We had a near drowning in our pool on Tuesday. The child, a guest in 605, was pulled from the pool and an RN staying 203 performed CPR until the EMS arrived. The child was flown to a hospital in Corpus and Penny drove with the family to the hospital. They kept him overnight for observation. I talked to the mother this afternoon and she said he has been released and appears to be completely recovered.
The pool had been crowed at the time, but accidents seem to find a way to happen.

Work was done this week on installing a gate on the fishing pier. There are still some modifications that need to be done to prevent the gate from closing too quickly.
The entrance gates to our property are still a work in progress.  We have no idea when they will be completed. They are not great at returning our calls.

Randy(308) sent this report of their 4th of July visit.

We went out on the morning of the 4^th, crossing the bay and could barely see as it was just cracking day light.

Unusual for me, not usually one to get out there that early.

We tried Long Reef, Paul’s Mott, the reef just north of Long Reef by the intercoastal, Scotch tom and some wells.

Caught 1 hard head, one gaftop and 2 ,15.5” inch trout.

Using croaker. One trout from Scotch Tom and the other from a well west of Scotch Tom.

Pretty slow.

However, the same morning , guide Terry Coufal went to Laguna Madre and only brought in 8 trout.

So, we were not so bad in looking at his day.

Henry, Colson and Henry’s brother went out on their own on the morning of the 5^th and never got a bite.

Started at the point area past our pier and then on to some wells.

Blake came down for 2 days and 1 night. He won’t fish, prefers to sleep in.

Did exercise his Jet Ski a little bit .

The grandkids worked the paddleboat pretty good.

The pits at the cabana are very nice, used one two evenings in a row with good results.

Chris and Karra Crowley continue to show their generosity in California. Karra went to high school in Red Bluff.

The Red Bluff City Council on Tuesday will consider accepting a donation to keep the city's pool open through Aug. 16.

The $13,500 donation from Christopher and Karra Crowley, longtime proponents of the pool who have donated thousands of dollars to go toward the pool over the years, would keep McGlynn Pool open past the July 19 date previously set.

"The costs of operating the McGlynn Pool far exceeded the revenue generated by pool admission fees, etc.," according to a city staff document. "Due to the lack of a certified swim instructor, the city was not able to offer swimming lessons this summer, further reducing pool revenue."

If the donation is accepted, the pool would be open 1-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday during the extended period from July 21 through Aug. 16, according to the donation agreement. The pool is closed Sundays.

The bay looked like this most of the weekend and the "super moon" was spectacular as well as the sunsets.

 Have you ever seen a flounder selfie? Here's how it looks. No hands, no problem. Ryan helped.

Ryan(son) had fun chasing flounder the last week. There seem to be quite a few just off our wall. He even tried to gig some in the daylight with little success as they were just too quick despite the various methods he tried.

JR sent out an electrician, Phillip, to start mounting the new LED lights on the south side of our pier. We had put posts up for the three lights several years ago when the wiring on the north side was redone. This way the rewiring folks knew where to put a junction box so the new lights could be connected at a later date. The new lights put out 7500 lumens and are brighter than the 400 watt lights on the opposite side. These will use only 80 watts and are supposed to last 100,000 hours. Phillip came out on the 4th of July to finish up this first one since he had mounting problems and had to get some parts the day before.
These lights were mounted at intervals between the lights on the north side so provide more fishing stations without adding more pier. In the future we want to add kickout islands like the one on the north side, but we will are having difficulty getting approval from the GLO.

The Hybner family from Shiner showed off there reds on Saturday. Greg, in the yellow shirt, wouldn't say much about where they caught them other than "right in the mouth". You would thing your next door neighbor for the weekend would  be more forthcoming than that.
I thought it might be time to take my boat out to see if I could find anything worth keeping. I went out on Sunday and tried Paul's Mott, but only drum wanted to get into my boat. I kept three for a meal at Alice Faye's. We did see two areas of feeding gulls and stopped to find good sized gafftop under the birds.

I've heard of packing everything but the kitchen sink when going on vacation. It was interesting to see this big duck in the pool and even to see folks carrying it around.

We had a bodacious storm this afternoon with high winds and heavy rain. This double wide canopy frame lost its cover. It was interesting when the guest came out to barbecue, he put the grill under what is left of the frame. I guess we are creatures of habit.

 I'm not sure what is going on here. The sand is eroding along the HEB beach and seems to be depositing along our bulkhead. When we had engineers look at the situation when we built the breakwater, they concluded that sand would migrate north to the south and build up along the breakwater. To date that had not happened. This makes fishing off the bulkhead a bit problematic.

 This morning I saw some divots on our beach property. It looked as if someone had been stuck, but the land was dry. What I found out was that a guest backed his trailer and boat off the bulkhead late last night and with great effort and ingenuity, he finally got it back off the wall. He had been parking parallel to the fence beside 101 and just went a bit too far. If he had followed our parking rules, this would not have happened.

About 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon I noticed that there were hardly any vehicles in our complex. The first car in the picture belongs to the family of an owner and only two others were visible. This has been an unusual July, or so it seems. Most years we had to extend security hours because we are so packed with  guests. The weekends are full, but the other times, not so much.

 4th of July note from Scott.

