What better lunch on St. Patrick’s Day than Irish Soda Bread? It’s a bit different making it on a sailboat, but just as delicious…
Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Today, we’re all Irish.
postaday
Weekly photo challenge: Lost in the details…
We are not a drop in the ocean — we are the ocean in a drop.
Rumi
Hutchinson Island, Florida
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward
Little suggests “forward” to me as much as going through the lift bridges in a sailboat on the Intracoastal Waterway in Florida!
This short video captures the experience better than words can. Come along with us for a minute or two…
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/40693064″>Going through lift bridges on the ICW</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user3740232″>Sherry Galey</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
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Weekly photo challenge: Kissed by the sun
You can’t tell from this photo but it’s 43 F or 6 Celsius at our marina in Florida today. Thankfully, we have a good heater in the boat to keep us toasty and cosy. But, it’s a bit chilly compared to the nice balmy weather we had been having. But not bad at all, compared to the weather back home…
The sky is blue and the sun is shining though, and in this image, I caught it kissing the top of our 55-foot mast. We throw kisses back at it. The warmer weather will return…
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Home afloat
Whenever you go somewhere that speaks to your soul, you are going home to yourself.
Martha Beck
Windsong II, our sailboat, is my home afloat right now. It rocks us to sleep at night and cocoons us when the weather is wild. It takes us to see new places and allows us to meet new people who also love the boating life.
I love the light that streams through the companionway in the morning as we drink our steaming coffee and munch on our toasted English muffins and jelly. (In this case, it’s ginger jelly. Ginger is known to prevent seasickness, but that’s not why we eat it. It just tastes amazing.)
Practical note: The Tervis tumblers you see pictured here are double-walled so they keep liquids hot or cold much longer than other cups.
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Weekly photo challenge: Unique
I don’t know why…I just thought a photo of a manatee lying on its back drinking water might be considered unique…but I guess it all depends on what your normal is, right?
Visit my blog Two Salty Dogs for more on life on a sailboat in Florida. (Just click the pic.)
I normally live in Canada so I don’t see a lot of manatees. But when I’m living on a sailboat in Florida (like now) I tend to see them every once and a while.
Manatees take up residence primarily in Florida’s coastal waters during winter. They can also be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, and estuaries. Rarely do individuals venture into waters that are below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
I love gentle creatures like elephants. Manatees are a large aquatic relative of the elephant and are very gentle too. They are slow moving and playful and have been known to body surf and barrel roll when playing.
Manatees are grayish brown in color and have thick, wrinkled skin on which there is often a growth of algae. Their front flippers help them steer or sometimes crawl through shallow water. They also have powerful flat tails that help propel them through the water. They are herbivores and they eat marine and freshwater plants.
Manatees only breathe through their nostrils, since while they are underwater their mouths are occupied with eating! A manatee’s lungs are 2/3 the length of its body.
The leading human-caused threat to Florida manatees is collisions with watercraft, mostly powerboats. Propellers and boat hulls inflict serious or mortal wounds, and you often see manatees with a pattern of scars on their backs or tails after surviving collisions with boats. Scientists believe that unless this cause of death is curtailed, the manatee population will not recover.
There is a great effort to educate boaters about the dangers they present to manatees and I can only hope the message is getting through…These gentle giants were here first and we must learn to share the water with them.
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Weekly photo challenge: Love…on a sailboat
Message written in the morning condensation on the dodger of a sailboat…
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Weekly photo challenge: Beyond
No matter how far a person can go, the horizon is still way beyond you.
Zora Neale Hurston
There’s little that captures the feeling of “beyond” better for me than the horizon at the seashore. It calls us to reflect on what lies further than our eyes can see.
I am always awed by the wild power of waves and lured by the immensity of sea vistas.
These images were made at Hutchinson Island, which is one the many barrier islands that shields Florida’s east coast from the Atlantic Ocean.
I experimented with some longer exposures and a bit of intentional camera movement to create a soft, dreamy, blurry, impressionistic effect.
For me, the muted bluey-green of sky and sea, the white of the foamy surf and the soft brown of sand are among the most restorative colours to be surrounded by — at once soothing, exhilarating and contemplative. How does being at the seashore make you feel?
Linking to Kat Sloma’s Exploring with a camera.
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Weekly photo challenge: Illumination
Roosevelt Bridge, Stuart, Florida
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
Rainer Maria Rilke
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Weekly photo challenge: Resolved to discover
What lies down the road? None of us ever really knows for sure.
A new year can seem like a fresh opportunity to take a step forward in a different direction. Some people make one or more resolutions. Some people make a list of all the things they haven’t yet done and want to do. Some people set very elaborate goals and targets.
There is no right or wrong, only what works for you.
I find what resonates most with me is setting a fresh intention — a way to meet and respond to life on a daily basis, summed up in a word. That makes it easy to remember and call upon.
For 2013, my intention is to “discover.”
“Discover” has many meanings — all of which challenge and energize me. And that is what a word needs to do for you, if it is to be meaningful.
The word discover goes back to the Latin, meaning to remove the covering. By 1500 it was used to mean “seeing” or “gaining knowledge of something previously unknown” and “finding out” and “bringing to light.”
Now the word has many other meanings: To notice, to see, to find a new place, to become aware of or realize, to uncover, to gain knowledge, to be surprised by something, to invent/originate, and to recognize the ability of a person, among others.
Being passionate about photography lends itself to learning new things and discovering the world around you, whether that is through finding new things to see or seeing familiar things in a new way. This year I am eager to learn more about my new equipment as well as different camera and post-processing techniques.
But there’s lots more to “discover.” There’s even more to bring to light. As the year goes on, I hope to share some of that through this blog.
Choosing a word is like putting a lens or a filter on a camera. It affects how you view everything. And according to many who’ve experienced it, choosing a word can bring untold and unexpected magic to your life.
What calls to you this year? Do you make resolutions or choose a guiding word?
Sherrygaley.com 