Kontiki Condominiums: September 2010

Bench production continued on Monday. There is plenty of fairly new pier lumber left to build a few more.
The annual croaker run is on. The croaker are all over the mitigation site. I've seen people catch buckets full recently. There are of good size too.
For the second day in a row on Tuesday, I had a big red come by and take all the line off one of my rods I had staked out behind the condo. I had just replaced the line from the previous day's strip and it happened again while I had gone to Walmart. There must be some big reds out there.
While the mosquitoes have been ferocious since the recent rains the county fogger has been dispatched. He came by this evening and the mosquitoes went from horrendous to where did they go. What a difference. A good use of our tax dollars.
Several owners came in for a stay this week. Sandy and Chuck(107) returned from Alaska. Pat and Murlin(506) came in. They had not been here since June. John and Linda(301) have been here a week. Chris(408) is staying week. He has been taking his boat out to fish for reds by sight casting. Now that is a challenge. I don't believe he has caught any just yet.
I did manage to catch one keeper trout this evening. When I opened it up, that 15 inch trout had a recently devoured 5.5 inch shad in its stomach. If my lure had been the real thing, I have no idea where he would have put it.

This is the shoreguard just north of the pier. This shoreguard failure is part of the beach erosion problem that we are having. I would doubt that Richy will have it fixed prior to his sale of the property.

This shows how our wall has failed near 101. This has contributed to the erosion of the beach, although the major problem continues to be Richy's failure to maintain his property.

Pop was having trouble keeping all his security cameras working at one time. The problem seemed to be this electrical box by the boat parking. There was no way to keep the door closed and any rain was tripping the breakers. I used the multiple colored zip ties to keep it closed and so far so good. It was not a great idea to have to have it plugged in the outlet where boaters like to plug in their battery chargers. We will have to keep an eye on this outlet to be sure the transformers for the cameras are powered up.

Steve Nixon and his family spent two weeks here in 605 recently. He had some charters while he was here during the rain and he said the fishing was tough. He fished hard off the pier and did pretty well, gave me some good competition. His daughter Cheryl throws a mean cast net. She throws it flawlessly. She also knows what she is doing while fishing off the pier. He taught her pretty well.
Steve would be a good choice for someone here who wants a guided fishing trip.

I wish I could say this mass of migrating redfish was seen in Aransas Bay, but this was taken just off the Lousiana coast. Clicking on the image will enlarge it. The guide reports say the reds are swarming down the Lydia Ann Channel and along St. Joe right now. I had a perch on a line behind the condo today. I guess it was a large red that came by, but before I could get to the pole the fish had taken all the line and broken it off. I put another perch out, but so far, nothing. Gus(203) went out today with some friends and did well as they limited on reds and got some nice trout. Paul(505) took his kayak out and said only the skipjacks would bite.
Another open house was held today in 503. Nancy is listing five of the seven condos owned by the Crowley family. At least today it didn't rain. I had two showings of the condo that my daughter and son in law are trying to sell.

Pat(602)sent this picture of his wife, Sibyl, with their catch for Thursday.

We had a pretty good day on Thursday. Did not get on the water until 9:15 and back by noon. I have never seen the trout bite that consistent. Every cast would be a bite. We got into the dinks early on and used up a lot of our live shrimp. We then drifted about 50 yards and started picking up keeper trout. They were also hitting very well on Gulps until we ran out of Gulps and shrimp.
Went back on Friday morning and boxed 5 before we left to get on the road back to Austin. The bite was not as good as Thursday, but still pretty good. Unfortunately, the porpoises were in the area and perhaps that made the difference.
I really thought that when we left the marina that it would just be a waste of time as there was a whole lot of fresh water in the area around the marina. The water looked just like the color of a Pepsi. I am surprised that the shrimp stayed alive in the bait well. Maybe all of the fresh water pushed the fish over to St. Joe island.

The old gas station that Angie Ruddock officed out of has now been brought back to life as a restaurant. The Beach House Cafe moved there from their old place next to the Sea Shell Shop to have more room. They have a great menu and good prices. I had the Asian Salad for lunch and it could hardly been better.

