After the half day board meeting on Saturday, Scott, Ray, and Ray's son Esai worked on projects around the campus. They removed nails from the old pier lumber and stacked the salvaged pieces and used the best to construct three new benches.
Here they celebrated the completion of the benches by stacking them into a pyramid and posing on top for a photo op. They then placed the new benches on the piers and one near the bulkhead behind 302.
Early the next morning, too early for me, they began work on the pier lights that were out. Scott drove to Lowe's in Aransas and purchased three new bulbs for about $35 each. Ray replaced this one and it worked fine.
This fixture, as it turned out, uses a different bulb. The fixture looks the same, but just a slight difference in construction required a different bulb. I'll pick one up later this week.
Then they decided to work on the whole stack of lumber behind the maintenance shed. They stacked it up neatly and discarded the boards and pieces that were of no value.
They piled the scrap lumber on the old trailer and that was a project in itself as the trailer is on its last legs too. Even the wheels are of different size.
They hooked the old trailer to Scott's suburban and slowly, very slowly, headed to the dumpster. They then parked the trailer under 301 along with the beach drag should we ever need it again.

Steve Bernhard(711) caught this 36 inch red off the pier last night. He was using dead shrimp off the end of the pier. Ronnie(506) had a net and leaned over the edge to just barely get the fish into the net. Steve's wife Jane single handedly used an electric knife to cut off the head and take out the guts. Steve and I stood by and watched. Jane is all about this fishing business and not just the catching.
Jeff Chupik(301) went out to Mud Island in his dad's boat yesterday and came back with two flounder.
On a more serious note, and I hesitate to even go here, but I think documentation is necessary. The problems with the onsite rental office have apparently caused considerable stress for Chris Crowley. He recently filed a defamation of character lawsuit against a Phase II owner. Last evening he drove his Mercedes up to me and vociferously cursed me and threatened bodily harm. For my personal safely I will be leaving today for San Antonio for a few days until he leaves. Consequently, there may be a dearth of blog posts for a few days.

Ronnie Tomlinson(506)caught this nice stringer off the pier on Friday evening.

Chris Tokunaga(408) sent these photos from a recent fishing excursion. Chris site casts for redfish and consequently gets into some really shallow water where photo opportunities abound.


Overview
Roseate Spoonbill: Large ibis, pink body, white upper back, neck. Long bill, gray and spatulate. Head is bare and olive-green. Feeds while wading in shallow water, sweeping its bill back and forth. Sensitive nerve endings snap bill shut when prey is found. Alternates steady wing beats, short glides.

Range and Habitat
Roseate Spoonbill: Found on the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, and southern Florida; also in the American tropics. Preferred habitats include mangroves, saltwater lagoons, and large, shallow lakes.

The top lure here is what I referred to on Wednesday. I caught a double keeper, but one of the lures was ripped apart in the process. Last evening I replaced the damaged lure with the white one (lower one in the picture). When I tried this double rig, the first cast produced an 18 inch trout on the green split tail lure. I then caught a trout a tad short of a keeper, and then another keeper that was 16.5 inches. That was all I needed for the night. This only took 15 minutes. The strange part was that I had no action at all on the white lure. All three trout took the darker colored one. There is only a 12.5% chance that this would happen by pure chance. It appears they preferred the darker lure even though the swimming action of the white lure was much better.
This afternoon, just before 4pm, I went out with Steve(702) and his friend John also from Marble Falls. Steve wanted to try for reds on Saint Joe. His big 250hp engine got us across the bay in record time. I'm glad he said,"hang on" before his hit the gas. I didn't fish as I have plenty of reds in the freezer. They caught several small reds and just before sunset we decided to try Half Moon Reef on the way in. Steve caught a keeper right away. I found a double small sassy shad in my jacket that had been there since I last wore the jacket in the spring. I put this on and gave it a try. On the second cast I caught a double keeper. We made a few more casts, but it was getting dark and we came back in.
I went on the pier this evening about 9pm. I never caught a trout over 8 inches. There was group with a stringer of about 8 keeper trout that they said they caught just after the lights went on. They had three vehicles and only one had a parking pass. Pop checked them out and they said they had been staying at the HEB camp and had decided to rent a condo here for the weekend. They rented 114 and were told they could bring their friends to fish too. They told Pop the rental office had a closed sign on one door so they used the other door and got in. No one inside said they had done a checkin before, but they would do what they could. I'm hearing that Tony, who did most of the condo remodeling, will be operating the rental office soon. The guests said they were told it would be fully operational again by Monday. I'm not sure what is happening.
Kevin Johnson worked almost all day again today on the WiFi. He is having more problems than he anticipated. The problem seems to be the stucco on our buildings has a wire mesh behind it that acts as a shield for the radio waves. The large glass doors on the 700 building face the antennas and have a great signal. The other buildings, not so much. I'm running about 1 mbps upload and 3 mbps download right now. Kevin said he is committed to keep working at it until everyone is satisfied with the signal they are receiving.

