UPDATE: (January 31, 4:45 p.m.) The missing bollard buddies have been returned, according to a Facebook post made by Yarn Bombing & Bollard Buddies in Port A.
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Bollard buddies are a unique Coastal Bend trademark found only in Port Aransas.
Diana Vondra got the idea about them while traveling in Europe and wanted to do something similar when she got back home. She fastidiously crochets the bollard buddies to provide some colorful decorations to her home area.
On Friday, she reported on Facebook that 10 of them had been stolen.
"I guess my worst fear is that they end up in somebody's garbage," Vondra said. "And I worked awful hard and there's a lot of money invested in some of these things. It hurts to see it just taken."
Community members, such as Bobbie Lanning, are upset about the theft and are hopeful they eventually will be returned.
"I don’t think it’s locals because we all love and appreciate it." Lanning said. "I know winter Texans love and appreciate it."
"It's somebody who is just disrespectful to our beach, to our community, who probably has no connection to Port A.," she said.
Vondra says the ones that went missing were some of her most intricate buddies. Zip ties were cut off in order to remove them from the bollards.
Over the past several days anonymous yarn bombers have been bringing new bollard decor to the beach, in an effort to replace the ones that were taken.
But Vondra still hopes her creations will be returned.
"Maybe there's hope that somebody would still return them but . . . we'll just keep making new ones." Vondra said.
