Category: Alabama Coast

Prehistoric Paddling Pals

Prehistoric Paddling Pals

By |

I don’t know why my newest paddling companions are gars. Lots of them. Every time I take my SUP board on the river I find gars surface near my board, grab a mouthful of air and quickly sink back to the dark depths of the water. I’m left going something like…”That was close,” or “GOOD MORNING!” I’m not scared of them but they often surprise me when I’m focused on my workout.

As the National Geographic photograph shows, these creatures have elongated jaws and LOTS of needle-sharp teeth. Some species can grow to lengths of over 10 feet. (gulp). My board is 12.6 feet long. And while I’m not scared of gars, I really have no desire to meet a 10 foot long fish with sharp teeth at 7am on the river. It just seems….unnecessary. Right?

While these fish can be intimidating, they really are quite amazing. They are largely unchanged over the past 100 million years and are often called living fossils. Their scales are so thick Native Americans fabricated arrowheads from them. They usually live in freshwater environments but can also live in brackish water.

While they have startled me when I’m lost in my paddle groove, I have come to look forward to encounters with them. They look at me or my board as they gulp air and then are gone. One day I met one of the biggest ones I’ve seen. He or she was probably five feet in length. Her scales were massive and she was laying on the surface of the water. The big fish didn’t hear me approach but when she saw me and/or my board, she was gone…POOF! I didn’t have any desire to become close personal friends but it was great seeing such an awesome fish.

Each morning I look for the osprey that are nesting along the shore. Today they were fishing, flying down the center of the river looking for breakfast. I saw the mallards and a kingbird. A brown pelican flew alongside for a while. I also look for gars and I didn’t see any during the first 2 miles this morning and I was disappointed. But luckily for me I saw two on the way back and they thrilled me with very close encounters.

Maybe I feel a little like a fossil trying to race my SUP board with kids in their 20’s. Being in the ‘over 50’ group I feel at a disadvantage physically. I have more limitations than my younger cohorts. However, what I lack in physical prowess I make up for in my mature outlook….”OH PLEASE LET ME FINISH AND PLEASE DON’T LET ME BE LAST!”

I’m getting stronger with my regular SUP workout and I am making new friends each day I spend on the river. To all my gar friends–thanks for saying hello and thanks for keeping your needle-sharp teeth off of my board! I’ll see you in the morning.

What’s Down is Up….or What My Mind Thinks of When SUP Boarding

What’s Down is Up….or What My Mind Thinks of When SUP Boarding

By |

I gaze down into clouds, puffy and white, against a grayish blue sky. As I glide along, a rope stretches from the surface into the depths and I wonder if I climb down where I would find myself when I got to the end.

Suddenly a splash interrupts my reverie and the water’s surface ripples, disrupting the illusion, causing me to come back from Wonderful-Land and concentrate once again on my strokes. Yet inevitably, as the water returns to its mirror-like surface, my mind begins to dream of ways to access the world being reflected from above.

I think of this physical reality, this world of apparent solids and masses, as a mere reflection of what’s on the other side of this this realm. There’s so much more to life than what we see with our physical eyes….

I give my mind freedom to imagine, contemplate, go wherever it wants to go while I’m paddling. If it dreams of watery worlds that lay beyond the surface or enjoys the sensation of flying on watery clouds it’s fine with me. Alice had nothing on my mind’s ability to journey to wild places.

Imagine fish swimming in clouds and turtles sunning themselves upside-down. We create whatever world we wish….think about that. What would you create if given a blank canvas? What’s stopping you?

If you haven’t read my books or viewed my photos I invite you to visit my website and explore…enjoy. Turtle Island Adventures is where you’ll find all sorts of fun.

Frog Chorus Sings Back-Up to Chuck-Will’s Widow

Frog Chorus Sings Back-Up to Chuck-Will’s Widow

By |

I had just finished cleaning up dinner dishes and decided to sit on my porch–the screened porch that has become my favorite room in my new home. I eat there, drink my morning coffee there, contemplate nature, check email, visit Facebook….play with my cat friend Stanley there. I find this place–nestled off of a quaint, lush courtyard centered around a massive live oak tree–to be a most amenable place in which to live, move and have my being.

So….I was sitting in the darkening light of dusk listening to a little wren’s bubbling trills and rattles as she busily finished her tasks of the day. Down toward the river a low, nasal humming began–frog chorus. It started and stopped a few times and as the wren finished her last-minute details, the frogs began again and continued with a most pleasing musical rendition of “Light is Leaving, Leaving, Leaving.”

Suddenly, a chuck-will’s-widow began whistling and with that outburst of song, nighttime officially arrived.

Passion to Proceed

Passion to Proceed

By |

I am sitting at the counter at my mom’s kitchen gazing out at Mobile Bay. Just a pause before writing.