J.R. had a carpenter here today working on making benches out of the washed up pier boards. The lumber is in good condition and too good to throw away. He cut out and partially assembled three benches today.
A roofer was here today too to work on sealing some of the roof leaks. He didn't work all day since it was his 71st birthday. He said the flashing work that was done when our roof was installed was worse than any he had seen in his career. It looks as if he will be here a few days. I have ceiling stains in my place and the paint is blistering where the puddles of water were formed by a roof leak.
Edward did work on the stain and wet carpet in 603 this week and it looks better and the carpet was dry in time for the guests to arrive today. Good job Edward.

It's interesting how we are all creatures of habit. The AEP of Laredo had a group here for a few days this week. Notice every vehicle was backed in. This must be standard parking procedure for the AEP.

There is hardly anything left of the pier. J.R. told me yesterday that we have likely reached the point that it is time to just pay someone to come in and take out what is left. He said this as he was loading his pickup with another load of washed up boards. The tide remains high as is always the case with the vernal equinox. It went down about 8 inches over night, but it is still well above normal.

This ad was in last Friday's Rockport pilot. Notice the hummingbirds since it was the weekend for the Hummingbird Festival. Pretty clever.
I thought it was interesting to see "All owned by one owner and he is looking at ALL offers". The "he" is Chris Crowley. I know that 601 just sold at a discounted price so maybe more sales will be made soon. It's also interesting to note that these units are 303,403,503 and 118. Only two of these have the Crowley name on the deed, but I know what that is all about.
I noticed last week that the "For Sale" sign is gone from the window of unit 705. Most likely the listing agreement expired. That sign seems to have reappeared in unit 708, another Crowley unit.
Pop said last weekend was interesting for him. Friday evening some guests came to check in in unit 212 and it was already occupied. He reached Chelsea and she came out and put the second group in 401. Saturday evening a guest at the motel came in late after a party and tripped and fractured her ankle. EMS came out to transport her.
Some readers are using the comments feature on this blog. What it appears to be doing, from my stats, is that readers are going back to posts they have already read to see if comments have been posted.
The official rainfall totals since Friday are approaching 12 inches. There is a 40% chance of more this evening.
I heard from David Schneider(205) today. He will be back from Turkey two days before the annual owners' meeting. He suggested that I might remind owners that the meeting is scheduled to be held on November 13th. Owners may need to owner block their unit for that weekend.

Scott gave this account of his weekend at Kontiki.

With the heavy rains this past weekend I was locked up in the condo. Getting a little restless I made my way to our maintenance building. It was in dire need of a cleaning so I jumped in. I filled half of a dumpster with all of the worthless junk that had accumulated over the past three or four years. My compulsive organizing skills kicked into high gear. I grouped things, straightened things and hung things on the walls and from the rafters; starting at the shelves to the left when you enter, I went all the way around until I reached the shelves on the right near the front door. It provides me with a feeling of immediate satisfaction to see such progress. It also gives me a mental checkout from my Monday thru Friday job. Sometimes it is good to work while on autopilot.

The interesting thing that I found in my adventure was the large quantity of items that would only be used for indoor repairs such as switches, face plates, cabinet knobs, candelabra light bulbs etc. I was very puzzled as to why we have so many "inside" items in our HOA maintenance building when the HOA is only responsible for the "outside' of the buildings. I am trying to think of a way to equitably and in an organized manner make these "inside" items available to the owners. The HOA owns these but will not likely use them so I want to get them out of there. Maybe we can have a table set up in front of the maintenance shed for one hour the afternoon of the Owner's Annual Meeting. If you need an item go get it. I will keep you posted on this plan.
My memory tells me the inventory is:
four plungers
random collection of new face plates for switches and plugs
various candelabra bulbs
some plugs and switches
a few small breakers

The secondary benefit of doing the clean-up is that I now have an inventory of what we have on-hand. I spoke to JR today and he is going to use some of our anti-fungal products (previously buried under mountains of junk) on the lawn this week. We will do a better job from this point forward using what we have.

Thanks,
Scott

There weren't any boats launched at our pier this morning. Edward went out to clean it up, but the rain started again. He said he will try again this afternoon. J.R. is sending over another trailer to pick up the lumber. This is only a portion of the lumber. Much more is scattered all over the place.

The water here is over the sidewalk behind the 400 building.

