There are places like this all around the north area of the court. We have a one year warranty on the court resurfacing. It was done about May of this year so I'm sure it is still in warranty. The cost was around $7,000. Surely someone in management will get the company back out here.
The tennis court was in use almost all day yesterday. I should have known after I blogged about the light switch, the court would be used in the evening. I saw guests using it about 9:00 and Butch(206) and I were out at ten and sure enough, the lights had been left on. We turned them off. The guests had to have turned them on. How hard would it have been to turn them off when they leave. This was a rare exception.

I talked to J.R. last week about the tennis court lights that are on most of the night and the fact that this time of the year the court is very seldom used at night. The lights are on a timer and they go on no matter the conditions or temperature. This photo shows that one set of lights has been put on a simple on and off switch that anyone using the courts can operate as needed. It has to be the most heavy duty simple on off switch I have ever seen.

This work to abate the beach erosion remains unfinished. There is a developing problem with this section of the concrete wall beginning to lean further into the channel. The concrete bags look as if they may exacerbate the situation. I showed this to J.R. and he feels we may need to put some posts next to the wall on the channel side to stop the lean before the wall falls into the channel. I believe it takes a GLO permit to put additional posts into the channel. We don't need to receive another fine from the GLO for not obtaining a proper permit.

This photo shows what has happened to our securing strap that was put in four years ago. It was a strong steel strap connecting the two perpendicular walls. It rusted out in no time and the separation is evident and increasing. This needs pretty immediate attention. Will anything be done in a timely manner? It may be like the end of the breakwater. I posted and pleaded almost two years ago that all we needed to do was to tighten the allthred nuts to secure the shoreguard before it began to unravel like a zipper. Nothing was done and now we are looking at a $15,000 repair even after paying Kinsel Construction to fix this earlier this year. It is difficult for our board to be proactive on repairs when they are seldom here.

Last spring as the dredge operations were wrapping up, the dredge operator said to me, " See you next year." He was making fun of our effort to dredge without properly designing the structure of the breakwater to prevent a rapid shoaling of sand that would refill our channel. I guess he was right. This picture shows an area in the channel that is no more than six inches deep. The normal low tides associated with the winter solstice will expose the sand completely. This picture shows a large delta area building up and extending further out into the channel. There are two areas in the middle of the channel that my depth finder indicates are shoaling rapidly.
Belaire Environmental has been paid a lot of money for their design work, but this is not their specialty. They are good at securing permits, but the structural stuff is another story. I just hope our committee gets some information about the breakwater effectiveness before we again repair a section that is, in my opinion, of no real value.

These ducks came by behind the condos yesterday. I thought about Chuck(107) being in North Carolina. He and his dogs would have been excited. I counted over twenty ducks as they swam and ducked under the water. They were much larger than they appear in the picture because when I stepped onto the deck to take the picture, they started to swim away and I couldn't wait for them to get any closer. They looked like mallards to me, but I'm no duck expert. They were probably red heads. I have never seen so many large ducks this close to the condos.

This ever changing small piece of real estate fascinates me. Maybe you could tell from the number of photos that I have posted of it. Just a few weeks ago the area was washed out and the water was lapping at the grassy area and threatening our concrete. We had some winds from just the right direction along with a high tide and tons of oyster shell were deposited. I guess sometimes the water takes away and sometimes it puts back.

The weather finally gave us a break today. The local weather report said this was the fourth day of the month with sun. I don't remember the other three, but it was good to see the sun today. In fact, the cold temperatures will likely make for a record electrical bill this month. The tide remains very high, especially for this time of year. In previous years by December the mitigation site is almost out of water. Not this year.
I finally saw a shrimp boat working just past the pier today. At first I thought it was working for oysters, but the nets were out. They didn't stay very long and headed over the horizon.
The Kruegers from North Dakota have arrived and are in 305 this year. I don't believe they have stayed in the same condo twice. I think this makes six different units.
We have a lot of lights out again. We are saving money without an employee, but its starting to show. The crossbridge has one out of three fishing lights working. The lights behind the 500 and 600 building have only two of six working. The Phase I pier lights don't work at all, but when they are on, five lights are out. I saw J.R. driving through last evening maybe he was making a list.
The Sanders(508), the Porters(206), and the Westburgs(505) have arrived this evening for the weekend. There are new owners of 302 from Arizona who just closed two days ago. I have not seen them yet. New buyers of 301 will close after the first of the year. They are from the Houston area.
This has been a good month financially. Almost $8,000 has been paid by owners who were behind on their payments. This will help as no unusual bills came in this month. The HOA did pay the insurance bills for owners who had not already done so except in one case where the bill was paid by the HOA and the owner had already paid Commercial Insurance Solutions two months ago. They will owe us some money back.

