Issue 549
Free
The voice of The Island since 1996
The Island Moon
October 23, 2014 Around The Island By Dale Rankin
The Only Island in Texas where Walker Texas Ranger keeps the peace
With Early Voting already underway Texas Attorney General and frontrunner in the race for Texas Governor Greg Abbot (R) came to The Island on Wednesday to address a packed house of supporters at Snoopy’s Pier. He was accompanied by actor Chuck Norris and his wife.
By Dale Rankin The beaches are mostly tourist free, the driving is good, seaweed light, life is good on our Island and there is a lot going on. Here is some of it…
He delivered a stump speech which touched on border control, schools, veterans’ health care, and voter identification at the polls.
Gambling ship
Texas Gold Nugget Save your disposable income folks it looks like we have a new gambling ship coming to the area and she’s a beauty; 250 feet long, 60 feet above the waterline, and 69 feet wide and can hold up to 1000 people. We spoke to the ship’s CEO and he referred us to his website which says the “Texas Gold Nugget" is a JET Catamaran, traveling at 41 knots (47 mph)” and is a “Mega Vessel, towering at 60' in height with over 50,000 sq ft of space, featuring over 600 Slots machines, 20 table games, Bar areas, Restaurants and dance Night Club” and includes “Sports betting, Bingo, Black Jack, Roulette, Craps, Poker, Bacarrat or Slots” and a swimming pool. Again, according to the website the “projected arrival date (of the ship) is January 25 and will be opening additional dates as each date sells out.” It will depart from the American Bank Center downtown and the trip to international waters will take about one hour. The website says the cost is $30 per trip. We’ll have more details as they become available.
Chuck Norris and Attorney General Greg Abbott visited Ernie Buttler at Snoopy's pier on Wednesday
The first Port Aransas Plywooden Boat Show presented by the Port Aransas Historical Association and Farley Boat Works (FBW) spurred my son, Joey and I to finish our boat we built in the summer of 2013. We had gotten a few phones calls, emails and inquiries asking “When are you going to finish it?” To which I would reply that Joey was focused on finishing high school and getting into his target college. He accomplished both. But it was Frank Coletta asking if we were going to bring it to the boat show that gave us a deadline.
City Manager Ron Olson told members of the Island Strategic Action Committee this month that his office is going to take a second look.
Island Moon Art Walk Don't forget the Island Moon Art Walk this Saturday at Schlitterbahn. Doors open at 10 am. For more information email jgreer@ schlitterbahn.com. we'll see you there and in the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
$500 fine beginning in January 2016 The Port Aransas City Council has passed a ban on single-use plastic bags which will be voluntary until January 2016, when a fine of $500 per bag will kick in for each “offense.” The ordinance requires two additional readings before formally taking effect. The ordinance provides for two exceptions: Bags used for the purpose of containing bait or seafood sales; Bags without handles, provided to effect food safety for a purchaser of food by preventing contamination from any raw food; i.e. fruits, vegetables, raw meat, raw seafood, raw poultry. The Corpus Christi City Council has eschewed a bag ban or fee in favor of a voluntary anti-litter campaign.
Inside the Moon
Boats continued on A9
Early Voting Totals Up from Last Election Cycle
Missing Buoy
A traffic light is being considered on SPID at the Aquarius intersection near the base of the JFK Causeway. It is being requested, and would be paid for, by the owners of adjacent land where retail business would be located. According to city planners a study was done last November which found that the traffic flow at that locations meets the minimum standards for the placement of a traffic light; what has not been done is a study during peak traffic flow to determine how the light might back up traffic during peaks hours at a spot where the distance from the light to the top of the JFK Causeway is 125 car lengths.
Port Aransas Passes Plastic Bag Ban
So early this summer we went back to sanding, painting and finishing
Early voting for the General Election on Tuesday, November 4 began Monday and as of the closing of the polls on Tuesday evening a total of 8951 voters had gone to the polls in Nueces County, 245 of them at the voting location on Padre Island at the Island Foundation Learning Center.