What is left of the pier continues to come apart. Even two chairs were in the debris.
I don't know what the most economical way to remove the pier might be. We can let storms take it apart several boards at a time and pay to have the boards collected and stored or disposed of or we could pay someone to take apart what is left and get it over with. Either way it is costly and we will pay sooner or later. It's just too bad that our board chooses to not take any action at all on this or anything else.

This time last week I was writing about the fill dirt that had been put in place to repair this washout. I guess what was washed out was the labor and material to do this work. What has happened is the one third acre that Richy is trying to sell has been eroded down and created a gradient that encourages water flow from our beach across his property and into the bay where the property joins the HEB property. This had not been a problem in the past because the gradient didn't exist.
The only options are to encourage Richy to improve his property and fill to a level that will not allow this erosion from our property. That likely won't happen. All that we can do is to extend the bulkhead from it present location westward to the road along our property line.
This will have to be an item for discussion or action at out owners' meeting. Some owners have mentioned that the one third acre is worth more to us than to Richy and maybe we need to buy it from him. This would preclude someone else buying it and having access to our pier that is attached to the property. I don't think that is a great idea, but maybe necessary. The maintenance cost of this piece is high and to put it back in shape to prevent erosion would also be costly. The shoreguard on the north end of the property would need to be extended to prevent the erosion into the bay at the HEB property, which is not eroded as badly as I have ever seen it. This issue is complicated by the fact that Richy serves as our HOA president and is the property owner. He must protect our interests, but that would cost him personally.
It's somewhat amusing that his failure to maintain this property has increased its value to our HOA. Maybe some other owner will come up with a remedy.

Between the rains and the tide, the water rose to pretty high levels in the marina. It was so high that a river was created that flowed across the access road from the mitigation site to the HEB property.
This high water may be what it takes to recreate the great fishing we experienced about this time last year in the mitigation site. Last night Vic(712) used live mullet about midnight to catch six keeper trout and one red while fishing from the crossbridge toward the road. I didn't stay with him the whole time as the showers and mosquitoes chased me inside.

We have had a considerable amount of rain the last few days. This picture is of a wall in the bedroom of 603. About 10 square feet of the carpet are water logged too. The roof flashing was never done correctly and many walls are damaged. I talked to J.R. this morning while he was in Austin. He said he does not know what to do. He said he was aware or many leaks and would have Collete check today to see if there are more. J.R. is at a loss because the board gives no guidance and takes no action to correct the roofing problem. Scott does not have the authority alone to take action. We do not have an employee to help. I guess J.R. will put Colette on our clock to check these condos, but then what? There just isn't money available to repair all these roofs and walls. Many of the windows leak too. I put down towels in my place every time it rains to take up the water from a leaking window. In the old days we had a continuing caulking program. We bought caulk by the case. The windows absolutely have to be recaulked on a regular basis. When we wait too long, the repair costs mount.

This worker is not napping. I saw him move. This was yesterday and it was cloudy and cool all day so it was a good day to work on a roof. I talked to this worker later and he did not have many kind words to say about the crew that reroofed for us. He said the flashing was done all wrong and now it is costing us to correct this. Well so much for taking the low bid.

Talk about not clear on the concept. These guys did not want to park their pits in front of the 700 building because they didn't want them stolen although they could leave the pickups attached. I show one here, but they parked the other next to it and left the pickups attached and put the tire you can see pretty much on top of a sprinkler. They were so rude to J.R.. but many guests don't treat this property or owners with respect.

The advance party for the big KB Homes fishing tournament arrived today. They tell me the onsite rental office provided a 25% discount so they rented everything available. They have rented condos in other parts of Rockport too.
It was interesting that these two trucks pulling barbecue pits parked along this curb. J.R. came by and asked me what I thought about this and I told him I had already taken a picture to illustrate that the rental office is not telling them about proper parking of boats and trailers. J.R. asked them to move and after a short protest they complied. Pop would have asked them to leave when he got here anyway.

J.R. found a carpenter to build some benches for us using some of the lumber from the pier. He is building them in the maintenance shed. Rain is in the forecast tomorrow, but he could still work on these in the shed.

