Being Captured by the Incredible

There are moments here on this island where I am captured by the incredible.  Sometimes it can happen when I see a bird.  Here's an osprey that was perched over my head while I was biking along a trail at Bowman's Beach.  The osprey had no fear of me and I managed to capture an entire series of photographs.  I like how fierce he looks in this one.

Other times I am captured by flowers.  This beach access path is particularly beautiful in the late spring.  The path is like a portal to another world.  The flowers have no smell and the vines have thorns.

Happy Halloween

This man and his son were spooking the shorebirds yesterday at sunset.
I thought they looked like bats.

More Far Out

Shark Fishing

     I bumped into a young man on the bridge at Bowman's Beach who was casting a net to catch mullet for shark bait.  He has yet to learn respect for the shark.  He puts the whole mullet onto his hook and casts it far out into the water.

                     
Here are some photos from a book that I edited for a friend.  He had no respect for the shark as a young man. The name of the first photo is "Biting Back".  It shows my friend with a hammerhead shark. The second photo is of a bull shark that my friend and another young man caught. They would put mullet on a hook and then row the bait out into the surf past the second sandbar.  It seems that most shark fishing takes place at night.  I don't think shark sleep but are always awake and hunting.  These photos were taken in the early 1970s.  Back then sharks were caught, killed and their jaws taken for trophies. Nowadays guys who hunt for sharks release them.

These and a great many other photos of island life from forty years ago can be seen in the book I edited called ISLAND BOY, A LITTLE SANIBEL. The author is Johnny Rocco.  You can order a copy through the McIntosh Bookstore, Periwinkle Way, Sanibel, FL 33957.  My editor's notes are on the backcover.  It is an amusing read, not very long and again filled with great photographs from the not too distant past.

It takes skill to throw one of these casting nets and it makes for a nice sunset photo!

                     

BOO!

    Ghost Crab

Far Out

Spooky Mysterious Graves

    In the small cemetery near Algiers there are spooky mysterious graves. One is a child named Baby Wiles who died in  1967. Near the grave of Rebecca L. Turner who died in 1914 at the age of 32, is a headstone that has become so worn it is no longer legible.  Perhaps Turner Beach is named after Rebecca. There is the grave of an unknown male found near the lighthouse in 1961.  Was this a drowning accident and his body washed ashore? Next to him is Gloria Johnson whose grave bears only her name and is missing dates.  Perhaps she didn't want anyone to know her true age!