The Aransas County Surveyor, Jerry Brundrett, came out this morning to determine our eastmost property line in order to build a bulkhead in the northeast corner to stop erosion there. They were able to find all the old pins from thirty years ago. Our property line goes parallel to the curb on the left and thirteen feet toward the pier entrance. Here you see Jerry on our land and his helper is on Richy's land. This showed we own about 1,300 sq. ft. that we didn't know about, but it also means we have more beach frontage on the north side of our property to protect.

These two sections of sidewalk were completed on Tuesday. It is pretty hard to get concrete delivered. It has to come out of Ingleside and they have only one truck working this area. To get the most bang for our buck JR lined up all the concrete projects we had pending to achieve economy of scale. He hired Long Nguyen and his crew to come out to do the finish work. They did a really excellent job. These sidewalk areas had been patched a number of times, but continued to be a trip hazard as well as unsightly. When all the work was done, one half full wheelbarrow load was left. It was placed in one of the washouts on the bulkhead.

A concrete pad was poured at the south end of the boat parking to accommodate a dumpster. Last year the extra dumpster was placed on the sidewalk for the short term. A wood fence will be added to enclose the dumpster.

To move concrete to the area around the picnic area it had to be moved by wheelbarrow. The peagravel finish matches the sidewalk perfectly. Serious thought was given to knocking out the concrete patches that were put in last summer with concrete from the foundation work. They look out of place now.
This should put a stop to water washing out under the sidewalk here. When JR was here last he had cleared and dug the area out for concrete, but left before the project was completed. This will also help the appearance of the area when the covered structure is expanded.

Yesterday we had wind gusts to 45 mph from the south. The tide was high and water splashed up over the bulkhead. Today the wind gusts were measured at 48 mph from the north. Needless to say, sand was blown all over everything over the two day period.
The wind might have been a contributing factor in Larry Skelton momentarily losing control of the riding lawnmower and seeing his cell phone knocked to the ground. You might see where I'm going with this. Yes, it's not a pretty site to see what a lawnmower can do to a cell phone. He showed me the mangled battery he found in the parking lot.

When JR moved this Queen Palm to make way for a dumpster pad, I thought this might not be on our property. When the survey was done the property line came out to be parallel to the right face of the Time Warner cable box so it is in just the right place. Notice the survey flag just behind the box.

Randy(308) sent this update on Cedar Bayou from the Caller Times.

