Coming to Pass : Florida's Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change.

Cover -- Contents -- Introduction: The Passing of a Palm Cathedral -- PART 1 Origin Stories -- 1 Sand Supply -- 2 Front Beach -- 3 Relict Ridges -- 4 Middens and Lagoons -- 5 The Passes -- 6 Upland: Where the Beach Used to Be -- PART 2 Territory -- 7 The First People -- 8 Beach Badges -- 9 Claiming a Space on the Sand: Willets -- 10 What the Eagle Calls Home -- 11 The Rights of Birds -- PART 3 Diminishing Islands -- Direct Take -- 12 The Ways We Fish -- 13 Oystercatchers -- 14 Robbing the River -- Habitat Loss -- 15 Evolution's Larger Concerns: Beach Mice -- 16 Counting Christmas Birds -- Pollution -- 17 Stealing the Dark from Sea Turtles -- 18 Standing Watch for Oil -- Climate Change and Sea Level Rise -- 19 "The Shore, Being of Shifting Sand" -- 20 Sand Envy -- 21 The Edge -- PART 4 We Are Not Separate -- 22 Candlemas: Reclaiming the Rhythm of Time -- 23 Red Wolves -- 24 We Are Not Separate -- Saint Island Prayer -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography.

Coming to Pass tells the story of a little-developed necklace of northern Gulf Coast islands. Both a field guide to a beloved and impermanent Florida landscape and a call for its protection, Susan Cerulean's memoir chronicles the uniquely beautiful coast as it once was, as it is now, and as it may be as the sea level rises. For decades, Cerulean has kayaked, hiked, and counted birds on and around Dog, the St. Georges, and St. Vincent Islands with family and friends. She has collected scallops, snorkeled over a fallen lighthouse a mile offshore, and cast nets and fishing lines into cyclical runs of mullet and shrimp. Like most people, she didn't know how the islands had come to be or understand the large-scale change coming to the coast. With her husband, oceanographer Jeff Chanton, she studied the genesis of the coast and its inextricable link to the Apalachicola River. She interviewed scientists as they tracked and tallied magnificent and dwindling sea turtles, snowy white beach mice, and endangered plants. Illustrated with images from prizewinning nature photographer David Moynahan, Coming to Pass is the culmination of Cerulean's explorations and a reflection of our spiritual relationship and responsibilities to the world that holds us.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.