The Sink or Swim Project

I’ve spent this week, my school’s spring break, at home here on No Name Key and once again can’t imagine a more restful, naturally beautiful, and special place on earth than this island.

No Name has always been my magical place to me and the more I travel to faraway places for one reason or another it’s always the serenity and nature of No Name that is on my mind. A two and a half hour drive from madness and the millions of people, cars, and noise that is Miami or 45 minutes to the perpetual party that is Key West, No Name always offers a unique tranquility that touches my senses in ways that fill my heart and mind, and this week was no exception.

In addition to some writing and preparing for a number of events in the coming weeks including the University of Miami’s inaugural Resilience 365 Conference (more on that in a future post), my “busy” schedule this week included walks in the woods, time on the water, and, despite a chill in the air, diving in the water too.

As I hiked deep into our pineland forests, pregnant Key Deer does worked with feverish purpose to build their nests out of harm’s way in time for the birth of their fawns that typically arrive in April. It’s a special and important time of year for No Name’s principal residents, our beloved Key Deer, and they seemed particularly prevalent. That’s good news following how many were lost to Hurricane Irma, and before that to the screwworm disease, but I am deeply concerned that their home here, the only place they have lived since the end of the ice age, will disappear in the decades ahead due to sea level rise.

As peaceful as it is here, I was never truly alone. Adolescent tarpon kept me company on my kayaking excursions offshore, making a swooshing sound as they rolled on the surface for air in a way that made me think I was at a musical concert. And on a day that I took our boat out with no destination in mind other than to enjoy the salt laced wind in my face and lungs I was greeted by a pod of porpoise that included a newborn calf. Time, as so often happens here, froze while I was enraptured in a world where the blue waters and sky seamlessly stitched together as one and their division was only apparent where those majestic animals breached for air in between.

And the bird life this time of year on No Name is simply stunning. Great White and Blue Herons everywhere. Ibises busy foraging for food up and down the water’s edge. A bald eagle from its nest on neighboring Big Pine Key cruising by with wings that seem to fill the sky. Brown pelicans, down for the winter, patrolling the shoreline ever in search of their next meal.

The nature here is so abundant, it’s literally everywhere. While admiring a Great White Heron that lives on the point of our peninsula I noticed a three foot alligator that when I’d seen her last year was just a baby. And here she was, fully three feet long, hunting her next meal by silently cruising the mangrove roots that disappear into the water where the snapper and snook live. And, no sooner than I was thinking about how she’d grown up so fast, the “clouds” in the water off in the distance signaled that a manatee was churning up the bottom’s seaweed and about to motor past me. He was at least six, perhaps seven, feet long, a foot or two under the surface, and while gigantic he was at the same time oddly graceful as he glided along his way.

And if daytime here this week was not sufficient nourishment, the night sky produced a commanding performance. With a background painted in pure black, the darkest black I’ve ever seen, the stars were so brightly illuminated that it was as if diamonds were covering the sky while performing some sort of celestial orchestra. Just magnificent.

And speaking of my No Name neighbors, I also had the chance this week to read Kristie Killam’s new book, Stories of Nature From the Florida Keys: A Park Rangers Adventures in Paradise, Behind the Lens and Through the Seasons. Kristie has long lived on No Name and spent her professional career as a marine biologist, environmental science teacher, and park ranger for the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges including most recently at the National Key Deer Refuge that’s around the corner from No Name. The book is filled with wonderful stories about dozens of animals that live or visit No Name and the surrounding region, but the book’s highlight are the exceptional photographs she’s taken and fill its pages. If you ever need a dose of No Name’s beauty, then a copy of Kristie’s book will surely fill your soul until you can visit in person.