Red Light Green Light
Abbott continued on A3
The First Port Aransas Plywooden Boat Show
By Dale Rankin
On Saturday, Mike Hurst from SEA, who along with Texas Parks and Wildlife organized the project, got a call and this photo about 1 p.m. Saturday saying the buoy had washed up near Beach Marker 61, but when he got there to retrieve it there was no buoy. If you have it SEA would like to have it back to save the cost of replacement. Contact Mike at 361 816-7070 and Mike will be a happy camper.
He also addressed the escalating costs – 5% percent per year for several consecutive years – of Texas Windstorm Insurance for the 14 counties in the actuarial risk pool
By Joe Calvey
Buoy oh Buoy
Has anybody seen our buoy? The buoy pictured here was attached to the 155-foot freighter Kinta S and sunk at the Neashore Reef recently in 73 feet of water, ten miles off Packery Channel at Latitude: 27.646705627441406; Longitude: -97.00767517089844. Besides the ship the reef consists of 203 box culverts, and 470 concrete pyramids.
Weekly
Abbott Visits Snoopy’s Pier
editor@islandmoon.com
FREE
That total for the first two days of Early Voting is a significant increase over the turnout in the first two days of the last gubernatorial cycle election in 2010 when only 6883 ballots were cast in the same time period. The largest turnouts through the first two days of voting have been at the Corpus Christi Council for the Deaf on the city’s south side where 1005 voters have cast ballots and at the Nueces County Courthouse where 924b allots have been cast. The number of registered voters in Texas this year topped 14 million for the first time There are about 200,000 registered voters in Nueces County. Historically in races in the gubernatorial cycle, such as this one, a total of about 60,000 voters to go the polls in Nueces County; that number increases to just over 100,000 during
Voting continued on A3
Cold Stunned Sea Turtle Training Saturday By Rosalie Rossi and Donna J. Shaver, Ph.D. Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery National Park Service Padre Island National Seashore
Airtales A4
A cold stunned turtle receiving aid at PINS On Saturday October 25 you can learn about cold stunning of green turtles in our area and how you can help save them during the next cold stunning event. Green turtles are classified as a Threatened Species, and cold stunning is currently the largest threat to these turtles in south Texas. Every few years, severe cold fronts pass through south Texas causing water temperatures to drastically drop, which can debilitate sea turtles. Cold stunning occurs when sea turtles are exposed to cold waters, typically in bays where shallow water cools quickly, and they are unable to move to
warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Sea turtles cannot regulate their body temperatures and when they are too cold they become immobilized and float to the surface or wash ashore. If cold stunned turtles are not found and protected, they typically die due to exposure, predation, drowning, or boat strikes. However, cold stunned turtles that are found rapidly and taken to rehabilitation have a good chance of survival.
Turtles continued on A2
Two South Texans Were the Inspiration for Lonesome Dove Characters
Frank Goodwyn wrote of his childhood growing up on the King Ranch in his book, "Life on the King Ranch" which was published in 1951. Goodwyn, whose father Francis Eppse Goodwyn was a foreman of the King Ranch’s Norias division where he was known for his “quick brush eye and fine roping arm.” Norias covered 238,000 acres of hardscrabble brush country teeming with impenetrable thickets and miles of oak groves and carpeted with native grasses. Goodwyn’s uncle Grover Cleveland Latham worked on the Suaz Ranch, a part of the King Ranch. During the height of the Great War Goodwyn as a young boy would visit his uncle to play with his cousin. The Suaz was a lousy
place to be a kid because the land was as flat as the sea on a calm day and the houses were in the midst of the brush country providing no view. The loneliness was punctuated by the coo of the turtledoves who called through the thickets to be answered only by the retort of quavering howl of the lonesome coyote’s call. The main house at the Suaz was a whitewashed affair with plenty of chipping and cracking. It was a long square-topped building running north and south and it was called The Store but no one really knew why. Since no one came there to buy and if they had there was nothing to sell. The only thing connecting The Store to the real world was a delivery wagon that drove between it and Raymondville, twenty-one miles away. In one of the smaller houses surrounding The Store lived Old
On the Rocks A7
In Texas, the green turtle is affected by cold stunning far more often than any other sea turtle species. This occurs since these events typically
A little Island history
By Dale Rankin
Flour Bluff Football A2
Sports A8
Election A11-A16
Augustus McRay and Woodraw Call from Lonesome Dove Man Durham. This is the same George Durham who wrote the book
History continued on A6
Live Music A18