Inside the Moon
Art Center Scholarships A2
Schlitterbahn A6
Fishing A7
The
Issue 582
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
June 11, 2015
Around The Island By Dale Rankin
By Dale Rankin
We had the first Big Weekend of the tourist season last week as school is now out, the rain, at least for now is mostly not falling on the Coastal Plain, and the summer is upon us. Over the years we here at the Island Moon Tourism Research Department have developed a near fool-proof method of judging how many people are on the local beaches on a given weekend. We checked the ice supply at the Stripes stores and last weekend they were smooth out; and friends when it is summer and there is no ice on The Island, well that’s not a world any of us wants to live in.
Since May 19 the Texas General Land Office and U.S. Coast Guard have picked up a total of 10,120 gallons, (240.95 barrels) of oil that has washed up on area beaches. On Monday alone 990 gallons, (23.57 barrels) was picked up on the beach in Port Aransas.
Free
Weekly
FREE
The oil in some cases has been in slicks three feet in diameter and three to four inches thick. The Texas General Land Office which is collecting samples for testing said Wednesday that their tests show the tar balls are from two different sources and are crude oil but the source has not yet been identified, however, It is unlikely the source is from Texas waters. Possible sources include offshore rigs, a pipeline, a ship or from natural seepage. Testing continues. A GLO spokesman said the Coast Guard is funding the recovery until the responsible party can be located and held accountable.
Beach Garbage Collection Under Scrutiny 4th of July Fireworks and Watercraft Parade Three Weeks Away One potential difference, the permitting was still underway at press time, is that the spoil island across the canal from the end of Whitecap may be burned in the days prior to the show to prevent a repeat of last year when the fireworks set it ablaze.
Wettest month on record Dr. Chuntao Liu, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Science, over at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi put out a forecast for the remainder of the summer and it says that models suggest that this will be one of the strongest El Nino weather patterns (and even possibly stronger than the 1997-1998 El Nino, and under that scenario Texas is likely to see cooler temperatures and more precipitation throughout the summer; cooler and wetter being, of course, relative terms. In May 2015, Corpus Christi received a whopping 14.32 inches of rain – a new record far beyond the previous May record of 10.44 inches set in 1941, and May 2015 now exceeds Corpus Christi's total rainfall for the entire drought year of 2011, which was only 12.06 inches. Corpus Christi was one of several cities across the state, including Austin, Brownsville, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston that broke previous rain records. May 2015 is now also the “wettest single month on record” in Texas and Oklahoma
Live Music A18
240 Barrels of Oil Picked Up on Area Beaches
editor@islandmoon.com
The last three bags of ice on The Island were frozen into one big lump at the bottom of the Reddy Ice freezer at the Big Stripes on Whitecap; three giant bags that had frozen together into one thirty-pound bag of cooling relief that couldn’t be sold. Two guys in Bubba Trucks from somewhere north of Swinney Switch offered to separate them with an ax which they had brought along to use on driftwood for their beach fire. They were about to go awhackin’ away at it when a Stripes employee politely but firmly, and we might add wisely, told them chopping up the ice box with an ax wasn’t in the company handbook and by early afternoon a giant truck with pallets of ice arrived from OTB and the Great Ice Shortage of 2015 was a thing of the past. But let us tell you friends, it was touch and go there for a while. When Bubba comes down from north of Swinney Switch armed with an ax and can’t find any ice nothing good is going to come from that. Nothing.
Airtales A9
Island Blast By Dale Rankin As Island beaches get busier there is a growing disparity between the beaches cleaned by the City of Corpus Christi and those cleaned by Nueces County. This was the scene at Newport Pass last Monday as the city beaches were trash-free while county crews were still playing catch up.
Believe it or not July 4th is only three weeks away and that means the Island Blast Fireworks Show will take to the skies at the end of Whitecap. According to the event’s founder and manager Jerry Watkins the show will go off at 9:15 p.m. on Saturday, July 4. “It will be essentially the same show as the last two years,” Watkins said.
“The Flour Bluff Fire Department is working to get the permits to do a controlled burn there in the week prior to the fireworks show,” Watkins said. “It looks like it’s going to happen we’re just not sure until we have the permits in hand.” He said the Padre Isles Property Owners Association helped to raise about half the $15,000 cost of the show by contacting members asking for donations. Tax deductible donations can still be made payable to the Island Blast.
“100 percent of the money goes to pay for the fireworks,” Watkins said. “There is no overhead or any kind of management fees.” The show is done by a private company and includes firework tubes up to five-inch wide and lasts for about twenty five minutes. Watkins and his wife Sharon hit on the idea of an Island fireworks show after attending others around the state and now, in its third year, the show has become a fixture on the Island calendar. The show grew out of the 4th of July Watercraft parade which is held in the afternoon. We will have more on the parade and how to participate in it in the next issue.
A little Island history
Tis the Season for Detection of Metal
By Dale Rankin
So long Bruce
We want to bid a fond farewell to our old friend and former Moon columnist Bruce Loeffler who passed away recently. Bruce was one of Mike’s original Moon writers under the title of Thoughts While Sunburning. Bruce had a lot of time to think, being a rather fair-skinned fellow from Minnesota who could get
This is not to disparage the county as by Tuesday afternoon the county beach was clean, it is to make the point that while the city gets a nice slice of the Hotel Occupancy Tax to clean beaches the county does not. We are told that Precinct 4 City Councilwoman Colleen McIntyre and Precinct 4 Nueces County Commissioner Brent Chesney are working on an interlocal agreement that would turn garbage collection, but not beach maintenance, on both city and county beaches over to the city.
Around continued on A3
Garbage continued on A4
There is an argument to be made that the tourist season on The Island doesn’t really kick in until the school year ends. As the tourists begin to arrive there is the annual question of where is the best place for “treasure hunters,” that is people with metal detectors, to look for fabled coins of the Spanish Realm. The chances of find a doubloon hereabouts is about as likely as sighting a white whale. But nevertheless there are those among us who like to try anyway. So for those “glass half full” folks here is tale of Spanish Treasure that is sure to your earphones pinging. The most important thing to remember is that metal detectors are not allowed on Padre Island National Seashore, and they mean it.
Mexican Gold The year was 1853 and the Spaniards had mining gold in Mexico down. Chest after chest filled with gold coins were loaded from the white stone docks at
Veracruz into the galleons waiting at the moorings. Gold and silver bars by the hundreds were piled high under the guard of Spanish soldiers. Then it was provisions by the ton food to feed a thousand passengers along with crews and soldiers who would be returning home on the ships. Crates of live chickens, rows of overturned turtles with legs akimbo, jugs of wine and boxes of vegetables were on board for the 100 day journey
on the floating treasure houses. Each of the treasure ships sailed like an overloaded houseboat carrying enough treasure to send a Dutch or English seadog into permanent retirement. There was little worry of highjacking as it was past the prime years of pirating on the Spanish Main. The return voyage home was a joyous one filled with days of
History continued on A5