At our HOA board meeting on Saturday the board voted to obtain a post office box for use as the mailing address for HOA correspondence. The idea occurred to me that we have two unused mailboxes in our existing mailbox cluster. Scott checked with the post office yesterday and they said it was a good idea to use what we already have. Alma, our mail delivery person, came out today to install a lock in the new box. They supplied her with only a slip joint set of pliers. She needed a screw driver and a wrench. Together we banged around on it with the pliers until we got it done. The mailing address will now be number 713. Alma also told me that tomorrow she will clean out all the mail that has accumulated and send it back for a "return to sender".
The board will have an advertisement in the Pilot for the next two weeks seeking a maintenance person for our complex. Scott says he has already had two calls today.
Yesterday about 9am about eight vehicles pulled up and parked in front of the 200 building. It turned out they were all realtors doing their usual Thursday morning tour of new listings. They were looking at 208. I heard it is listed at $255,000. One realtor I talked to was very impressed with the condition of the condo.

Kevin Johnson has been working on the installation of our WiFi system the last two days. He has a law degree, but would rather be out in the open doing things like this. He should have everything up and running tomorrow. He would like for any owners who seem to have a weak signal to let him know and he can adjust the system. It was at first thought that he would install devices on the deck railings, but it appears he can make the system work using the tall posts already in place on the property. He will not start charging us for the service until the first of December. I'm hearing that Phase II voted for their service to be provided by Cobianet, but when it came time to install, there were problems and they may switch to Rockport WiFi like we have.
Fishing this evening was interesting. When we returned from Crab'N, I took a mirror lure out on the pier. Large trout were everywhere, the most I have seen in years. I hooked into a really large one and as I was lifting it up to the pier, my line became untied from the lure. There is about a 20 inch trout swimming around out there with a $5.98 lure in its mouth. I came back in and picked up a double jig that I found at Walmart that looked good to me. About the third cast I caught a double keeper. One was 18.5 inches and the other 16.5 inches. I have never landed double keepers this large. The only problem was the cheap lures were history. They were torn apart. The norther was blowing in so I gave it up and came back in. I believe someone serious could have caught their limit of large trout this evening.
The onsite rental office has been closed the last two days. It appears an audit is being done on the records. Chris and Karra and their attorney have spent most of the two days going through the files. I have heard they will be back open for business tomorrow.

I had a pretty decent night on the pier last evening. The two larger ones here were just a hair short of 18 inches. I went out about 8pm and used a free lined Gulp. Scott had given me some well ripened Gulp that were well past their use by date. They still had their mojo and the trout thought they were just right. I caught these and then went back out about midnight, but the trout had left the building. Tonight I'm going with the Wrights(307) to take these trout to Crab'N to have them cooked as only Crab'N and do.

Caught by Greg Pejka (121) and Jim Stenstrom (211) on November 10th in the
bay off a reef. Total of 11 caught in just under 2 hours. All weighted in at
over 6 lbs. Also caught 3 keeper trout in the same area on medium sized live
shrimp.
This was sent to me by a Phase II owner. I have never in my life caught a Pompano. I didn't even know they were in the bay. He said they were near the Towhead reefs. It was interesting that the very next day I was in an office when two people struck up a conversation about Pompano. One said the Pompano was the best tasting fish there was. The other person said that just a few days ago they were coming into Key Allegro in the Legget Channel when a school of several hundred Pompano suddenly went airborne and one landed in their boat. Could this be a large school of Pompano that have found themselves lost in waters they seldom travel? The largest one they caught was 9 pounds. I don't know the state record, but it couldn't be much bigger.

Mike Aldrich and wife Mel often visit Kontiki to fish. Opening weekend of deer season they weren't fishing. Mike bagged this 11 point buck in Blanco County on his family's Circle J Ranch. He uses a Remington 243, a rifle well suited for the hill country deer in Texas. He uses a motion camera to see what comes to his feeder. He had seen some nice deer, but never this one. Good job Mike!

My friends Bev and Joe Fischer from Fair Oaks Ranch caught this mess of black drum from the pier yesterday afternoon. The first two took about an hour and a half. The last eight were in caught in 45 minutes. The water is very clear right now and the drum can be seen all around the pier. There are a lot of sheephead around the piers posts. The Fischers also caught seven keeper trout Sunday evening.

