This 15 inch red, and many more like it in our mitigation site, cannot resist a nice shiny gold spoon. The keeper size just don't seem to be here right now.

Our annual owners' meeting is two weeks from today. We will be looking at a proposal to repaint our buildings, doing some repairs to our pool, upgrading our pier, doing repairs to our bulkhead facing the bay, possible additional cost for the foundation project, and upgrading our wifi service. Also, our channel breakwater continues to unravel itself and we may have to pay to have someone take down and dispose of the old shoreguard and walers.

Condo 302 closed last week. The new owner is Chuck Thorp. Ed is still trying to sell his boat, but this is not the optimum time to be selling a boat.

Just when I thought we would finally have a large project come in under budget, we got bad news about our foundation repair. When the last large repair was done four years ago, I protested vigorously that the work was shoddy. Most felt that as long as the engineer signed off on the work, we had no problems. Now we have doors that don't close tightly and walls that are cracked. The property manager at the time refused to remove the cardboard sonotubes to expose the concrete that was installed. Our new contractor has shown us the full extent of the sloppy job and it will cost a lot to correct the faults. We will likely be over budget when the corrections are made. Above you can see the cardboard being removed and also the shims that were used to compensate for not making the pier the correct height. Many of these piers will have to be removed and replaced.

When the cardboard was removed, voids can be seen that weaken the pier and allow moisture to reach the rebar which rusts and basically explodes the concrete.

These voids that are as small as this one have to be sealed at a cost of $118 each.  This is called honeycombing and is a result of not vibrating the wet concrete to reach a higher density.

They didn't come close to making this pier tall enough. All these problems were found under the first building started. I have no idea the extent of the problems under the other buildings. The contractor told me personally, at the time, that the engineer did not need to come inspect the work since they had a good working relationship.

Our foundation project is moving right along. First the old piers are removed. It is hard to believe these piers were not identified the last time we did this. Maybe it's a good thing since the cost per pier is less this time around.

Then the beams are supported.

Rebar is placed in the hole where the old pier was removed. It is attached to the remainer of the old pier that is not rotted and was not removed.

Concrete is delivered.

Wood piers are put in place.

They are all attached to the concrete and beams.

Jim and Sandra, guests for October and November in 402, sent these photos from their fishing trip on Oct. 4th. The scenery was far better than the fishing. So far they have been out five times and brought back three keepers. Last year limits of trout were fairly easy to catch.
Diane, guest in 304, did catch a 17 inch flounder in the mitigation site earlier this week. Juan, monthly guest in 506, has taken his boat our regularly with little success either.

Condo 608 went on the market for $265,000 this last weekend. That, in my opinion, is a good price for a very nice condo. I doubt it will last long. I believe 302 is under contract. 206, 208, and 405 remain on the market.

The croaker have returned for their annual spawn in our mitigation site. They are about impossible to keep off your hook. There a just about as many undersized reds also. The reds may be predating on the croaker eggs. Both the croaker and reds will jump onto a big spoon.

Joe and Bev sent a picture and story about their pier experience.

Michele, our daughter, caught this 26 1/2 inch redfish two weeks ago while fishing for trout with a 2" tandem hogie speck rig, about halfway out on the pier.  We didn't have a net, but fortunately a young man at the end of the pier (obviously with more foresight than us) did have one.  Incidentally, she had a double--had a small trout on the other lure.