Work began today to repair the pier in the marina. They are using the boards that washed up from our old pier. The whole pier is pretty shaky, but J.R. believes the cost to repair it will be only about $500 with Phase II paying 40%.
Fishing off the pier is up and down. I caught only two on Tuesday night, but both were nice keepers of 16 and 17 inches. My friend, Joe Fischer, used a white cocohoe and caught two also. We went out in my boat Wednesday evening and Joe caught a small skipjack and I did not get a bite. The weather was great with light winds and 82 degrees. The water temperature was 86 degrees.
I have reinstated the feature on this blog that lets readers comment. A comment has been posted on the last post with the Esperanza plant. Just click on a comment to read it.

The Esperanza plant in front of 104 is in full bloom.

The load of fill was spread yesterday to repair the erosion next to 101.

Work continued today on the water damage in the units in the 700 building. Inside work was done on 708 and 712. Outside roof repairs are being done on 712 and above 703 where the roof joins 710. The window repair is on unit 711.

Here are some pictures of the condition of our pier and breakwater.

This is looking north from behind the south breakwater. Notice the missing waler board that attaches to the shoreguard. With this missing the shoreguard unravels and disappears.

Scott tiptoed down the waler to repair what he could to prevent more damage until a fix is in place. Notice the allthread bolt that is protruding from the batter post. He was able to drive this back in and put a nut on the end.

Scott and Ray(601) disassembled the large pier light and stored it behind the maintenance shed. We had two of these and the other is missing. These are high dollar fixtures. In the old days we removed and stored them when a storm was evident.

Scott and Ray try to figure the best way to take down the light. Eventually, they just pulled on it and down it came.

This area is just past the old "L". Notice the shoreguard here is all pulled apart and allowing sand to backfill into the channel. Even this morning I had my lower unit drag the bottom when passing through the channel. Another $100k dredging is not far away. More money and no telling what this repair will cost.

This is what is left of the old "L".

Here is what is left of the new "L".

This is the end of the south breakwater. This was assessed in January at $15k for repair. One company did some work on it, but could not complete the job. I have said many times this is not worth repairing. The shoreguard was never intended for use in water this deep. IMO we need to cut our losses and take this part down and use the salvaged material on a redesigned, more workable solution.

Wouldn't you know it. After burning about 20 gallons of fuel in my boat trying to catch a keeper anything Sunday morning, I went on the pier last night with my bucket of perch and caught this 16 inch trout on the first try. Of course, I tried another hour with no luck at all. I've had two poles set off the deck all day and nothing yet. Maybe tonight!

Welcome to new owners Ray and Debbie Luna and children Solei and Esai from San Antonio. They closed on unit 601 last week. The Lunas have been coming here for years and now have a place of their own. They have been great friends for some time and I look forward to sharing some more good times with them. I believe I pictured Ray's boat earlier this summer. It's a really nice boat aptly named Luna-Sea.

I believe the new owners of 204 were here this weekend too. I saw a vehicle with an owner sticker for 204, but never met them. The new owners are David and Shadra Pastucha from Hallettsville, Texas. Maybe the market is picking up as the selling price, I'm told, was $50k more for the same unit than this time last year. It's great to have owners who live not too far away as they will be here more often and take an active interest in our complex.

It seems here lately that so many blog posts are seen by owners as more items that are going to cost bunches of money. A lot of this is the age of the complex and a lot is the failure to be proactive in repairs. This is the case with the problems with the breakwater and I will post some photos of that problem later.
The picture below is of the work on repair of the roof flashing on 712. The worker told me there never was any installed when the roof was replaced. These items should have been noticed by the property manager before the roofer was paid. My place leaks in the same area, but I just paint over the stains. This time the unit below, 708, had considerable damage from the water running inside the wall and down to 708. There will have to be HOA paid repair in that unit too.

The picture below is of the pier in the marina. Age and high tide is making this whole section unstable. This has been a Phase II item, but we may now have to share on the 60/40 basis for repair. Personally, I would not repair it. It serves no real purpose in my mind and gets in the way when docking and trailering boats. Repairing this is just like repairing our old pier, you reach a point of diminishing returns, but then no one is asking me and there are no meetings for owners to give input.

More money. Here the bulkhead for the mitigation site is falling in. This is actually on property that is for sale by our board president. However, if we don't fix it, our roadway will be in jeopardy of eroding away.

What a difference a few hours makes. Thursday morning John resigned as our HOA maintenance man. The high tide mess was everywhere. J.R. assembled a crew of three to work here on Friday afternoon. They got a lot done in a short amount of time.