Just after sunrise

I wish this photograph was one-tenth as beautiful as the sight itself just after sunrise at Ft. Pickens this morning. The sky was a delicate rosy-mauve shade as the sun peeped over the horizon. The Gulf of Mexico was calm and clear with ribbons of color - turquoise, sapphire. Dolphin were playing; herons strolled along the shore; black skimmers flew by with their lower beak slicing through the water; and snowy plovers performed incredible dives as they caught breakfast for their tiny chicks.

This morning I was reminded of an Amelia Earhart's 1928 logbook comment, "I'm getting housemaid's knee kneeling here gulping beauty" -- except as a member of the Gulf Islands National Seashore Sea Turtle Patrol I'm driving along the shoreline in a Kawasaki Mule before sunrise.

To learn more about the Gulf Islands National Seashore volunteer sea turtle patrol, you may click HERE to read a 2005 article from the Gulf Breeze News.