florida

Saint Augustine Harbor – March 7, 2016, 7:00 a.m.

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Here is the Seven A.M. Harbor Report: There is currently an almost slack, incoming tide with light winds out of the northwest and some cloud cover that will clear later this morning. The water and air temperatures are both at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Aside from water slapping against hulls and the unpeopled docks and the occasional splash of a fish, the marina is quiet. The sun has cleared the horizon, freshening the starboard sides of the moored sailboats at the harbor’s southern end. Two pelicans land in untroubled waters near the lead schooner there, and one is filled with a sense of peaceful confidence that all is as it should be.

Fishing on Poncho Creek

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I haven’t had a bite for maybe ten minutes now, and I am visited by an annoying grass-is-greener feeling as I gaze across the marsh at that house there on Robinson’s Creek. You can generally find some black drum under that dock behind the sailboat, and there is a steep drop-off in front of that boat where you might just luck upon a slot red.

The house looks minutes away from where I sit, but, in fact, I cannot set a direct course there because the marsh between us is too shallow, even for my pram’s light draft. I’d have to row back out to the Tolomato, then up north to Robinson’s mouth before heading back into that creek’s interior, and all this against an outgoing tide. It would take maybe forty-five minutes, believe it or not, and I’d drop anchor at the dock at about slack tide, at which point I might as well head back home across the river because the fishing would be over for the day. No, I’d best seek my peace and good fortune right here, right now.

Sailboat and Lighthouse, February 3, 2016, 7:14 a.m., Saint Augustine Harbor

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I am a break-of-day photographer who lives at the edge of land in St. Augustine, Florida. Since moving here, I have become drawn to moored sailboats in our small harbors that open into the vastness of the Atlantic. My attraction is related to a notion I have of man’s boundless curiosity that has historically driven him to undertake dangerous, far-ranging seagoing adventures.

The best time to capture this mood with my camera, I have learned, is during the brief period before and after the sun rises on days of partly clear skies and gentle winds. The sun’s light is not blindingly bright then, and its position is low, horizontal to objects on the water and beneath the clouds, resulting in deepened colors, highlighted shadows, long reflections in still waters, and, when I am lucky, an arresting photo.

Fog on Matanzes Bay, February 2, 2016, 7:17 a.m.

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The harbor is fog-filled this morning. Ghost ships come in and out of view on Matanzas Bay – first one boat, then another, and then the first again – as the mist swirls and meanders southward. The Bridge of Lions and the boats moored further out are but vaguely defined at best, and I begin to entertain unanswerable questions relating to existence and reality.

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Aviles Street, January 29, 2016, 7:15 a.m.

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Strolling Aviles Street early this Friday morning, I am transported to an unhurried peaceful time of long ago, a sensation that would be denied to me by eleven A.M. when tourists beyond easy count fill the sidewalk and street, reading the menus of restaurants, browsing antique shops and galleries, and making way for the long trolley trains gliding by with drivers reciting historical details of 16th Century Spanish rule through microphones to their passengers packed in behind them.

Carlotte Street, January 29, 2016, 7:35 a.m.

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Only one car passed me going the other way on Charlotte Street as I walked gingerly along the narrow, unevenly-bricked lane, navigating the numerous puddles from the rain earlier that morning. Because there wasn’t a sidewalk, I had to edge toward the side of the road and lean against a building, where I managed to avoid any spray from the passing vehicle. Alone again, I brushed off the back of my pants where they had touched the cold damp stone and pushed on, eventually making out the gallery up ahead, which was illuminated by the sun rising in the now cloudless sky to my left.

Seduction, January 21, 2016, 7:00 a.m.

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On at least one star-filled morning each month, I can be found elbow-supported, wooden-railing leaning at the end of the Lighthouse Pier where I gaze toward the sand-duned line along the southernmost end of Salt Run. There, by the light of a sun that has yet to crest those sandy ridges, night’s quiet transformation into day occurs so swiftly that my brain can but register its changes as stop motion animation: changes in the sky where yellow intrudes upon dark charcoals, diluting them into steely blues; changes that brighten and polish smooth patches of water so that channel markers and mooring floats might reflect upon their states; and changes that shear night’s veil guarding a secured ketch till the boat’s emerging beauty seduces me once again.