NST 87

 I'm back from the field, having just hung out on the Delta with the Illustrious "Mostly A Team" (Amy, Alaine, Amanda, Andrew, Aaron, Dave, Marisa, Steven, and Zach) for the last couple weeks. I've been told that the Outward Bound gods give you the exact weather you need for your course, which was entirely true in this case. Right off the bat we suffered through a lightning drill on the sandbar, followed by a rainy 12 hours of our lives (not unlike my ENTIRE New Staff Training). After we made sure the participants knew how to put on their banana suits and sit on gear bags and ensolite mats, the skies cleared up and the raingear stayed stowed for the rest of the trip. Warm days, cool nights, more fireflies than I've ever seen, behavior sims, lessons, teamy teamness...oh my. Talk about a wonderful way to spend most of May.

Boston and Busack. Representing oh so many things here. My co-trainer, Katie and I both served as team leaders in AmeriCorps and would often joke that we were "getting things done" for Kurt Hahn and Outward Bound.

Trying to figure out how on earth to get the whole team from point A to point B with nothing to protect them from the lava but magic glasses.

Figuring it out

I emerged the morning after the rainy night, from our tiny, tiny trainer tent...and it was one of those mornings that I'm just so grateful for this job and life.

Marisa reaching for main.

Aaron checking out the chart. Just kidding. The map.

My favorite stretch of the river, past all the houseboats. This one, however, is looking a little worse for the wear.

Awesome tree in Hastie Lake.

Heading for the Lizards.

The last 10%, coming in at 7:03 a.m. Once again, my co-instructor and I placed a friendly wager as to the arrival time of the team, and once again my guess was off by mere minutes. Katie hit it right on the mark. 

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.

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.