The weather here has been as poor as I can remember for December. It has been raining for the last twenty four hours and the temperature has been in the low 40's. The local weather station just said this is the most rain for this date ever. What about the boat in the picture?
Folks arrived here in a large RV with Colorado plates earlier this week. At that time the bay was like a big pond. They put this canoe in the water and tied it behind their condo 202. I think they had plans for giving it a lot of use. Later that night a norther blew through and they had to pull the canoe out and it has been sitting there ever since. I checked the blog posts for the last three years for weather in December. Even the water temperature was much higher than it is this December.

Even Garfield is feeling the weather blues. He stays at my back door and trys to stay dry and warm. Sometimes I let him in to warm up. I'll be glad when more winter Texans arrive and take care of him. Barbara Jesse left me a full bag of cat food last year to take care of him through the summer and fall. It is just about all gone and I don't like to buy cat food for stray cats.
The weather warmed into the 50's on Monday and I did some fishing. I caught six trout at the first light on the pier. Unfortunately, they were all over 14 inches, but none were over 15. I did hear about some good trout coming out of Turtle Pen in Copano Bay.
Sandy(107) did her annual Christmas baking this weekend. They left for North Carolina Tuesday morning. She brought me the plates of cookies to give out. So far I have given Pop his and our mail carries hers. Of course, I have already started on my plate. Great cookies!
Pop has been complaining about the cold weather too. The security room with cameras has an air conditioner, but no heater. It gets really cold in there so he has been staying in his truck and running the truck heater. I think he does a lot more good in the truck than in that room anyway. The cameras have been a huge expense and were way over budget. I just don't see how we can justify the expense of keeping them working.
I talked to J.R. Monday morning. He said we will probably go back to a full time employee in February. He said he is staying in touch with Chris to get directions.
Our bookkeeper contacted me on Monday to ask what the owners were expecting to pay in the January assessment since he had not heard what was decided at the owners' meeting. I told him I understand it will be for $430. That would be $270 for the monthly dues and $160 for the off budget things approved at the meeting. The board might want to postpone the $160 until February because the financial review that is being done may identify enough money owed to the HOA to cover that and more.
Also at the annual meeting it was decided that the breakwater would be rebuilt. A committee of Rob(303) and Scott(504) was appointed to check into the ongoing problems with the channel and breakwater. I posted last January about conversations that I had with local officials about our problems with breakwater and channel. I noted there that they felt the deep water shoreguard would never work. I suggested to Justin that before we spent more money that we should maybe consult with engineers who are familiar with this type of work. The most likely group is out of Austin, Texas and their website is http://www.coastharboreng.com/. I sent this to contact to Scott to see if it would help the committee.

Site stats

Site Stats 12/06/09
Click on the link above to see the site stats for the last week. It is interesting to see where the 42 cities in Texas are located on the map. There were 555 page views by 129 unique users. It doesn't show here, but on the Monday after the annual owners' meeting there were 80 logins. I would guess they were looking to see what happened at the meeting. This report also leaves out the national hits. There were logins from 22 different states for the week.

