Ferry boat ride to Dolphin Island, Alabama

The ferry boat ride to Dolphin Island in Alabama is a great time for bird watching, waves, and scenery.  A slow down from your busy life.

Lost and found, but not fixed

While driving on the Bolivar Peninsula a few days ago, we came across this collection of found items.

There was a man wandering around, and I assumed it was his work. All around stood sticks where houses and been -- gutless houses with nothing below them -- and every kind of destruction you can imagine.

It has been more than 90 days since Hurricane Ike unleased its destructive force on the defenseless finger of land.   Still little has been done to restore the island to life. Building codes, financing, real estate laws, insurance, FEMA assistance, flood elevations, work to restore utilities, roads, dunes -- it is all in a snarled mess.

So, this man does what he can. He places things he finds in this pile, hoping that someone will recognize something that was theirs. Maybe it will restore a little, though very little, order to their life.

Behind his foundlings laid out on the driveway is a gaping hole where homeowners used to park their cars on a slab beneath the house. The slab is cracked into pieces, some in the hole, some missing.

Meanwhile, on a internet forum board for the peninsula, volunteers saying they are working to get donated ladders so that people can enter their houses and see what is left.


--steve buser

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Ike, disasters, hurricane recovery, Texas, Bolivar Peninsula

Ocean sand slide

 
The water slides up and along the beach at Perdido Key in Florida. While a couple figures splash along.


--steve buser

Cozumel calls.

A skiff off of Cozumel's coast sure did bekon me when were down there last year on a cruise that stopped at the four locations on the Yucatan Peninsula. The azure blue water just pulled the cares right out of you.

I think the boat has my name on it.

Where is this? Here.