St. Marks on a cold windy day.

                                                         December 28, 2012

    A nice aspect of living in Tallahassee is the close proximity of the beautiful St. Marks Wildlife Refuge. St. Marks lies along the coast from the Aucilla River west to the Ochlockonee River, over thirty miles of coastal marsh and inland habitats. The road to the historic lighthouse winds between freshwater and brackish ponds on both sides which are managed for overwintering waterfowl and thus it’s common to see clusters of birders gathered in the cooler months spotting for shorebirds and ducks, hoping to see something special, a bird species out of it’s normal range especially.
   This winter the buzz is all about Razorbills and Scoters. These are two species our family saw on a trip to Novia Scotia two years ago on an outing to see Puffins. These are high latitude ocean going birds that nest in rock outcroppings and resemble penguins, except for the flight ready wings. What explains their presence in Florida? Food resource patterns, Hurricane Sandy? Who knows.
   On arrival it pays to check the wildlife viewing log located at the visitor center looking for entires by Don Morrow and Jim Cox specifically, two accomplished area birders that visit the refuge often, and there by Don’s name the two birds were listed. Rick, Mom and I stopped by the Mounds pool and were treated to the site of hundreds of Redheads (ducks) and Lesser Scaups. A few folk were banging away with enormous telephoto lenses aimed mostly at the Gators nearby on the bank, but one family with a son around the age of eight or nine was watching the reeds close by with binocs and an open birding book.

Sora

   I was watching them too while flipping through our bird book trying to identify a smallish shorebird with long legs and a short raised tail which it flicked from time to time. “It’s a Sora!” The boy cried, so I searched the guide and there it was. Here was a birding prodigy in the making. I watched the boy move up and down the lake side book in hand with great enthusiasm calling out species while the parents quietly took photos with a small pocket camera. Another bird we couldn’t decide on he helped us with as well, an American Bittern. These are two species while perhaps unremarkable in other parts of the country are notable to see here.  Both birds we would have miss attributed had it not been for that boy. I wonder if they brought him to St. Marks as a treat, being from Cairo Ga., which is about two hours form the coast considering traffic. Finally whatever order governs large groups of ducks must have asserted itself because at some point the multitude gathered and formed a T with the foot setting off towards the far bank in a perfect line while those at the top waited in the queue!

    The razor bills turned out to be a miss. People were meandering around and I could hear folks asking after them but the consensus seemed to be they’d moved off. Still, the Lighthouse Pool was stuffed with waterfowl, mostly American Coot, but mixed in there were Buffleheads and an American Widgeon. Good fun page turning in a field guide for folks who only get to see these winter vacationers once or twice a year.

You're building a sailboat?

 Welcome to Coffee on the Rail, a place to talk a little sailing, boat building, and celebrate the beauty and nature of Florida’s Big Bend coastal waters with folks who like that kind of thing, as well close friends and a fairly significant other who prefer to stay on dry land.

“You’re building a sailboat?”

   Tracey exhibited a general surprise when I started this boat building affair; surprise, wariness....a vague disapproval. My response was to remind her that since our earliest courtship I’d asked for C-clamps at every gift occasion; C-clamps for a boat. That’s why those gift baskets weighed so much. I knew nothing about boat building but I had a sense from the very beginning that it required clamps, many many clamps.
   Since our windblown days canoeing on the bays and inlets of Everglades National Park fighting the wind or often letting it flow past us un-utilized I’d longed to throw out a scrap of something to help move us along ( I never fit the profile a power-boater). Once I even fashioned our rainfly into a V with two tent poles for Tracey to hold, but alas, the front blew itself out the next day, thus surely sparing my tent poles the fate of becoming a bundle of graphite fibers. In another creative exploration I salvaged the top of a ocean going sail and lashed it to a mast on our canoe. It worked after much labor and thought, but it never looked defensible.
   When finally the time came to look at sail boat designs a path was well paved by my friend and boss Jody Walthall. Which brings me to my main point of rumination. Insanity isn’t the right word....slow burning obsession doesn’t hit it either, this is more cerebral....it’s what happens to the brain as it circles a boat design. I saw this quote in Wooden Boat Magazine:

“The desire to build a boat develops like a cloud on your horizon, then it grows and grows, till it fills the entire sky, and you can think of nothing else.”

   Jody went through his version of this a decade or so ago. One day my co-worker Drew caught my attention and gestured toward Jody who was discussing landscaping with a customer. “Check it out. He’s thinking about sailboats.” We both watched him for a moment, and yes, somehow, while in a conversation regarding plant placement, there was a boat in there somewhere...whether it was being sailed or worked on I can’t say, but Drew posited this possible internal dialog between Jody and his brain which I’ll paraphrase:
                                    
                                     Brain: Is this woman a boat?
                                     Jody: No, it’s a woman.
                                     Brain: Are you discussing boats with her?
                                     Jody: No..... just her landscape.
                                     Brain: Fine, knock yourself out.
                                     I’’m gonna go stand over here and mess with this downhaul rig.

   Of course I have great respect for Jody and normally I wouldn’t presume what’s going on in his or anyone else’s head, and further I’m not suggesting that Jody wasn’t present for occupation and family. I’m sure his thoughts were proper and present, I just think those thoughts were shaped like a boat.
Boat Brain I don’t like so much, I’ll go with Boat Shaped Thoughts, or BST.
My own BST took on a very virulent form, as I’m already prone to flights of romanticism, and having no other craft to jump in and mess around with as a release valve didn’t help.  My only boat was a half built skeleton on a table in our garage. I had four fears of construction to gouge a deep groove of this mental condition, and it became wrapped up in the narrative surrounding by boat’s design and lineage, which I’ll explore in later non sequential posts.

   Anyway, I launched my boat named Tramontana five years ago, and in that time my BST has changed and deepened in ways while mercifully lessening in others. Events have their effect. So as to not make a big deal about how to end this first blog post I think I should just welcome you Coffee on the Rail, and wrap it up. My writing is about as good as my carpentry, it’s okay at a distance, hidden by epoxy and paint. Hope you enjoy the water colors, I’m using my old kit my parents bought me in high school, yes....new tubes of paint. I also discovered colored inks, which move around and lay a little differently than water colors, they’re a bit more opaque and solid. I hope my paper art keeps pace with my sailing arts, as I’m on my own with the former. In regard to the latter I have helpful voices over the radio happy to explain that the reason I’m not going as fast as I could go is because of the particular set of my sails, and if I was able to set them to the correct angle I might find my progress aided considerably. 
And not only that.......oh yeah, I meant to wrap this up.

So from the Weather rail, here’s to you! Oh and, Happy New Year!