TEXAS COAST AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

High resolution digital copies of many of these photographs are available for sale. You may purchase a digital photo in the highest resolution that I have for $25.00 for personal use or for use in your presentations.  The charge will be $150 for use in publications or for commercial reproduction.  Contact me  to purchase photos.  These photographs are copyrighted and are the property of Richard L. Watson.  They may not be copied or used without permission.  You may however link to this website from your website or by email.  

These photographs are copyrighted and are the property of Richard L. Watson.  They may not be copied or used without permission.  You may however link to this website from your website or by email. 

If you would like to make a donation to help support the expense of providing these photos of the Texas Coast, please click on the Paypal button below.

Read the following report for much more information about the entire coast.

Coastal Law and the Geology of a Changing Shoreline, March 2006, updated to include section on poor beach and dune management practices


A Packery Channel and Beach Closing Blog.

http://packery.blogspot.com/

Click here to see a Packery Channel Monitoring update presented to the City of Corpus Christi in April 2010.

The report was prepared by Diedre D. Williams of TAMUCC (Note: this is a pdf file of over 3mb)



Packery Channel December 9, 2010

Packery channel is breaking on the bar in the entrance even though the surf is not very high.



Packery Channel December 9, 2010


Packery Channel December 9, 2010



Packery Channel December 9, 2010

Packery channel is breaking on the bar in the entrance even though the surf is not very high.

Packery Channel September 23, 2010

Recently, the Corpus Christi Caller times, in the sport section advised that there was a shallow bar at the entrance to Packery Channel.  Here are some photos of that bar breaking dangerously, even though the surf is not particularly heavy along the shoreline.  The bar is intermittently breaking across the entire width of the entrance, with the worst wave action on the north side.



Packery Channel September 23, 2010


Packery Channel September 23, 2010


Packery Channel September 9, 2010

Packery Channel a few days after tropical storm Hermine.  The entrance is breaking heavily.

Packery Channel September 9, 2010


Packery Channel September 9, 2010


Packery Channel September 9, 2010




Packery Channel September 9, 2010


Packery Channel May 11, 2010

 

Packery Channel May 11, 2010



Packery Channel May 11, 2010




Packery Channel and Seawall February 24, 2010

The rectangular lake in front of the seawall is the dredge material disposal basin where sand from in front of the Packery Channel launching ramp was deposited.  The total amount dredged was supposed to be about 20,000 cubic yards for a total cost of about $400,000.  This works out to $20 per cubic yard of sand.  Many people thought that this would significantly widen the beach in front of the seawall.  However, 20,000 cubic yards is only deposit one yard deep and 100 ft by 200 feet.  Not much at all.   If the pass had been placed immediately adjacent to the north end of the sea wall the large fillet of sand accumulated south of the south jetty would be in front of the seawall, rather than well north of it.  This would have helped keep an excellent beach in front of most of the seawall at no cost as that fillet continued to accrete.


Packery Channel and Seawall February 24, 2010

Here, you can see that the newly deposited sand made almost no noticable increase in the amount of sand in front of the seawall nor seaward accretion to the shoreline.



Packery Channel and Seawall February 24, 2010

Again, you can see only a tiny seaward advance of the shoreline and the nearshore bars at the south end of the disposal area, just south of the pond on the beach.  The beach north of the north jetty is being manicured by a grader.  It would make a lot more sense to leave that wide beach alone so that it can begin to be populated with new stabilizing vegetation.  Continued scraping will prevent growth of vegetation and will, in turn, prevent growth of coppice dunes on the backshore.  John Adams noticed that there is very little re-vegetation of the dunes destroyed in front of the Tortuga Dunes development between the road and the walkway in the photo below.  In fact, it looks like some of the sand from the foredune ridge is now blowing inland.   Perhaps the developer should be required to make another attempt at revegetating the dunes destroyed in this project.


Packery channel panorama of 14 photographs 1/11/2010.  Note that the merging of the photographs is not perfect and small shoreline irregularities are probably not real.



Packery Channel basin and launching area 1/11/2010.  Note sand bars.




Packery Channel and seawall beach 1/11/2010




Packery Channel 1/11/2010




Packery Channel 1/11/2010


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