CORPUS CHRISTI — The effort to reopen Cedar Bayou received another funding boost this past week.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson announced a $200,000 grant for the long awaited dredging project. This puts the total collected or pledged so far at $3.425 million for a project estimated to run about $7 million.
Hopefully the funding hurdle won't prove to be as difficult as the decade-long effort to secure a permit for the project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That battle ended last summer. The permit comes with a five-year deadline for action. But Aransas County Judge Burt Mills said this deadline is easily extended.
At least with funding we're not seeking permission from a 500-pound bureaucratic gorilla with ever-changing federal requirements and an army of additional government agencies that imposed unreasonable and time-consuming constraints on what is clearly nothing more than an environmental restoration project.
This latest grant comes from the Coastal Management Program, which awards grants funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aimed at enhancing or maintaining the environmental and economic health of the Texas coast.
Few dispute that a free-flowing Cedar Bayou, which historically has divided Matagorda and San Jose islands, would benefit the Aransas-Mesquite bay system, along with the economies of the Coastal Bend.
Unlike Packery Channel, this has nothing to do with beach resorts or boat access to the Gulf. Cedar Bayou is purely a fish pass that would benefit birds, anglers, recreational fishes, shrimpers and all manner of marine life that require gulf access for spawning.
And to document the impacts, biologists and students with the Fisheries and Ocean Health Lab at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies are conducting an extensive pre-opening study to determine what is there now, so this can be compared against conditions after the pass is dredged.
This kind of baseline study was conduced at Packery Channel. Greg Stunz, director of the Harte Institute's Sportfish Research Center, said the increased flow through Packery boosted nearby populations of redfish, flounder, pinfish, and blue crab. The benefits also affect shrimp and other forage species that go into creating a healthier and more robust ecosystem, Stunz said.
"I can't imagine how Cedar Bayou would be any different," he said. "This reopening has the potential to greatly elevate the fisheries production for the region."
For more than a decade, the push to reopen Cedar Bayou has been on the agenda of conservation groups, angler organizations, community leaders, politicians, business owners and objective observers who believe when water flows through Cedar Bayou good things happen for everything from whooping cranes to bait shops. A healthy estuary is the engine of a coastal economy that relies on nature tourism and fishing.
For those who believe the effort is useless or that the prospect of an open pass is hopeless, please consider this.
The main argument of naysayers involves the whims of nature opening and closing the pass throughout history.
They suggest nothing man could do, short of unreasonable effort or expense, could keep it open. Others say only a jettied pass would work. Still others have legitimate concerns about whether any canal design could harness the hydraulic muscle required to keep it open.
I do not dispute that Cedar Bayou's flow has been intermittent for centuries and certainly more closed or closing than open during recent decades. Nobody disputes that storm tides have served as nature's dredge over the years. But I believe much of the more recent blame for closures falls on man for diminishing flow between the Gulf of Mexico and the Aransas Bay complex.
Do not discount ongoing contributors to lagging water pressure created by the Intracoastal Waterway, other gulf passes and by reduced freshwater inflow from the damming of rivers and over-allocated water from the life-giving streams that feed the Aransas Bay complex.
And the flow was sharply hindered twice by man in recent history. Once in 1979, when the mouth of the pass was intentionally blocked to prevent an oil spill from entering the bays. And again in 1995 when most folks believe a slug of dredge spoils deposited near the mouth of nearby Vinson Slough weakened the hydrological punch needed to keep the pass flowing.
The hydraulics and dynamics of Cedar Bayou have not been the same since then. All of these factors have slowed the flow and contributed to silt settling in the pass.
This is an attempt to right a wrong.
The project's design, I'm told, addresses many of these concerns. I understand the outcome of a hypothetical model cannot be entirely predictable or certain. But there is one thing for sure. A lot more money has been spent on projects with more dubious merit. That's not my best argument, but it's true.
The project proposes to straighten and deepen Cedar Bayou roughly along its historic path and connect it with a deep channel from Vinson Slough, a nearby system of marshland and lesser waterways that once enhanced the pass' flow.
Dredge sand from the channel will be placed in a semicircle offshore to bolster a natural delta and to diffuse waves that tend to carry sand to the mouth of the pass. No jetty is planned.
According to Patterson, the grant application and design was evaluated by folks at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Railroad Commission of Texas, the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Parks & Wildlife, the Texas Water Development Board, the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, the Texas Sea Grant College Program and the Texas General Land Office.
So far, Aransas County has dedicated more than a million in grants and county funds to the project. Another $1.75 million will come from the county's restructuring of a general revenue bond. Judge Mills expect another $200,000 from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation in March. And the Aransas County Commissioners Court has promised to dedicate $50,000 annually for maintenance of the channel.
Private donors have pitched in another $4,000, Mills said.
CCA-Texas has given $520,000, which includes $20,000 from the Babes on the Bay fishing tournament in Rockport. CCA has hired a fundraiser who has submitted $1.1 million in proposals. We should know something on those within two months, said Robby Byer, CCA-Texas executive director. Additional grant applications from CCA are in the works.

When I went into Walmart this evening there were seven does and an eight point buck walking on the parking lot toward the auto service area. When I put my bright lights on, they moved back onto this adjacent area. The buck is the one in the background. When I was leaving Kontiki, I saw two big raccoons walking in the mitigation site. They were in about six inches of water and holding their tails out of the water. I couldn't tell if they were using their paws or their jaws to find food.

