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The Island Newspaper since 1996 Island Area News ● Events ● Entertainment
October 4, 2012
Photo by Miles Merwin
The Island where the best way to tolerate a noisy party is to join it
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
Ahhhh…October. It’s often been said that we Islanders pay for our October and our April with our July and August. So as October dawns we have our sweltering months in the weather bank and get ready for October’s Chamber of Commerce Weather. The beach has been beautiful of late with nice packed sand that keeps us moving and the water has been as clear as it can be hereabouts. The fishing out on the Packery has been spotty but that’s okay as snorkelers have taken to the clear water to land their share of Mangrove snappers and other fish along the outside of the jetties. It’s that time of year when the hot weather breaks, the water turns a little bluer, the wind (hopefully) lays down, and we have our Island to ourselves in the lull between the summer and Winter Texan seasons. Get out there and enjoy it.
Harvest Moon You may have noticed that big cornbread moon up there of late. The Harvest Moon showed itself on September 30 but we get another one, sort of, later this month. The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox and in the Northern Hemisphere the autumnal equinox came on September 22, making the September 29-30 full moon the Harvest Moon. But then here on The Island we have the Harvest Moon Regatta when the sailors from up Houston way make their annual overnight sail to Port Aransas for a weekend of fun and that event doesn’t happen until October 25-27 under a waxing moon just before what will technically be the Hunter’s Moon which peaks on October 29. But hey, when has our Island ever stood on a technicality huh? If October 25-27 is when the Harvest Moon sailors blow into town then dadgummit that’s the Island Harvest Moon.
Signs of the times
Year 15, Issue 443
Next Publication Date: 10/11/2012 Facebook: The Island Moon Newspaper
Update on Island projects
Work Begins on Schlitterbahn Rides, Construction Equipment Expected on Site This Month By Dale Rankin Prefabrication work has begun on rides for the planned Schlitterbahn Resort and Waterpark. The work is being done in the shops of the park’s headquarters in New Braunfels, the location of the original Schlitterbahn park between San Antonio and Austin, according to one of the project’s developers Paul Schexnailder in a briefing to the Island Strategic Action Committee at the Padre Isles Country Club on Tuesday. “We were on the site today looking at how we want to start moving dirt,” Schexnailder told the group. “We will have equipment on the site this month.” The projected opening date for the waterpark remains the spring of 2014. Park Road 22/SPID Water Exchange Bridge. Permitting is ongoing for the building of the bridge with the plans currently in the hands of TxDot for approval. The Corpus Christi City Council has approved funding for the $8 million project from 2008 bond money. The city will fund the bridge while the developers of the Schlitterbahn and surrounding property will build the canals to connect it with the existing canal system on the west and Lake Padre on the east. Duck Hunting. With duck season just around the corner the city, at the request of the Island Strategic Action Committee is moving to place No Hunting signs around a 1000-foot parameter surrounding homes along the Intracoastal Waterway.
Clear water off the jetty- Photo by Mary Craft
Study at Texas A&M Says Gulf Floor is Littered with Bombs
Current city ordinances prohibit discharging a firearm within 1000 feet of a habitable structure but lax enforcement in recent years has led to a standoff between hunters and homeowners. Projects Continued on A4
Hearing Set on Cruise Ships in Coastal Bend
The possibility of cruise ships docking in the Coastal Bend will be the subject of a hearing at the Ortiz Center at the Port of Corpus Christi on Monday, October 15, at 10 a.m. The event is a meeting of the joint Interim Committee on Cruise Industry Development and the public will be invited to give input. For more information contact Angie Flores with State Representative Todd Hunter’s office at 361 695-2048 or e-mail at aflorestx@me.com Political signs keep multiplying like so many mushrooms all over our Island. The sign police continue to do their thing and we hear that about a dozen signs for a candidate in the Mayor’s race have disappeared; the big ones too that don’t come cheap. This happens from time to time and sometimes can be blamed on the wind, except we haven’t had any wind of late and it seems odd that Mother Nature would only take the signs belonging to one candidate and not the other.
Island Foundation
The 28th Annual Island Foundation’s Golf Tournament Set for Friday, October 5
Election dates
The 28th Annual Island Foundation Golf Tournament will tee off at Newport Dunes on Friday October 5.
