Inside the Moon
Gardening A4
Moon on a Spoon A5
Spring Break Traffic A9
Fishing A11
The
Issue 623
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
March 24, 2016
Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com Wow, this has to go down as one of the weirdest Spring Breaks ever. It started off with a lightning strike that started a grass fire and ended with a lightning strike that blew out power to The Island and 65,000 Corpitos. In between we had a week of good weather and few Spring Breakers then an onslaught of Breakers who ignored the weather and packed the beaches for a while in Port Aransas. At 1:40 a.m. on Saturday we had a rehearsal for Hurricane Season that reminded us that we need to stockpile more batteries. The blackout that started early Sunday didn’t end until almost sundown for the last few Islanders without power. The power poles along State Highway 361 between Padre Island and Port Aransas were leaning sideways like a couple of over-served Spring Breakers and for a while there the word from AEP was that it could be Monday before the last of the Island power was restored. As it turned out their estimates were (fortunately) overly pessimistic but having the fuse blow on the first busy weekend of the season got our attention. It had been a while since we Islanders were in the dark for as long as we were this time, the last major outage coming five years ago – not counting the annual outage caused by drivers smashing their cars into the utility pole on the Aquarius Extension.
No trash on beach By Monday morning area beaches were clean thanks to the work of city and county crews and numerous citizens who took the time to help cleanup. From Port A to PINS there was little evidence of the mass of people who came and went over the past two weeks. The cleanup this year was much better than in most years past.
Waiting to exhale We now enter the sweet spot of The Island calendar as the Chamber of Commerce Weather has begun and the mosquitos have yet to make their presence felt. Fishing is good, humidity is down, gas prices holding steady. The first tourist invasion of the season is behind us and we now have ten glorious weeks before Memorial Day kickstarts the beginning of the 100 days of the high season and Hurricane Season kicks off. Until then, say hello if you see us Around The Island
Cleaning Our Beach after Spring Break
Travel A16
Turtles A15
Free
Weekly
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Photo by Gerlyn Hibbeler
Spring Break 2016
Work Begins on Lake Padre Canal
By Dale Rankin Crews this week began excavation work on a 1000foot canal through Lake Padre that will connect Packery Channel to the proposed SPID/Park Road 22 Water Exchange and through it to the existing Island canal system. The excavation is the first phase of work which, according to plans from developer Paul Schexnailder, will include a marina, a dry boat storage facility, commercial development, and residential development which has already begun on the south end of the Michael J. Ellis Seawall with ground work for a new condominium complex. Schexnailder said this week the excavation work
Canal continued on A3
Photo by James Thompson Spring Break 2016 is now in the rearview. Island streets were not as crowded as in previous years but area beaches were full from Port Aransas to Padre Island National Seashore. The City of Corpus
Christi released traffic count numbers for Island streets during the two-week period and we included them in this issue. No traffic count for Park Road 22/SPID were available at press time.
Island Real Estate Ticker February 16-29
Highest Priced Island Home at $3.5 Million Average Price $346,618
By Cindy Molnar Coldwell Banker Island Realtorsv
Waterfront Homes Sold
15125 Dasmarinas
15921 Punta Bonaire
15953 Palmira
14322 Caribe
14141 Palo Seco
13822 Brigantine
13769 Hawksnest Bay
15313 Beaufort
Average Sales Price $244,266
15333 Tortuga
65 Interior lot homes Listed from $185,000-$1,100,000
15357 Key Largo 15909 Punta Espada Average Sales Price $448,971 102 Waterfront homes listed from $275,000-$3,500,000
Interior Lot Homes
Waterfront Condomiums/ Townhomes Sold 15010 Leeward #804 14514 Cabana East #209 15001 Windward #505
16114 Pionciana
Average Sales Price $126,833
15429 Escapade
123 Waterfront condominiums/ townhomes listed from $73,900$499,900
15513 Finistere 15830 Portillo
Ticker continued on A3
13922 Whitecap
Go Fur It!
Surfurs Wanted!
Boots Takes it to the Street Stinky Stays Home By Ronnie Narmour
PAC and TROOP 949 Community Minded By Brent Rourk After returning from a Cancun Spring Break, I realized that the spring break crowd on North Padre Island was not too raucous, however, our beach was pocked with the remnants of campfires and the area around the first dune was littered with a layer of fine debris deposited by spring revelers. I witnessed a few individuals silently and graciously picking up trash, either on a private beach cleaning mission or simply as a matter of cleaning as they enjoyed their morning walk. But there was more trash to pick up. Hats off to PAC and TROOP 949, our Island Cub and Boy Scouts, as they unified their leadership and community minded goals to clean our beach on Tuesday afternoon.
Scouts continued on A7
So the dog says, “If surfing is so great why do the humans get to have all the fun?” Dog surfing has arrived on our Island. The Port Aransas K9 Surf Team has hit the beach and is looking for dogs ready to hang twenty. Gerilyn Bristow and Stacy Hill have kicked off a dog surfing team in Port Aransas and are looking for Surf Dogs on Padre Island as well.
If you don’t have a surfboard, you can find them at Walmart, on craigslist and on the bay of E (e-bay). Gerilyn and Stacy recommends getting a foam board surfboard as they are easier for your little surfur to grip. There will be several surfur competitions for this upcoming
Dogs continued on A7
Jim Williams and Port A's friendly local alligator Boots When the first reports came in there was skepticism. “An alligator on Ross Road.” But Jim knew. Oh, that’s just Boots,” Jim said. “He isn’t going anywhere real fast. He’s so fat.”
Boots, is a Port A celebrity alligator who took advantage of the high water last week to go for a little walk. The 20 year-old gator resides at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center next to the water treatment plant on
Gator continued on A2