Inside the Moon...
4th of July Boat Parade A4
Letters to Riley P. Dog A3
The
Island Moon
Island Visitors tell their stories A5
FREE PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY
Fishing Report A7, A9
Dee-Scoveries A14
Free
Weekly
361-949-7700 editor@islandmoon.com The Island Newspaper since 1996 Facebook : The Island Moon Newspaper
July 11, 2013
Photo by Jason Towns
The Island Where Half the Boat Captains are Above Average
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com They lined up on Whitecap, they packed onto decks, they launched their boats, they took their lawn chairs to the parks and in the end they raised their glasses to the 1st Annual Island 4th of July Fireworks Blast as it took to Island skies in a Star Spangled success. By our count about 125 boats watched the show from the water just south of the Padre Island Yacht Club and another 50-plus from the canal north of the Yacht Club. Spectators lined both sides of Whitecap all the way back to Gypsy. The show went off without a hitch as the show’s organizer Jerry Watkins lit the first fuse with a traffic flare as the last vestiges of twilight sunk below the Laguna Madre then he jumped the fence to watch the show with his family from his boat at the Yacht Club which also had a full house. Over at the Judge’s Party at Ann and Harald’s deck on Three Fathoms the Statesboro Revue played to the gathered crowd, the parade judges, as well as an armada of boats gathered in the main canal and deck parties across the way. As the fireworks went up the music was switched to the 1812 Overture and show was on. Thanks to the Coast Guard Auxiliary there were no hitches with the fleet of boats gathered for the event; thank you Steve Horton. And the four constables on hand for traffic control helped control the traffic; thank you Bobby Sherwood. And a big Island Moon thank you to the crowds that were large and trouble free – mostly Islanders since the event was not promoted OTB. Islander Dotson Lewis went to Whitecap the next morning to clean up what he figured was sure to be left behind litter but the only thing he found was a left-behind cell phone. All in all it was a magical night on our Island and we look forward to next year.
Rock and Roll Turtle Season The turtle hatching season is off to a rousing start down PINS way. Dr. Donna and friends have already held eight releases with as many as twenty expected between now and August. The first release, which writer Brent Roark wrote about last time, drew well over 1000 people. The releases are held at the Malaquite Beach Visitor Center and begin at 6:30 a.m. If you have never been to one it is one of those Only On The Island experiences. If you go don’t bring or eat food since it will attract gulls (who also like baby turtles), and you should not wear white colored clothing or white colored footwear or take photos using a flash, since all of these will disorient the hatchlings who are trying to find their way to the ocean for the first time. Sometimes the releases are postponed because the turtles aren’t aware they are putting on a show and sometimes aren’t ready to go yet. So before you go call the Hatchling Hotline at 361949-7163 or check the Facebook page titled Padre Island NS Division of Sea Turtle Science & Recovery. The biggest release is expected in mid-July.
Island Moon ArtWalk Don’t forget the Island Moon ArtWalk for July on Saturday and Sunday, July 20-21 at the parking lot on the seawall. We’ll see you there. In the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Next Publication Date: 7/18/2013
Police Boat for The Island May Become Reality
Year 16, Issue 482
Facebook: The Island Moon Newspaper
4th of July Boat Parade
By Dale Rankin For years a large portion of complaints from Islanders have come from the water side of our houses. Boaters speeding and leaving behind dock killing wakes, stereo systems on boats way too loud, and it has been the norm for years for burglars to access Island houses by boat. The problem has been that with all the law enforcement boats which patrol our canals, six different agencies, none of them are there specifically to address those common complaints. Each has their function, whether it’s looking for smugglers, checking bag limits on fish and game, or checking for life jackets, they each enforce the laws their various agencies each address. Missing from the mix has been the Corpus Christi Police who have not had a boat to help keep an eye out for burglars and speeding boaters, and other common problems on the water. It looks like that is about to change. At the Tuesday meeting of the Island Strategic Action Committee (ISAC) CCPD unveiled a plan that would put a 25-foot Majek boat, specially equipped for police work, on regular patrol in Island canals to enforce boating safety Police Boat continued on A15
The Little Jar That Keeps on Giving Some of people who visit Snoopy’s Pier may never even notice it even though it is right in front of them. But others do and when they realize why it is there they drop in a dollar, or in some cases a hundred dollars.
Anatomy of a Fireworks Show How it makes its way into the sky By Dale Rankin
a total of 1304 tubes were used for this show.
