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

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

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

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

Hardcover

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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780820347653
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Publication date: 04/15/2015
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

SUSAN CERULEAN is a writer, naturalist, and advocate based in Tallahassee, Florida. She has written and edited many books, including gold medal Florida Book Award winner Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change, and her nature memoir, Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites (both Georgia), that was named and Editor’s Choice title by Audubon magazine. I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter’s Memoir (also Georgia) is her most recent work.

SUSAN CERULEAN is a writer, naturalist, and advocate based in Tallahassee, Florida. She has written and edited many books, including gold medal Florida Book Award winner Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change, and her nature memoir, Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites (both Georgia), that was named and Editor’s Choice title by Audubon magazine. I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter’s Memoir (also Georgia) is her most recent work.

Table of Contents

Introduction The Passing of a Palm Cathedral 1

Part 1 Origin Stories 13

1 Sand Supply 15

2 Front Beach 23

3 Relict Ridges 33

4 Middens and Lagoons 47

5 The Passes 59

6 Upland: Where the Beach Used to Be 73

Part 2 Territory 83

7 The First People 85

8 Beach Badges 99

9 Claiming a Space on the Sand: Willets 109

10 What the Eagle Calls Home 115

11 The Rights of Birds 123

Part 3 Diminishing Islands 135

Direct Take

12 The Ways We Fish 139

13 Oystercatchers 151

14 Robbing the River 163

Habitat Loss

15 Evolutions Larger Concerns: Beach Mice 175

16 Counting Christmas Birds 185

Pollution

17 Stealing the Dark from Sea Turtles 197

18 Standing Watch for Oil 209

Climate Change and Sea Level Rise

19 "The Shore, Being of Shifting Sand" 219

20 Sand Envy 233

21 The Edge 243

Part 4 We Are Not Separate 249

22 Candlemas: Reclaiming the Rhythm of Time 251

23 Red Wolves 261

24 We Are Not Separate 269

Saint Island Prayer 274

Acknowledgments 277

Notes 281

Bibliography 287

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