The Tuesday fishing trip did not go so well. I will long remember this trip. The fog was so thick that I could not see any part of either pier from the back door of the condo, but we tried to go out anyway hoping the fog would not last too long. That was not the case. We tried from 9:00 to 12:00 and from 3:00 to 5:30 and fought the fog all the way. At times it was hard to see each other on the boat. After all this trouble we did not get even a single bite. We made it all the way to Long Reef during small breaks in the fog, but no luck. The water temperature was 52 degrees and the air temperature was near 60 degrees. Thus, we had fog at the water level that did not lift. There was little fog over the land areas because the land had warmed and water vapor was not present.
I mentioned earlier this week that we had dinner at Cheryl's on the Bay. Cheryl told us then about a movie that was filmed in Rockport in 1985 and featured many local scenes. I had never heard of it. I checked on the web and sure enough, Alamo Bay was the movie. I plan to rent a copy and check it out.
Rob is finishing a closet that he is adding to condo 711 that is just like the one added in 710. They are almost finished.
I still have received no minutes from the owners' meeting last month. Karra told the owners that we would get them within thirty days. I hope this year will not be business as usual for the board.
A friend called about condos still for sale. He was told that condos 301, 302, and 303 are available for $249,000 to $219,000. These were originally listed for sale and then withdrawn. Rob purchased 303 recently, but I guess it is now on the market again.
J.R. told me that he is officially our Phase I property manager. His long time employee, Martin, will be doing HOA work on the Phase I and Phase II, but will keep separate time cards for his work on each project. He said he feels that at this time of year a minimum amount of time needs to be spent on HOA work and this will save us some money. I suggested we might need to cancel our Workman's Compensation insurance policy that we now carry until we again have our own employee.
I went by Johnson and Cate yesterday to look at the invoices for November. I flagged five for review by our committee and the board. We now have over 90 bills in question. It is so disappointing to see our HOA dues being spent on other properties and inside repair items. I hope the board will give our committee report serious consideration.
The item that bothered me the most was a check that was paid to Commercial Insurance Solutions for a condo that is titled to a member of the Crowley family. The check was written on November 12th. At the owners meeting on the 8th, eight owners were identified as not having paid their insurance bill and therefore they could not vote. As it turned out some of that data was false, but the name missing from the list was that of the Crowley family member whose bill was paid by the HOA on the 12th. This is a clear indication of an attempt at collusion by the board to skew the voting opportunities. I'm not sure why this was necessary since no close votes were taken at the meeting. I guess some item the board expected to be contentious did not materialize.

Randy(308) sent this article from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. It is interesting to see the estimated number of fish killed by red tide and cold weather. The local television stations have been airing stories about this.