For the second year in a row we attended the big flotilla event in ski basin for the 4th of July fireworks show at Rockport Beach.  This year we arrived around 7:00ish and relaxed until 9:30 when the fireworks started.  My only regret is that I did not find this sooner in life.  If you are a boat lover and you appreciate beautiful water craft; this is a great place to be.  Every couple of minutes someone comes idling by in a $100,000+ beautiful work of art.  This is also a great place for people watching.  You see the classy, the ignorant, the extremely intoxicated, the clueless, the conservative, the scared, the socially awkward, and any other descriptive that comes to mind.  This place has it all.  And this variety delivers plenty of fodder for conversation.  The Lunas (601) and some friends of theirs from SA joined us in their boat.  We tied off together and visited until the fireworks.  We anchored along with many other boats just off of the channel in about 2' of water.  The bottom was hard sand so it was nice to sit in the water to stay cool while sipping on a few tasty beverages.  A perk to going by boat to this event is the proximity to the fireworks.  They are exploding almost directly overhead and there is a great reflection of the fireworks on water at night.  The show goes on for almost 20 minutes.  It truly is one of the most fun events we do here all year long.  It is a festive setting that we get to enjoy with great friends.  We plan to do it again next year and would encourage other boat owners to join us.  The attached pics are from early in the evening.  By the time the fireworks started the boat density had tripled.  In one of the pics notice the party barge with the thatched roof.  It was loaded with every option imaginable.  Also notice the variety in the size and financial scale of the boats.  Everything from a $2,000 bathtub with a trolling motor to a $2.5M 70' sportfisher.  I will say everyone there was polite, happy, glad to be there and wanted to celebrate the independence of our great nation.  That type of large scale positive environment is not easy to find these days. Hope you can join us next year!

Now this is a big fish!

From Ray Luna(601)



Larry--On Thursday, July 3, 2014 Debbie, the kids and I headed offshore on the Luna-Sea to try our luck at catching kingfish.  Thanks in large part to Scott for sharing his offshore knowledge the trip paid off well!  We were fortunate to get hooked up 6 times and get 2 of them in the boat.  We gained some great experience in offshore fishing and created more memories that we will likely never forget!

Another day offshore . . . beautiful weather and water but not much luck catching.

 

We trailered to Conn Brown and left there around 10:00 am.  The Luna's (601) joined us in their boat so we buddy boated out to the ships.  The water was perfect for the mosquito fleet (small boats).  We went to the ships in search of Kingfish that we hoped would lead to a Ling.  At the first ship we foul hooked a 5' shark.  It was either a Black-tip or an Atlantic Sharpnose.  They all look the same to me?!?!  Regardless, we turned it lose.  I am not a big fan of shark steaks.  But it did put up one heck of a fight.  Amy had to hold the rod while Meg did the cranking.  After that excitement subsided we moved to another ship and then another and then another.  We tried trolling, bump trolling and drifting.  We could not buy a bite.  The water was calm and a beautiful blue/green but whatever we were doing was not enticing the fish.  The Luna's on the other hand had four Kings boat side throughout the day and were able to land two of them.  They obviously had the correct technique.  We then moved out to a rig at about 15 miles.  You can see in the pic a Caroline Skiff tied off to the rig at 15 miles out.  That tells you the Gulf was flat that day.  When we arrived at the rig there were six boats tied off or running around close to it.  With all of the rigs being removed through the Idle Iron program there are very few left within easy running distance from our port.  Therefore, the few that remain are being over fished.  At the rig we fished for dog snapper but again were unsuccessful.  However, we did get cut off twice by either Barracuda or Kingfish.  That is the way our day went . . . when fishing for one species you catch, or in our case, miss something else.  We just could not get into sync with the fishery.  We then started heading in but wanted to check St Joe shoreline for seashells.  When the water is this calm you can get in fairly close to the shore.  This gives you access to an otherwise unpopulated beach.  It is a beach comber's dream.  Attached is a pic taken from the boat of Amy on shore.  I anchored the boat between the 2nd and 3rd sandbar and she swam in from there.  Unfortunately mother nature did not provide there either.  No treasures this time.  In the past Amy found some unique shells along with star fish and numerous sand dollars.  All in all, it was another beautiful day out on the water.  Nobody got hurt, everyone returned home safely, and we have many new experiences.  We are blesse

 

Note from Scott.

Saturday night the Luna's (601) had several friends over for dinner and allowed me to partake in the dining adventure.  I bought my way into the party with two links of jalapeno and cheese deer sausage.  I was so impressed with the grill full of food that I had to take a pic.  They really know how to put together a spread of food.  Along with the grilled foods, they also had boiled shrimp, stuffed jalapenos, and numerous dips and sides.  I honestly don't know how Ray stays so thin

Another foundation piling had to be replaced this week. Somehow this one was missed on the last go round of replacements. I noticed this one when I walked by and saw daylight passing right through it.

 Just when we think we have expenses well within budget something pops. Here the pool pump as well as the backflow valve failed at the same time. It was questionable if we could get it up and running before the 4th.

 For a short term fix, while awaiting parts, the backflow was capped as you can see, just above the cut off section. The pump motor was clanking along for just one more day.

Just in time the new motor and valve arrived and Al got them installed. The total hit will be about $1,500.