Notes From the Road
Erik Gauger started Notes from the Road in 1999 as a collection of stories from his experiences on the road. His writing has a literary, evocative tone; and the photography that accompanies his pieces is stunning. (Interview with Erik)
Features
Eyes of the West Indies, Part III
A few days ago, I was with my family on mainland Abaco, driving to Crown Point, the northernmost town in the Abacos. We stopped in Coopers Town, which happens to be the hometown of the Prime Minister.
Coopers Town is a lovely place of about 900; it is small, it is colorful, it is clean and it hangs along a beachless stretch of the Abaco sea. We stopped the car when I saw something strange.
I approached it as unassuming as possible. A loggerhead sea turtle, quite dead, its shell was removed. Killing sea turtles is legal in the Bahamas (all but the Hawksbill), even though sea turtles are protected nearly universally throughout the rest of the world. In fact, not only is it legal, on mainland Abaco, evidence of sea turtle slaughter is everywhere. In Sandy Point and Marsh Harbour, we were offered sea turtle soup. In Treasure Cay, a man was displaying a green turtle shell for three hundred dollars. In Coopers Town, their carcasses lay out in the open.
The Eyes of the West Indies
I am on a boat, tied to a dock in a bay on the tiny island of Great Guana Cay in the Northern Bahamas. Troy Albury is untying lines and points out a Caribbean reef squid taking shelter under the dock.
These animals, hued in purple and electric orange, can be difficult to spot during the day – their bodies are brilliant but translucent.
The mark of a good divemaster is observation – the ability to notice everything. But I am not here to dive with Mr. Albury. When I was young, I dove and snorkeled Great Guana Cay’s reef for eight years. But not with Troy. Back then, we were both teenagers, and Troy lived in Nassau, several islands south of Abaco.
What creatures will roam Glen Canyon: Part 2
I drove north from Hanksville, past the entrance to the remote Mars Desert Research Station, to the Goblin Valley, a little known public landscape in Southern Utah. Goblin Valley is three miles of sandstone hoodoos, oddly shaped, like ten foot mushrooms, or an army of smurfs. I walk out into the hoodoos, looking for life.
Life here, approaching night, is a plethora of bats and a scattering of lizards. When I walk in the woods back home and I find the summer trails dotted with the little dead bodies of shrews – dead and defenseless - I can see and understand the bat. I can understand the unimaginably slight shrew of the sky.
What Creatures Will Roam Glen Canyon?
When I stop at a gas station to stretch my legs under a blue sky, I notice some homes, wooden fences and a few trees. I ask the blonde teenage attendant what town I am. Her expression and reply made the question feel somehow forbidden. “Hilsdale,” she mutters, looking away.
The town name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, but the presence of trees, shrubs, those fences – might make this a good spot to check for any new species of birds I had never seen before. The Utah-Arizona border, north of the Grand Canyon and east of Las Vegas, is a weird sort of biological zone. Some creatures exist here that exist nowhere else in the world. More likely though, a little town amidst all this dry scrub and red earth might attract some migrating birds, moving south to Mexico or Southern Arizona in the fall.
Recent Updates
The Eyes of the West Indies, Part III
A few days ago, I was with my family on mainland Abaco, driving to Crown Point, the northernmost tow
The Eyes of the West Indies, Part II
To put myself in Martin Sheen's Apocolypse Now character would be absurd. But I'll tell you this muc
The Eyes of the West Indies, Part I
I am on a boat, tied to a dock in a bay on the tiny island of Great Guana Cay in the Northern Bahama
Part II, What Creatures Will Roam Glen Canyon?
I drove north from Hanksville, past the entrance to the remote Mars Desert Research Station, to the
Mangroves and Coral Reefs
Three Years Later, Part I of the Rise Up Sweet Island Special Report. Corals and mangroves work toge
Three Years Later - a Rise Up Sweet Island Special Report
Three years later, a Notes from the Road special series on Guana Cay looks at every issue facing Gua
The Tragedy of the Turtle
Turtles can't read. But they sure know then they are not wanted! The crackle and glow of continual f
What Creatures Will Roam Glen Canyon, Part I
"Part I of the Glen Canyon series on rewilding, the canyon in the 21st century, and more..."
National Geographic on Desert Golf...
"The February issue of National Geographic has an amazing article on water management in the Western
You Can Fool Some People Some Time...
"After Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham held a private, secret meeting with the Baker's Bay Club late
