Estuary Boy

Had a gorgeous weekend at Dog Island but didn't get as much hiking in as I wanted to, due to a pesky foot injury. But I still managed to visit my favorite tidal estuary on the bay side for a little communing with the fishies. The doomed pine has met its doom, but the rest of the area looks healthy and is resplendent in fall colors.

Adding a layer of meaning to this visit were my recent studies in the Marine Environmental Issues course I'm taking this term. While I've long known much of the mechanics of barrier island movement and beach dynamics, it's always nice to learn more. For example, barrier islands are a feature of "trailing edge margins" -- the lee side of a drifting continent. That's why there are none off the west coast of the Americas.

Something new. Always a treat.

There was some rather alarming erosion on the Gulf side of the island that may have more ephemeral causes but still reminds one that the island itself is fleeting, tumbling shoreward ahead of rising seas like a ship desperately seeking port. Plentiful stumps offshore testify to where the island used to be, if we didn't have the evidence of the Co-op's own history as well.

Which just makes this scenery all the more breathtaking. See more photos.

It Makes 98F Feel Good

Spent Saturday with Lindsay and some of her friends paddling the Santa Fe River (I highly recommend Lars Andersen's Adventure Outpost livery, in lovely new digs on the south side of High Springs). The water has been exceptionally low, which emphasizes the color in many of the springs along the route and actually creates mini-rapids at three points on the run between US27 and FL47.

According to Joe Follman, there are over 30 1st- or 2nd-magnitude springs on the route, and that doesn't count unusual features like Big Awesome Suck, a spooky siphon I saw for the first time this trip.

I can't believe it's been several years since I made this trip. It's gorgeous, even with the crowds at Ginnie Springs. We're very lucky to have so many exceptional aquatic places & spaces within an easy day trip of home.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings."

"Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

John Muir, 1838-1914

View more images from my first trip to Colorado.

Down aroun' Biloxi

Heard from my best grad-school buddy, Terrie, whose Loozian'yan and Pensacola roots nicely bracket my own Creole / Redneck-Riviera flavorings (from my days in Mobile during the Johnson-Nixon years, when I was 9-14). Anyway, Terrie reports an upcoming road trip to see her idol Jesse Winchester in Baton Rouge, which put me in mind of his song "Biloxi". Jimmy Buffett's cover really captures the feeling I remember from trips there around the Hurricane Camille era.

I once played the song -- a command performance -- to a bunch of drunk waterfront deadbeats who saw me unloading my guitar from my VW bus at the redneck marina where we often debark for Dog Island. Across the boat ramp I hear "Hey, you play that thing? Come on play us a song!" with a slight air of menace, as if I'd better damn well come over and play something for them if I had *any* balls, and that song was what came to mind as I strolled up to their rickety beer-strewn picnic table behind the bait shop.

I made one of 'em cry.

Spring has Sprung

...actually, it's barely winter, but time for Spring term to start. Teaching my first online class (and my first Comm class in too many years) and taking two: Qualitative Methods and Environmental Communication. Laura is settling into her apartment and we're prepping the guest room as an office so I don't have to leave textbooks all over the coffee table.