It’s one of those things that in idle moments we each contemplate – I wonder what it would be like to light the fuse on a huge fireworks show? Well, after last Thursday one Islander knows the answer. We visited ground zero for the Island Blast early Thursday as crews were putting the launch site together. They began Wednesday night by placing the racks that hold the tubes which hold the fireworks. The hard plastic tubes range in size, for this show, from three to six inches; and
Projects continued on A3
Senior Moments
Lewis Special to the Island Moon The City of Corpus Christi Senior Community Services Division and the Mayor’s Council on Aging will host the Corpus Christi’s Greatest Treasures Award Dinner from 5:30 p.m. p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Thursday, July 18, 2013 at the American Bank Center – Henry Garrett Ballroom, 1901 N.Shoreline.
Award continued on A6
Editor’s note: Our story last time about the future management of our beaches prompted a response from veteran Geologist Richard Watson who lives on The Island. His take is that Mother Nature, as amended by man, will dictate beach management in the future as beach erosion will make our beaches so narrow that the “wet” zone will move to the base of the dunes making some/many portions of the beach unusable. Here is a detailed explanation of how he believes that will happen.
Packery Channel Photo courtesy of Dr. Richard Watson
Nearly all of the Gulf beaches of Texas are undergoing rapid erosion. The only beaches
jettied inlets, at river deltas where the river flows directly into the Gulf and in the longshore sediment convergence zone of Central Padre
that are not eroding are located adjacent to
Erosion continued on A6
There’s not a lot of high tech involved in this part of the process. The simple wooden racks are arranged in rectangular and S patterns to keep them from falling over and the tubes are held in place with short pieces of wood. Once the tubes are in place workers, about half a dozen in all, go from tube to tube jamming a stick with a nail down the tubes to make sure there is no cardboard residue leftover from the previous show.
The launch crews were volunteer firefighters from Boerne who pay $25 per year for a permit to launch fireworks and it is their job to transport and stage the fireworks for the show.
Corpus Christi’s Greatest Treasures By Dotson
Inspired by Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, the Mayor’s Council on Aging has
Not high tech
The show is a production of the Zambelli Fireworks Company in Philadelphia who take care of the insurance and some of the details. The rest were handled by Jerry Watkins who conceived and organized the Island show and they included getting the proper permits from the fire department, contacting the Coast Guard to help with boating safety during the show, traffic control, portable bathrooms, mowing the launch site, and a million other details that popped up along the way – not to mention raising the $15,000 to pay for it all.
A little over a year ago Snoopy’s owners Ernie and Corliss Buttler got involved with a group called Combat Marine Outdoors which raises money to take wounded Marine and Army veterans for outdoor trips. Sometimes it is deer hunting, but most of the time it is for fishing trips up and down the Laguna Madre where Ernie has been fishing for decades.
Severe Erosion of Texas Beaches Caused by Engineering Modifications to the Coast and Rivers
By Richard L. Watson, PhD, Consulting Geologist
Delicate work Once the tubes are in place and ready the delicate work begins. We don’t have any photos of this part of the process because once Fireworks continued on A4
A Little Island History
The Dunn Ranch
By Greg Smith In 1879 Catherine Dunn and son’s Patrick and Tom began ranching on Padre Island which later would sometimes be called the Dunn Ranch. This is the story of Catherine and her husband Thomas journey to South Texas.
After Matt Dunn came to Corpus in 1845 with Gen. Taylors Army he wrote his brothers in Ireland encouraging them to come to Texas. The first of the four brothers to leave Ireland A line camp bunkhouse built for cowboys working for Texas was the youngest, the Dunn Ranch remains standing today. Thomas. The Dunn family lived in County Kildare Ireland, twenty miles west to escape the grinding poverty of Ireland. of Dublin. Ireland at that time was in the Tom and Catherine reunited in Dublin and grip of the Great Potato Famine with because were married on October 14 1849. Saying of the blight destroying their main food, the good bye to family and friends, never to see potato. One out of every eight souls living in again, they boarded the ship, Great Britain Ireland in those sad times died of hunger and bound for New Orleans. The newlyweds a similar amount of Irish left Ireland in surch arrived in strange and exotic New Orleans on December 1, after which they boarded a of food. shallow coastal vessel for the two to three In 1849 Tom had saved enough money for day trip to Corpus Christi. What a difference his passage and to buy some land in South from their native Ireland where family’s lived Texas. Before leaving Ireland he proposed to and died for generations on the same house, Catherine Hickey who emigrated to London History continued on A3