Red tide takes toll on fish and land mammals
By David Sikes
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI — Red tide toxins continue to poison animals on area beaches.
This past weekend, a National Seashore employee took his dog for a walk on the beach near Bob Hall Pier. Within 20 minutes the dog became ill, displaying symptoms similar to those suffered previously by coyotes and pets that had eaten fish killed by red tide on Padre Island National Seashore.
Park officials now have banned all pet dogs from the National Seashore until further notice.
Red tide is a toxic algae that occurs naturally in low concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico. Nobody really knows what triggers its sudden population explosions.
We’re lucky. The coast of Florida suffers annual red tide blooms. We do not.
Reports of dogs and coyotes dying from red tide are rare, according to Ed Buskey at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas. “I’ve never heard of land mammals dying from it,” said Buskey, who added that he has heard of whales and manatees succumbing to red tide on the east coast.
Red tide causing illness in land mammals is slightly more common, but most reported cases come from the East Coast.
Researchers at the institute are collecting samples of red tide toxins from the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, possibly to tell whether this year’s red tide produced a more potent toxin or a previously unknown strain of poison. Buskey said they are aware that the algae has a variety of different toxins in its quiver. But nobody is certain what conditions might trigger these specific toxins or whether the toxins have varying degrees of potency.
Another question involves shelf life or the length of time red tide toxins remain viable in dead fish and whether time concentrates the toxins in decaying fish. Testing of dead fish from the beach are under way, said Jim Lindsay, PINS director of science and research.
The earliest reports of this year’s red tide came in mid-September. Within the past several weeks, about a dozen coyotes and a half dozen dogs have either suffered from eating dead fish or died. This has heightened awareness and made questions surrounding red tide more critical than ever.
Padre Island surf angler and park volunteer Nick Meyer, who founded an organization called Citizens for Access and Conservation (CACrights.org) to become more involved with PINS policy, helped organize a fish count on the beach.
The numbers are remarkable.
On Sept. 14, Meyer and his volunteers recorded every dead fish within six separate stretches of the National Seashore. Each 30-foot section represented a typical concentration of dead fishes within the first seven miles of PINS.
After collecting this data, Nick determined the total number of fish by species for each yard of PINS. They plugged in this figure to determine the magnitude of the fish kill for the entire 64 drivable miles of PINS.
Based on this, Meyer estimates that 10,736 trout, 3,579 redfish, 645,949 mullet, 214,720 whiting, 286,293 ladyfish, 10,736 stargazers, 32,208 hardheads, 590,480 bumper, yellowtail, etc. and 1.213 million eels died in this fish kill alone. This was a single day count, representing only a fraction of the total devastation.
Subsequent fish kills occurred later in September and into October from Matagorda Island to South Padre. Texas Parks & Wildlife biologists conducted many additional fish counts on area beaches and bay shores. But we don’t have those numbers yet. They tell me the totals are significant, into the millions.
Anecdotal reports of big trout stinking up Packery Channel and Mustang Island have anglers wondering whether this fish kill rivals historically devastating die-offs. And because our bays and fish populations already were ravaged by drought and therefore vulnerable, the obvious question is whether this will have a negative effect on angling and, if so, for how long. We’re not just talking about redfish and trout here. A tremendous amount of biomass among forage or bait fish species also has been eliminated from the near-shore gulf. We’re not sure how many of these fish also swam in our bays.
You will not find the answers to these questions in this column.
For those who subscribe to a cause and effect conclusion regarding this situation, it might help to examine the aftermath of previous fish kills. These examples do not represent apples-to-apples comparisons.
The 1996 fall red tide event was significant. It killed an estimated 13,500 trout, 12,345 redfish and more than a half-million mullet. Within two years, TPW gillnet surveys revealed a recovered fishery. Fish abundance in some species rose above the 10-year average.
During the 1983-84 freeze, 14 million fish were killed statewide. We lost an estimated 624,000 trout, 274,000 black drum, 104,000 reds and 3 million perch. I don’t have the mullet numbers.
This time, TPW imposed a 20-fish trout limit and a 12-inch minimum length on trout. Before then, no limits existed.
Gillnet surveys from the next year showed a 96 percent decline in overall fish. Remember that only mature fish are big enough to become snared in gillnets.
By 1986, the fishery had improved by 64 percent from the previous year. But before they could fully recover, two freezes hit Texas in 1989.
This time, 17.5 million fish were killed coastwide. The conservative trout tally was 759,000. Redfish, 119,000; black drum, 620,000 and an estimated 4.2 million mullet froze to death.
Again, TPW stepped in, lowing the daily bag on trout to 10 fish with a 15-inch minimum length.
This time the trout population recovered much more quickly and today stands at about twice the population size that existed before 1990, according to TPW biologists.
The most glaring questions from anglers involve periods of poor fishing, most notably this summer and early fall near Rockport. I hear it’s gotten better. Under poor bay conditions, where do fish go when skilled experienced anglers cannot find them?
And what effect did the drought have on the spawn? Will these effects linger?
And what role will increasing fishing pressure play in the decline and recovery during and after natural disasters?
Pray we don’t get the deadly drought-red tide-freeze combination.

This is an article about Moyra Jardon's son. Moyra is a former owner of condo 206 and a present owner of a house in Sea Shell Shores.

Web Posted: 12/09/2009 11:00 CST
Clark football coach to retire
Express-News -
Clark head football coach and athletic coordinator Lloyd Alexander will retire from coaching at the end of the school year, he confirmed Wednesday.
Alexander, 57, spent all but five of his 35 years in coaching at Clark, including the past eight as the program’s head coach. He guided the Cougars to a school-record 26 victories over the past two seasons, which included advancing to the Class 5A Division I state semifinals last season and making the Division I state quarterfinals this year.
He finished with a 70-29 career mark with six playoff appearances.
“It was time,” said Alexander, citing his desire to spend more time with his family as the leading reason for his retirement. “They probably need some new blood around here.
“I haven’t really decided (what to do next). I’ll just see what life brings me, I guess.”

This article recently appeared in the San Antonio Express-News. I don't think the river flow has as much to do with the loss of Whooping Cranes as does the closing of Cedar Bayou.

