December 6  THE BOAT TRIP

Just returned from an exhausting six hour boat trip with the group. Instead of working in the studio today we took Matt up on his offer of a tour around Captiva and other local islands in a boat. Wow, six hours in a boat in 80 degree temperatures with a little breeze, looking at flocks of birds, dolphins, stuff like that, will wear you out. When do we get to go again!?!?!? [Darn, I think that was it.]

Here’s Captain Matt at the helm.

We passed this sign early on…

I don’t know  how they knew about the Residency, but obviously this says we can no longer act like artists when out on the water.

We went looking for dolphins and we found some—but they don’t seem to predictably surface for folks with point-and-shoot digital cameras. Stephen was gathering sounds with an underwater microphone, seeing if he could grab some dolphin sound.

Taylor Deupree arrived yesterday to work with Stephen for a few days. He’s staying at our house. Unfortunately for him, on the first day here he had to go out on this boat, but as you can see, he’s making the most of this trying situation…

Here’s Linda with Laurie hard at work on documentation…

As it  moved on toward lunchtime Matt picked up the speed and it got breezy. That turned out to be too much of  New York winter feel for Laurie.

We made to Cabbage Key Restaurant for lunch. Good food, good view. Wild interior papered with dollar bills—real ones!

Two rooms like that. Walls and ceiling. And as with many outdoor eating areas, there’s a pigeon (as usual the local versions of wildlife are somewhat different), he’s a regular and they’ve named him Floyd.

Yes, it is real, not plastic.

One thing that I really enjoyed, beyond the wildlife and the ride itself, was the ever changing light on the water (and the sky). Samples:

The painter Brice Marden has talked about how the colors of his monochrome panels in his early paintings related to experiences of nature and I seem to remember him saying something in an interview about the sea of Hydra (Greece). I understand how that could work.

I made a lot of attempts at wildlife photography today with my little Canon Powershot and had very mixed results, but I like this one:

Back to the studio on Friday.