Category: Weeks Bay

Pelicans Up-River

Pelicans Up-River

By |

pelicanWhile we don’t have dramatic seasonal changes in coastal Alabama, if a person pays attention there are definite shifts that result from changing weather patterns. I notice these while paddling my SUP board on the Magnolia River.

When cooler nights and days became the norm and the winds shifted, pelicans moved up-river. They hang out on boat house roofs, on channel markers, piers and they have quickly learned that people = food. I’ve seen them begging fish from local residents who clean fish on their docks. This morning I saw several gathering around a pier where guys were sitting and visiting on their dock.

Another seasonal change is that the river water is clearer and quite a bit shallower as the north winds push water out of Weeks and Mobile Bays. Magnolia River, being a tidal river, flows outward and offers a challenge for me at low tide during this time of year as I paddle through large, submerged rocks.

Cormorants are constant companions as they dive for fish and do their running take-off on the water’s surface–winter visitors who fly south for a few months of warmer weather before returning to cooler climates to raise young.

No, there’s no snow and we haven’t had temperatures below freezing yet but the pelicans up-river are a sure sign winter is here.

Land-Locked No More!

Land-Locked No More!

By |

Awakening in the black of pre-dawn, I stood up and immediately missed the gentle rocking of the ocean. Sitting at my desk under the open windows beside the oak tree, birds singing to me, the entire house rocked me gently all day as I processed images and video. Or at least that’s what it felt like after a week on a boat.

During the many years I spent as a land-locked diver, I would always have a deep sadness at leaving the ocean and returning to the mountains. I love the mountains but the sea remains my constant, the core of who I am. And now, after dive trips, I find myself heading back to a coast and the joy is unmistakable. And the gratitude bubbles up in waves of heart-felt love for my beautiful home and the live oaks it’s nestled under….and the Magnolia River and the bays and the Gulf of Mexico–all a part of this life I inhabit.

The sights and smells of the rivers, bays and open water of the Gulf keep me grounded in pure ecstasy and appreciation for my wonderful home….yes, the outer home but mostly this inner home of beauty I discover as I open my heart and mind to beauty, to light….to unconditional love. I am free and the coast of Alabama mirrors this freedom to me, mentors my expanding efforts to bring all of who I am to this life.

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.

Parting the Veil–Thoughts from New Year’s Eve

Parting the Veil–Thoughts from New Year’s Eve

By |

As I paddled through thick, gray-white mist across the mouth of Weeks Bay, the silence was broken by a loon that surfaced nearby. The haunting cry bounced off the wall of fog and wrapped around me like a voice from another realm.

I felt peaceful and quiet, encapsulated by a small radius of open water as I glided through the new year’s eve morning. No sun, no warmth, the only comfort was the shroud of containment hugging me, coating my eyelashes with tiny water droplets.

Up the west side of the bay I traveled–the mostly undeveloped side where natural marsh grasses grow in sandy soil right to the water’s edge. No bulkheads disturbing the natural flow of the tides, wildlife or sand migration. Every paddle stroke yielded sounds magnified by the dense fog….droplets of water sliding off the blade, returning with a plop into the bay from which they came; the wake of water curling off the bow of my board; my own breath, warm against the air as I pulled myself and the twelve and a half foot board through the brackish life-blood of the estuary.

Further along, the mist parted so I could see the other shore, less than two miles away. I decided to paddle across, thus making a loop on my last paddle of 2011. I glanced back over my shoulder as I reached the middle of the bay. The fog was closing in behind me rapidly. The scene reminded me of the Mists of Avalon, a favorite book of mine from many years ago.

Parting the veil is a quest worthy of any seeker.

The rolling wall of fog pushed me forward. Access to what was behind me faded as if it never existed. It wouldn’t be wise to go back, to enter a white-out and get lost. The past is done…over….gone.

I hugged the shoreline as the fog intensified and made my way back to Mobile Bay. I didn’t want to spend new year’s eve paddling in circles in the bay so I kept the shore within sight. Years ago I was paddling my kayak in a large, fogged-in lake and lost my way by failing to follow the shoreline (and not having a compass on board). I nearly paddled over a dam (or close enough to make my legs shaky). Reflecting back, I saw where I have managed to learn a lesson or two that has gotten me safely through almost of all of 2011 and the years in-between.

Past skeleton piers and roosting shorebirds I glided. Slowly I maneuvered over pieces of broken piers, buried in the shallow water. I was in no hurry to reach my destination given the lack of visibility and snags floating just below the surface. Plus, I was enjoying the beautiful white cloud I was moving through and was not eager to step out of the other-worldly realm created by the bay, water and fog.

The solitude was a gift bestowed by the fog as it kissed my cheeks and swirled around me as I remembered the secret to parting the veil.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Polar Bear Paddle 2012–Magnolia River was a great time! Even with our small crew we had a blast exploring far up into the river in the warmish temps…and one of our crew decided to take a plunge as well but she lives in Michigan now so a little winter river water did her no harm. Happy 2012!