After Scott met with several contractors on Saturday morning, he, Paul(505), and I headed out to find some reds. We spent a few minutes at Long Reef with no luck. We then headed to Paul's Mott. Bait fish were everywhere. Scott threw the net and caught some mullet for bait. I lowered my jackplate to use it as an anchor as we were in less than a foot of water. I caught the first red, but then Scott ran off four in a row. Paul had trouble getting on the board. He said he needed better luck so he went to the stern where Scott was and rubbed Scott's shoulders for luck. As he turned around to go back to the bow where he was fishing, his rod bent over with a good sized red that he later boated. We thought that was pretty ironic. You have to understand that fishing for reds is a rather passive activity and the banter among the persons on board can be diverse and boarder on the absurd, but it was weird to see Paul's wish for luck be so rapidly rewarded.
It is worth noting that three waders were fishing about 120 yards to our south during this time and were constantly fighting fish. We pulled over to them as we were both leaving and asked what they were using for bait. They said they were using New Penny Gulp and had caught and released a number of big reds.
On Sunday Scott and I went back to the same spot as Saturday. The water had cleared and no bait fish were evident. We moved south about a mile and stopped at a drain that had some cloudy water. The reds will sometimes cloud the water with their feeding activities. Sure enough, the reds had relocated to this spot. The bite was on. Scott staked out four rods and I staked out two. My boat had the porcupine look. Two of the reds were 27.5 inches long and the smallest was 25 inches, real solid fish. This time I had the magic touch as I boated five while Scott landed one. We each had several get away from us. It was a blast. The fish seemed to have full bellies. When we opened them up later, they were stuffed with 3 inch baby hardheads, at least fifteen. I hope every red out there is filling itself with baby hardheads.
On as side note, my email service has been out since Friday morning. I can send, but not receive. They hope to have it working by tomorrow afternoon. So if anyone thinks I have not responded to your email, there is a reason.

Paul(505) and Scott(504)inspect the breakwater repairs while I idle my boat next to the breakwater. Scott met with the contractor who is doing the repairs on Saturday morning. Scott will give us an update at the meeting this weekend.

Our HOA president, Richy Ethridge, sent a letter to all owners last week(at HOA expense). Below is a copied portion of the letter. I fully understand that by posting the good, the bad, and the ugly of happenings that I see, people may focus on the items that are of special interest to them. I am not looking to rent nor to sell, but those that are may not want disclosed some things that I blog about. I have always said and will always stand by my statement that if ever I write something that is erroneous, please let me know and I will write a retraction.
I have heard from a number of owners who have taken issue with his letter, but those of us more senior owners have known Richy a long time and understand his motivation. We just yawn and say, "What else is new?" I'll just keep blogging along.
I thought the cartoons at the bottom of this post were just too cute (and accurate) not to share.
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Kontiki Information & Communications: it is amazing how easily accessible information is in today's world. It has proven very beneficial to our community as well as Kontiki, No longer is Rockport a "sleepy little fishing town," only to be enjoyed by those who grew up coming down here. Instead,Rockport is being frequented by vacationers around the country, and this is great for our local economy, and obviously Kontiki. At the click of a button anyone in the world can learn of Rockport's beauty,fishing, merchants, lodging, etc,.,. Unfortunately, this information age and the internet can also be detrimental to us as well. With that same click of a button, anyone around the world, can click on Kontiki's website, and see not the beautiful community we all call "home away from home," but rather the misinformation of a disgruntled resident. I bring this to your attention, because this affects every single owner and their real estate values. In an economy that has affected real estate so negatively all over the country, it certainly in the owner's best interest that we would further jeopardize our values by posting these comments online? Please read the statement from a potential condo buyer last summer, which came to me by a local realtor. The statement speaks for itself:

"I have many condo choices to pick from - for purchase or rental - in the beautiful Rockport/Fulton area, Yours is the only one that I know of that has a built in "Kill the Deal" blog site that accentuates the negative aspects of owning a condo at Kontiki; Photos of mildew, un-insulated attics with complaints of hot rooms, dangerous electrical wires, poor cable service, incompetent HOA board members and security camera video information mad public to name just a few. Why would I buy or rent there when I can go somewhere else that seems to have a bit more relaxed atmosphere? With claims of all over the country reading his -1 would venture to say that I am not the only person who would look elsewhere when making reservations OP purchasing decisions. How much business can one afford to lose before suggesting to this owner that if he is not happy with his environment, he needs to find another place to live? (I'm sure that can't be done - but that's what I think when I read his blog.")

(End of excerpt from letter)
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I had to share these cartoons that show that many HOAs and their presidents often have differing perspectives on HOA issues!