Message in a Bottle

I wasn't going to post today, but it was such an extraordinary day that I have to write. It was 68 this morning when I woke up, and foggy for hours. It felt great to be back on the beach enjoying it instead of shivering in pain, just trying to get my job done. I forgot what it was like to not hurt. In all, it was a pretty fun day!



I started the day doing a piping plover survey on Santa Rosa. The birds were hard to identify in fog so thick it made it impossible to wear my glasses, and nearly impossible to use my binoculars, but it was warm and that made all the difference in the world!

It was easy to see this wasn't a bird:



While trying to find my way around some dead trees west of Opal Beach, I ran into scattered piles of rusty metal.



The Navy used to use the park as a firing range, dropping bomblets from planes post WWII. These remains and unexploded shells may not be very dangerous, but I worry about all the tourists that visit the park, not knowing its history, so I called law enforcement.



DOD is out in the park now cleaning up the beach. I wonder how many park employees and others walked by before I did. Why didn't it get noticed and taken care of earlier? I'm hoping it was simply uncovered by recent wind activity and that no one would choose to ignore this stuff. ***

Once I got to Fort Pickens, I knew things would be better til I ran into this. You can't tell, but it's a dead dolphin:



A crazy great blue heron claimed a perch on an osprey pole:



A sunken boat emerged from the sands:



And a bottle was cast ashore on the Gulf coast -- that was the best part of the day! At first, I thought it was just trash in the bottle.



I spent a little time working on it, and uncorked this memory from the glass time capsule:



The picture itself was pretty old -- a fuzzy black and white with the blue ribbon photo-shopped into the image. The bathing suits also seem more modest and less colorful than what we wear today.



I wish I knew where the bottle went in the water. The cork reads 2006, so I know the message isn't very old, but it would be fun to learn where it came from!



Where are these young swimmers now?

*** The DOD responded and destroyed these remnants in a controlled explosion that same afternoon. I hope that's the last of those remains in the park!