Keeping Up With The Joneses Part 4
Tuesday, 27th March 2007 by James Turnbull
Welcome to the fourth in our irregular series "Keeping Up With The Joneses", where we feature communities around the globe who are trying to to get one-up on their neighbours.
The requirement for social acceptance in this South Texan town is not (as in previous episodes) Tennis courts, Aircraft or Trampolines but instead your own personal pier.
Luckily for those who want to live in the area, but can't afford their own sailboat, it would appear that having something to park at your personal pier is not a requirement; of all the 45 piers in the neighbourhood nobody's moored so much as a rowboat!
Thanks: John
Explanation #1: They are for fishing, not for boats. Explanation #2: These are vacation homes and you only dock your boat when using the house…
Having grown up on the ICW, I can tell you the length of the dock has little to do with the need to keep up with the neighbors so much as to get out where the water is deep enough for a boat of a reasonable size. About half of these docks have a covered area which could easily contain the owner’s boat (likely on a lift for ease of cleaning and to protect it from other boats’ wake). I would wager that many of those boaters are out in the water, thus leaving their docks empty and lonesome.
Maybe they were once for fishing, but they are clearly now waterfront property amenities.
http://www.seawatchrealty.net/
Some of these listings have photos of their (and neighbors’) piers:
http://www.seawatchrealty.net/listing126.htm
I suspect those are all boat houses at the ends of the piers, with lifts to take the boats out of the water. All you’re seeing is the roof.
Maybe they have all gone out for the day on the water 😉
These are in fact covered shelters. Take a look at these in Lake Tahoe.
View Placemark And here’s a closer look at one that’s for rent. The picture shows the dock and shelter very well.
http://www.vrbo.com/117950
I like that there’s two houses about two-thirds of the way down that have decided to share a pier, but it still splits at the end so they can both dock there. Now that’s efficient.
Laguna Madre (this is at Port Mansfield) averages 1m deep…sailing has never been as big down there (but flyfishing the flats is!). Also, Paul is right, you have to have a very long pier to get to a depth suitable even for power boats.
my friend owns the 4 house/pier from the top. The top pier is a county park. The reason for the long piers is to get out to “drop off”. The water is very shallow approximately 2-6 inches from shore to end of pier where it goes maybe 2 feet or so. Good fishing for red fish and speckled trout, especially at night.