Work began today on completing our irrigation system. Dwight Mills is doing the project. He is the brother of sheriff Bill Mills. Dwight has been around here a long time and can recount Kontiki stories much farther back than I can. They picked a good time to do the work as tomorrow's high temperature is forecast to be 90 degrees. After that a cold front will take us down to the mid 70's  for the rest of the week. Ed(302) told me that on Wednesday on this way to work in Maine that his car registered an outside temperature of minus 6 degrees. I'll take what we have anytime.
On Friday Jerry Brundrette and his daughter Bridgette came out to look over our plans to build a bulkhead to protect our northeast corner from further erosion. I had not met Jerry although he is a legendary surveyor for the county of Aransas. He also told me stories about the early days of Kontiki and the surrounding areas.
Fishing has continued to be very poor. I put out three poles with live mullet for three days and never had a bite. Vic(712) took his kayak to Sailboat Pass on Friday and said he caught a lot of fish, but only three keeper trout. Don Gormley took his boat to St. Charles Bay on Friday and fished hard to come back with one keeper drum.  A guest in 301 went to the jetties on  Saturday and landed a 34 inch red off the end of the jetties. He put it on a stringer and put it back in the water. Sure enough the stringer got caught up in the rock and is likely still there.
Murlin and Pat(506) came in today. They had not been here since June. It was good to see them and Dollie again. They are planning to take their condo off the market for now.
The buzz among the winter Texans has been the price increase for next year. Three bedroom bayside condos will rent for almost $2,300 per month. Even the summer rates are going up too.  A  three bedroom bayside condo will rent for just over $2,000 per week with tax.

The old net on the backboard finally wore out. Monday evening Colson drove his mother's Excursion into position and replaced the net. The rim had one broken hook that holds one of the strings. While I was contemplating using electrical tape to repair it, Kelly suggested a zip tie. Colson said he had one and it worked well. Good idea Kelly!
It's been slow around here this winter. There are still a lot of sheephead at the mouth of the channel, but not much else.  Right now the mitigation site does not have much water, but it is full of finger mullet. The green scum makes it impossibles to fish there.
Rebecca(306) is having new flooring installed this week. Mel and Jo had that done in 603 two weeks ago.
JR is down with the flu and Larry Skelton is still slowed by his back problems.
Someone from the County Surveyor's office will be here on Thursday to see what we need to do about a survey before we build the bulkhead at the northeast corner of our property.

 The sidewalk in front of 206 is being repaired. We had, in the past, tried patching it, but it never really worked. The sidewalk next to 210 is being replaced at the same time.

We have hired JR Gimler as our new property manager. JR has worked for us before, but left to build a house as a contractor in Austin. It was three years ago yesterday that I posted about him first being hired in my blog. You can search for him in previous blog posts by the using the inblog search feature. The picture here shows how he solved the problem of putting the golf cart and lawn mower in the garage at the same time. He just rearranged things and they all fit. We may not have to build the addition to the shed afterall. This would save some cash. He will let us know how this works out.

Ace Hardware must be doing better than I thought. Here Jonathen is setting up their new reel service and repair section in the store. I see Jonathen on our pier on occasion. He is friends with the Pardo family that rents 102 and he comes out to fish with them. He is pretty excited to be getting training in reel repair.
They are also now offering Craftsman tools.

The recent weather has been more suited to ducks than humans. These ducks have been showing up for several mornings and feeding on something close in. When I go out to take a photo they retreat. I don't know anything about ducks, but these sure seem to be large ones.

The last sunrise of 2012 was nice enough. Jim(210) sent this to me. Since then the weather has been horrific. The highest I saw on my deck yesterday was 39. Today it got up to 43.
It was nice to visit with Pack and Ann during their stay last week. They were supposed to stay next to us, but got moved to 105. Pack helped me check out the water line location that we need to tie into to complete the irrigation project. His memory is really sharp.
Sheephead are everywhere. People are walking out on the breakwater and catching them easily on dead shrimp. Had the weather been better, I'm sure more folks would have been out there. Walking out on the whalers does present a problem as passing people is not the easiest thing to do.
The Blackwells(705) hosted a New Year's Eve party. The fireworks were spectacular.
Winter Texans are arriving, but not in the numbers we have seen in previous years. I have to think the warm winter last year may have coaxed them into staying up north and hoping for another warm winter.
Keith has resigned as property manager and his last day will be tomorrow.