Into the Gulf: A Journal
Frequent OnEarth contributor David Gessner, author of the books Soaring With Fidel and Sick of Nature, is visiting the Gulf Coast to report about the BP disaster's impact on birds. Along the way, he's introducing us to the people and places he visits and chronicling the disruption to their lives and livelihoods. Follow his dispatches -- and his doodles -- here.
(Update: Gessner's posts will form the basis for his latest book, The Tarball Chronicles, due out in September 2011 from Milkweed Editions.)
Into the Gulf, Day 1: Baptism at Tarball Beach
July 7, 2010:
They don’t look like balls exactly. The small ones look like dried-out rabbit turds or kernels of a not particularly appetizing breakfast cereal. The larger ones are maps of rust-brown countries. They could be jigsaw... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 2: Corexit, Ospreys, and the Tarball Wars
July 8, 2010:
The guy from Texas is taking the giant tarball that the guy from Pensacola wants. The guy from Pensacola, a good guy named James who I met about an hour ago, thinks he should collect the tarball, which is the biggest one he... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 3: A Dawn Walk
July 13, 2010:
Yesterday I spent the morning wading through the marsh of Grand Bay, Alabama, with a delightful and knowledgeable naturalist named Bill Finch. Deep in the marsh, in the salt pan, we saw puddles of oil nearly the same blue... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 4: Of Fishermen and Forms
July 14, 2010:
Before I say goodbye to camping at the national seashore, I need to mention something that a new friend pointed out yesterday. The park where I was staying used to be a fort, and remnants of that fort still stand, as well as... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 5: Ecotones and Barriers
July 16, 2010:
No one is popping champagne down here quite yet. Pardon the locals if they have become a little dubious about ingenuity, American and otherwise. The more realistic attitude is less "hoo-ray" than "we’ll see."I’m in Mobile... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 6: The Green Sun Rises
July 20, 2010:
I am now in the green, beautiful, and paranoid heart of southeastern Louisiana, a sinking land less than fifty miles from the Deepwater site. Things happen fast in this strange world. Take yesterday for instance. At dawn... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 7: Castles and Shanties
July 23, 2010:
A couple of summers ago I paid a visit to Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was one of the country’s leading authorities on the recent intensification of storms. If... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 8: The River
July 27, 2010:
These days I take a walk by the Mississippi up along the levee almost every evening. I have the luxury the local fishermen and oilmen do not, the luxury of letting my mind take a break from the oil. As I stroll, I think... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 9: Field Notes from an EPA Meeting
July 30, 2010:
At Table Three, the Louisiana Spirit Coastal Recovery Counseling Program is handing out blue rubber "stress balls," though I don’t see a lot of fishermen squeezing the little toys. I take one anyway, occasionally tossing it... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 10: In Search of the Oiled Pelican
August 3, 2010:
I knew pelicans before they were famous. I started studying them when I first moved to the South, seven years ago now, and after a couple of years here I wrote an essay about the birds, and about my daughter and learning to... read more >
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Into the Gulf, Day 11: Atlantis, the Basin, and the Sinking of Cities
August 17, 2010:
"War is over," sang John Lennon in different times."Oil is over," sang The New York Times a week ago Wednesday, heralding those two terrifically reliable sources, NOAA and BP, and letting us know that all was hunky dory... read more >
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