Anyway, we've had a great couple of days. This picture was taken on our way out to Wassaw Island, which is a National Wildlife Refuge. This dolphin swam right up to our boat looking for handouts. Our professor said that there are more and more "Beggar Dolphins" in the water these days because of people tossing them one of their freshly caught fish or what have you. However, while it might be fun to see wild dolphin up close, when they get into the habit of swimming close to boats they also have a much higher risk of being hit by propellers. That's why the state will fine boat captains $20,000, seize their boats, and revoke their boating licence if caught feeding these adorable creatures. No thank you.
During our backstage tour or the UGA Marine Extension Aquarium, Lisa and I got an up close view of Eddie the 3 year old Loggerhead Sea Turtle. Thinking that he was about to get fed, he swam right up to the edge of the tank with his mouth open wide. I had to take several pictures of my friend and Davis colleague, Lisa, here. Her image kept coming out blurry due to her jumping up and down in excitement. :) I love hanging out with fellow science nerds.
My turn! No, Eddie, my fingers are not food. He could easily snap one off with that beak designed to crack open clam shells.
So here we are on Wassaw Island. Way back in 1898, the US government built this Gun Battery on the island because of the Spanish American War. Believe it or not, this little fort was built 600 feet inland behind the dunes! Rising sea levels have buried most of it in sand, and the top of it is under water at high tide.
Did anyone ask for evidence of climate change? Well, here you go.
Here's some more. A knot from a dead oak tree that once stood in the middle of a maritime forest (that's now on the beach).
I forgot to mention our purpose for going to Wassaw. We went with a Skidaway scientist to map the north end of the island using this fancy GPS/GIS thingy. As we walked the "wet-dry" line on the beach, this contraption sent a signal to a satellite about ever second or so. Apparently, it's accurate down to 40 centimeters (much better than your average car GPS!)
When we got back to the institute, we overlaid the data we took on top of an older aerial photo of the north end of the island and compared that with previous years. Our line is the pink one and the other two lines are from 2006 and 2001 (I think.) You can really see how much the island moved! People forget that barrier islands are really just giant mounds of sand, so waves and storms move the sand around from place to place. This means that it's actually pretty stupid to build houses, hotels, and anything else permanent on oceanfront property on barrier islands because the beach has a really good chance of washing away eventually and leaving your house in the ocean. And don't get me started on sea walls! (Oy.)
Yesterday was our last day at Skidaway, so we took a hike through marshes out to a little hammock. A hammock is a small island surrounded by marsh that usually don't have beaches. All the hammocks we've seen around here have these dead trees along the edges because the trees can't tolerate the salty water encroaching on the hammocks. They make for cool pictures, though. :)
In a few hours we'll be taking the ferry out to one of my FAVORITE places in the whole world--Sapelo Island (sigh...) I'm convinced that there's no other place like it in the world. Most of the island is owned by the state as a wildlife refuge, and UGA has an amazing research facility there also. But possibly the most interesting part of the island are the permanent residents. The only people that live there all the time are the descendants of the slaves that worked the island plantations WAY back before the civil war. The government deeded the land to the freed slaves, and most of their families never left. The relative isolation has preserved their Gullah/Geechee cultural heritage (or at least way more than anywhere else.) Fascinating.
No comments:
Post a Comment