In a perfect world, an expected federal lawsuit seeking to protect the endangered whooping crane would finally bring resolution to a nearly 20-year effort to better regulate Edwards Aquifer pumping rights. Downstream users, already ensured water as a result of the aquifer fight, would acquiesce that, yes, the bays downstream of them, and the critters that inhabit those bays, deserve equal consideration.
It's still a long road to utopia, but environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn and the Aransas Project, the coastal group he represents, are focusing attention on an element that's been missing in the discussion about how to manage the region's water supply: the health of the bays and estuaries downstream.
By now, most of us are familiar with the fountain darter and the Texas blind salamander. These are among the seven endangered species whose well-being forced the pumping rights battle and gave rise to the Edwards Aquifer Authority. The species often are referred to as “canaries in the coal mine,” as they depend on the Edwards-fed Comal and San Marcos springs flowing continuously.
So, too, is the whooping crane an important indicator of how well we're taking care of our rivers, in particular the Guadalupe and the San Antonio, whose management is the target of the Aransas Project's suit. While springs feed the rivers, they in turn nourish bays and estuaries with freshwater flow.
Last winter, we were starkly reminded why we need to be better attuned to this sensitive symbiotic relationship. Amid a devastating drought, restricted freshwater inflows to the bays and estuaries surrounding the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, the cranes' wintering spot, led to fewer blue crabs and wolfberries, believed by many to be the whoopers' principal diet. The wintering population of 270 was devastated by the loss of 23 cranes, the most deaths ever recorded.
The Edwards Aquifer Alliance summarized the relationship succinctly on lawn signs sold as a fundraising project. “I'm not watering. I'm saving my water for the whooping cranes,” the signs boasted.
There is stiff disagreement over the drought's impact on the cranes' food supply. And despite last winter's high number of deaths, the cranes have rebounded from a 1960s count of fewer than 50 in North America.
Unmistakable, however, is the opportunity before us. Under federal court order, the state for the past two years has worked with 39 stakeholders to develop an Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Plan — essentially a compromise over how best and most equitably to use the region's finite water resources.
Annalisa Peace, the alliance's executive director, describes the debate among stakeholders as “less contentious” than in the past. Notably, a 75 percent majority of the group's steering committee recently voted against funding a new crane study, giving a nod to established studies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move was incremental but highly symbolic as downstream needs receive more attention.
The Aransas Project's lawsuit puts more heat on the issue. That's not near utopia, but it's closer than we've ever been.

News has been sorta hard to come by here. This is not a really busy time of year and now with most of the construction over with, I'm pressed to post interesting things.
We did avoid a freeze Friday night. The lowest temperature I saw on my outside thermometer was 33 degrees. The banana trees behind the 700 building did not freeze.
The tide is rather high for this time of year and the water is clear. I can see a lot of mullet under the lights, but no trout. I have fished the HEB shoreline with no success.
I saw Rob and his crew putting the new countertop in 106 this afternoon.
Alan(108) was here this weekend and we spent about ten hours reviewing the financial reports of the HOA. This morning he and I met with Mr. Cate at the accounting office to get some more information for our report.
Steve Carter(202) and his parents are here for a few days. We all went to Cheryl's on the Bay for dinner this evening. Cheryl, the owner, sat with us and shared some wine. If the fog gives us a chance, we will take my boat out tomorrow to see if we can find some trout. The high temperature is forecast to be near 80 with light wind.
Jim and Lois(706) came in from Iowa early this year. I have a chance to visit with Jim last evening.
Chris and Karra are due back from California on the 15th.

This is a bit fuzzy, but I thought it is interesting. The picture development date shows October of 1983. I had walked out to the end of the Racquet Club pier and looked back toward Kontiki.
We can see the 100 building has the stucco applied and painted, the 200 building is ready for the stucco to be painted, and the 300 building is just walled in.


This is a sunrise picture from 1985. It is of interest because the old shoreline can be seen. We had used cement bags to form a shoreline. By 1985 we had to build the seawall to keep the water from taking all of our beach. You can see the water here is beginning to wash over the bags. On a day when the water is clear now, the bags can still be seen marking the old shoreline that is now about 15 yards from the end of the pier. Things have changed.

Today's edition of the Rockport Pilot has a front page story of the plane that crash landed on the bay last week. They used some of the pictures that I posted on the blog.
The link to the Rockport Pilot at the top right of this post can be used to access the article.
They also have a picture of the 40 inch red that Paul, Scott, and I landed 10 days ago.