Sunset Island Lives Up to Its Name

At morning meeting this morning, Trish read the weather:

"Tuesday: High 82, Low 62. Wednesday: High 82, Low 63. Thursday: High 82, Low 62. We're in a pretty consistent weather pattern here."

Yes indeed, we are heading into the summer season here in Southern Florida. It was a shock later in the day when I looked at my watch and realized it was still January.

I recently became a Florida resident when I realized that I technically was not a clear resident of any state. My driver's license was from Washington, but I my car insurance was based out of Oregon, I was renting a home in Florida, it was all very disjointed. Last week I made it official.

And after some wonderful quality time at home with my wonderful roommates, I was on the road again for Sunset Island to do some support work.

I feel pretty lucky to go from one home near the beach to another just close enough to the Everglades that I could spit into it. It's quiet here since all 8 crews went in the field yesterday, and I'm sleeping better than I have in weeks. Today we had a beautiful afternoon rainshower that distracted me from my evening run to take some shots.

Ripple effects on the water outside the sinker

The C'est La Vie in the rain

Rain falling outside the sinker

Paddling toward the mainland from base. I've never seen a double rainbow that starts and ends at the same point.

Stormy skies

Base from the mainland

Obligatory pelican photo

The C'est La Vie

Life's pretty great on the island. For the first time in my career, I'm doing support work, which means I work hard all day and get to call it quits at 5:00 p.m. It's amazing. I had forgotten what it felt like to have free evenings. I head into the field next week and then up to Boston, so the adventures, as always, continue...

The North End

2012 got off to a great start last week. I drove down the state of Florida on New Years Day to arrive at the beautiful Sunset Island Base in Everglades City. I came down for Florida Staff training with the North Carolina Outward Bound School. New base, new people, new course area, new year. Lots of things to be thankful for.

The base itself is awesome. It is situated just outside the Everglades National Park Boundary on the North End. It has a main lodge and various other buildings for staff housing and logistical storage space. I'm pretty excited about living in the house below:

It's built on a dock, which means I wake up most mornings to the sounds of dolphins passing by in the channel just outside my window. And the occasional oyster boat heading out in the early hours.

View of the lodge from the dock

Oysters

Fleet of Grumman Canoes

On January 3rd, we headed out to the Ten Thousand Island Course Area. For those of you following along with a map, we put in at the East River, just outside the park boundary, paddled down through the islands to Turkey Key, and then followed the Wilderness waterway on the interior back to the Everglades City area. Click on the image below to see the course area in better detail.

Canoes Pre-Launch

An alligator trying to warm up on the bank

Trish, one of the trainers

I immediately jumped on the opportunity to take this picture, because I want to prove a point to all the nay-sayers out there. I get a lot of crap from people when I comment about being cold in Florida. It gets really cold here. Like bone-crushing cold. Out in the Everglades especially, you have no protection from the elements and the humidity hangs around, even when it drops to 28 degrees, like it did on the first night we were out there. Here is Lark's dry bag. Imagine that frost on all of us. We were covered in it when we woke up that morning. But I also love this picture because of the way the water looks.

Camp Lulu Key on night two. It was still cold. Two pairs of thermals, fleece, and a puffy coat kept me warm though.

Dave putting his gear away at Camp Lulu the next morning

A lone mangrove on the way out to the non-existant Duck Rock

White Pelicans and Cormorants hanging out on what's left of Duck Rock. I was really excited because I love Pelicans, but I haven't seen white ones before. Fun fact: Brown Pelicans rest in trees, White Pelicans rest on sand bars. Also, the Cormorants can dive up to 100 feet in water.

As always, there's going to be a lot of bird pictures in this blog

Red Mangroves on the way to Turkey Key. One thing I learned on this training was that the Calusa Indians used these roots as weapons. They would break the hanging root off the tree and swing the barnacle end at their enemies. Hence the name 'Calusa Club' was born. They were clearly not messing around.

Brown Pelican grooming

Horseshoe crabshell. This thing was about the size of both my feet put together

Stretch circle on Turkey Key

View out of the tent at Pavilion Key. I love waking up to this.

Osprey on Turkey Key

Osprey

Paddles on Turkey Key

Barnacles

Low Tide

Lower Tide

Dolphin up near Chatham River

Blue Crab claw during the navigation brief for Final Expedition

Just after the sun went down in Crooked Creek

Pelican near base

Taking Flight

It was so exciting to see a different part of the Everglades and continue my education in human history and nature of the area. It was a great group of people to hang out with for the week. Now I'm back in a different North End, the North End of Amelia Island. I have about ten days before I need to be back for work at Sunset Island. Enough time for plenty of reading, relaxing, re-certifying for WFR, and getting ready for work. Life is good. 2012 is looking pretty spectacular from this angle.