Early voting for the November 6 election kicks off on October 22 and the Nueces County Clerk’s office is ginning up for the 100,000 or so voters who are expected to turn up.
The event is a four-person scramble at $150 per person or $500 for a team of four, tee off is at 8 a.m. The fee includes green fee, cart, and lunch. Sponsorships are still available.
Here on The Island the voting will be at the Presbyterian Church for those who live south of Whitecap, and at Padre Isles Country Club for those who live north of it. In the last Presidential race Islanders turned out at just over 80% which would mean about 4000 voters this time.
For more information islandfoundation.com.
Ours is not to reason why…
Poll watchers were told this week that if a runoff is needed in any of the races – most require a majority rather than a plurality – the date will be December 21. That seems like a long wait between elections and would run voting right up into the holiday season. Ours is not to reason why…
Copperhead road We got a report this week that a homeowner found a very aggressive Copperhead snake on his patio over on Encantada. The fellow made a dash to get in the house and tried to make his way up a wall. We’re not sure if Copperheads are regular visitors to The Island but combined with the recent rattlesnake bite in Port Aransas it’s enough to get our attention.
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Hooray for Habitat!
Celebration of the Big Tree Unit at Goose Island State Park on Saturday, October 13 Come join in celebrating Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s acquisition of the Big Tree Unit at Goose Island State Park Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 with a day of wildlife interpretive programs and celebrations.
The snakes crawl at night…that’s what they say.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and The Nature Conservancy worked for several years to obtain funding to acquire the 80-acres located West and North of the famous Big Tree. An oil spill settlement provided the $2 million to buy the land known originally as Big Tree Ranch. The land is important habitat for endangered Whooping Cranes and many other species.
Island Continued on A3
Birding Continued on A5
Millions of pounds of unexploded bombs and other military ordnance that were dumped decades ago in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, could now pose serious threats to shipping lanes and the 4,000 oil and gas rigs in the Gulf, warns two Texas A&M University oceanographers. William Bryant and Neil Slowey, professors of oceanography who have more than 90 years of combined research experience in all of the Earth’s oceans, along with fellow researcher Mike Kemp of Washington, D.C., say millions
of pounds of bombs are scattered over the Gulf of Mexico and also off the coasts of at least 16 states, from New Jersey to Hawaii. Bryant says the discarded bombs are hardly a secret. “This has been well known for decades by many people in marine science and oceanography,” he explains. He will give a presentation in San Juan, Puerto Rico Monday (Oct. 1) about the bombs to a group of oceanographers and marine scientists in a conference titled “International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions.” Bombs Continued on A4
A little Island history
The Island Before Civilization Showed Up
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories from the autobiography of Louis Rawalt. Rawalt moved to The Island in 1925 and lived a life that would be impossible here now. As you will see from the stories he built cabins from material he found on the beach at several locations and knew The Island in a way that probably no one else ever will. He collected relics from over thirty sites on The Island and knew where all of the shipwrecks were to be found, including the Spanish gold ships from the 16th Century and when the Padre Island National Seashore was founded it was Rawalt who led the researchers around The Island and showed them ten sites which they studied as part of the due diligence for founding the park. Everything Rawalt found he documented; where he found the road traveled by the troops of General Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War, the longgone Singer Ranch and numerous shipwrecks. Rawalt was a smart and educated man who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His story here begins in a hospital where he was recovering from a mustard gas attack he suffered through in World War I.
He left behind this typewritten account of his time on The Island and we run it here without editing. He called it…
The Island of Reprieve
By Louis Rawalt It was the summer of 1925. I was seated near the desk of the chief surgeon in the Military Hospital at Chelsea. The bulky form of the surgeon was across the desk from me. He looked at me with speculative eyes. Finally, he said: “If you have any business that needs attention, you had better return to your home in Texas and take care of it.” He leafed through a chart on his desk, “Prognosis, six months,” He looked straight at me. “A lot of them didn’t have any time left,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll do it,” I replied. “I’ll have to.” I rose and started for the door. I had expected his verdict, and had already made up my mind what I was going to do ---that is, if Viola would consent. I had talked to her about the long white sands of the Karankawa Indians, where I had gone as a child with my father on fishing trips. It was the only place I History Continued on A6