I’m presenting a program at Gulf Shores Library tomorrow morning and was reviewing my A/V presentations to see which one I’ll use. In reviewing my library of programs one I put together showing the worst part of the oil spill at the Gulf Shores, Alabama area caught my attention. Tears poured down my face as I watched and recalled vividly the heartbreak experienced by so many of us that love this area. And then I felt a surge of passion and love for the Gulf Coast that caused a transcendent moment to spontaneously occur within me. It provided an amazing moment of clarity that sealed the deal, so to speak, for my move back to the Gulf Coast.

Over a decade ago I felt called to return to the Gulf Coast to work but as I stood on the shore with warm, salty waters lapping over my toes, I heard in my mind…’Not yet…but you will know when to return.’

When the oil spill first happened and very often for 18 months, I made the trip from Asheville, NC to coastal Alabama to document…to WITNESS what what happening here. I felt the call to return but I didn’t expect to move back. Little-by-little, however, I felt that this was the big leap needed to fulfill a promise I made to the Gulf those many years ago.

A few months ago I put my mountain home ‘on the market’ and waited. Within these past two weeks everything has begun to come together. Two incredible people have connected with “The Cathedral of Trees” and immediately understood the power of the home and land I have been blessed to call home for over five years. They decided to become the new owners of this special place. And just yesterday, I finalized a contract on a nice cottage home near the Magnolia River that will nurture me and my work as I leap back to the headwaters of my life. The place of my birth.

With every major change in life there comes anxiety and fear and those emotions were doing their best to rattle me. But when I reconnected with the immense love and passion I have for the earth, specifically this area of amazing beauty…my coastal Alabama home…all doubt was erased and the anxiety and fear begin to diminish.

I have dedicated my life to help our beautiful water planet. How thrilled I am to feel doors opening so that I can continue my work here, in this sacred place. There’s a song that has been my theme for this next stage of my life as it unfolds…Homeward Bound….”Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.” My heart is very, very full and I am so grateful.

In Ways I Can’t Explain*

In Ways I Can’t Explain*

By |

A few years ago I stood on this hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and felt my bones vibrate with resonance of the land. For the first time in my life, I felt I belonged in a way I’ve never belonged to any other place on the planet. I was in Devon, England.

Later that week, a beautiful elder of the area told me the Lipscomb’s (Lypscombe) were from Devon. When I returned home I looked up a family history cousins had compiled and found that Ambrose Lypscombe was from the Devonshire line and lived in Silverton, England. He was born in 1610. His son, Ambrose I, arrived in Virginia around 1668 (called New Kent County). And the lineage progressed forward through the years as my ancestors found their way to the Alabama coast.

As I prepare to move away from the mountain that overlooks this beautiful valley, I have reconnected with my intense love of the land here. As I was approaching this area on my morning walk a few days ago, a new song I had downloaded started playing on my iPhone and suddenly everything made sense. David Wilcox sings about wanting to go to Ireland and his lyric made me stop and breathe in the significance, *”My heart is here in ways I can’t explain.”

I have pondered the deep connection I have to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alabama Coast. I love both places dearly and completely. I feel torn with my love of the sea and my love of the mountains.

When I thought back to my visit to Devon and Cornwall I realized that the ancestral link I have to the coast of western England is strong in my blood, in my DNA. The seashore of Alabama I love so well and the mountains of North Carolina are two similar aspects of a very significant place where my dad’s family originated. With the Wilcox song, everything clicked and I had a rather large ah-ha moment.

Understanding a bit more of my heritage gives me insight into my path now, specifically about the move south. I spent my entire childhood, teenage and young adult years wanting to get ‘back’ to the mountains. After finally moving ‘back’ I met people that provided assistance as I developed important tools for my life’s work. It was as if we arranged, before birth, to meet up on this mountain and catalyze ideas and skills. And now, I am better prepared to move forward with contributions I came to make.

The chances of me moving to England to live are rather slim; however, the inspiration it provides and the fire of love for the sea and mountains create within me the devotion necessary to commit fully to this Path I have chosen to walk.

We all make choices about how to invest our energy and talents. As I move forward in this life’s journey, my intention is to utilize the skills I have to help create positive change for life on this beautiful, water planet. I embrace the gifts the mountains and friends here have supported and helped cultivate within me and with gratitude take the leap back to the sea. I allow the ocean of life to carry me.

Lyrics from David Wilcox Ireland and Let the Wave Say:

I’ll speak the words of poets gone: my music’s ancestry
We’ll hear the voice of Ireland in the wind beside the sea
In waves of music far as I can see
The voice of every poet singing free:
Singing bring your orphan children home–to me
(from Ireland)

And the high blue wall can break you
You can never fight the sea
You just learn to let it take you
To the place you want to be (from Let the Wave Say)

I am ready to ride the wave back home. (Thanks David for the music…and wisdom!)

© Simone Lipscomb 2024