Five Days

Five days. That's it. Kids came on Monday morning and left on Friday morning. Five quick days in and out of the Everglades.

It was a really interesting feeling waking up on Monday morning feeling rested and ready to go. My usual stomach-churning stress levels were not present, instead I just felt ready to paddle over to Everglades National Park, get my kiddos and start this thing.

They were a quiet group of 8th graders from Savannah, but they were so interested in nature and super smart when it came to technical skills, especially navigation. Some of my favorite moments from the week were learning new bits of history and philosophy from my co-instructor John, in between his infamous puns and jokes. We definitely had a night when we were sitting on the beach and I had to shush one of the kids because I wanted to hear what John was saying about constellations as he pointed them out with his mega light pointer thing.

Pictures from the week:

Night before course start

This is our resident hawk on the island. He spent about 30 minutes trying to dig something up out of the ground and we watched and laughed as he got all huffy and shook his tail feathers. Finally he pulled it out. It was just a grub. So much for being a fierce bird of prey.

Day 1, pulling our way through the lockbox trail. It was pretty cool to have mangroves on one side and prairie on the other, I hadn't experienced that before.

This is a big reason why I want to get my fishing license. These things are delicious. And I love the blue shell and legs. I've recently been talking a lot with people about how awesome the wildlife is down here, how most of what we see every day in the field is found in zoos and aquariums elsewhere.

Holding the sail, with zinc oxide on my face.

John Wood, ladies and gentlemen

Sunset navigation

Life on the boards

I woke up on the morning of day three to the very distinct sound of gulf waters licking the shore. The sound takes me back to Highland Beach, and it sounds like thousands of crystals being sifted onto shore. It's very cool.

Eric

Before I get to this next section, let me say that one of the shots I wanted to get from this trip was the moment of impact when a pelican dive-bombs into the water. Lately, mother nature has been giving me what I wanted when it comes to photography (I distinctly remember asking for jumping dolphins one day last October). Once again, she didn't let me down.

This next set of four pictures are a progression:

And then some randoms:

Upon our arrival back to base after course end, we were surprised to see a plane parked out front. That's right, a plane. Right before we got into cleaning up the yard, it took off again, just behind the Green 33.