More Tate's Hell-acious Doings

 Hiked the south side of the High Bluff Trail between Eastpoint and Carrabelle today.  It's beautiful, at least the south side which I can vouch for.  I hear the north side is flatter, wetter, and with more jeep road sections.  I'm going to give that a try next time out; hike it north first then loop back on the south side.  The most noteworthy thing about the trail is that it's through a forest grown over old sand dunes.  Very hilly, with interesting oak hammocks between piny ridges.  It really must be seen to be believed.  In the meantime, this site has some excellent pictures as well as discussion of the trail, far better than any that I took today.  However, below are a few things they missed.  As always, click to embiggen.

Nice bridge.  Oh BTW, you will get your feet wet on this trail, no way around it.  Just no dangerous creek crossings to fret about, and this bridge was a help.

Very tannin-ous water.  Probably good to drink, if you dig a nice bitter IPA.

This oak hammock, it was like a dream from childhood of an enchanted forest.  Too bad that vibe doesn't quite pop in this snapshot, but trust me, coming in from the bright sun it was every bit as spooky as a full moon on Halloween.

Mysterious lichens.  Wish I knew more about 'em, they seem to be able to live on nothing more than bare white sand and an occasional bit of pine straw.

WFD 2021 Wrapped

 With nice weather today and thunderstorms in the forecast for all day tomorrow, and not wanting to return with a truckload of wet gear, I just treated this year's Winter Field Day as a pleasant afternoon in the Apalachicola National Forest at the Hickory Landing boat launch.  Made about a dozen contacts, most of them digital but some SSB voice, scattered across the 20m & 40m bands.  Also tried 15m & 10m, but they were dead-dead.  Used the lightweight QRP rig, then packed along a bunch of other "well I might use it" crap too.  Even hauling to and from the car, it was too much on the daypack, but it wasn't too far so it all worked out.  Note to self next time: No, you don't need to bring the laptop charger and a spare LiFePO4 batt for a three hour trip to the woods.  Didn't really matter this time though.

Technically WFD runs through to 2pm tomorrow afternoon.  However as previously mentioned, thunderstorms.  Pretty much makes it a wrap, at least for me.

Here, have some pictures:

The river from the campground road.

Artesian well.  Wonder who drilled this one?  And how long's it been running?

The boat ramp.

Another view of the ramp, from farther up.

The gear.  You can just see the feed transformer on the Par EFT-10/20/40 antenna, along with the wire angling upward.  This time out it was pitched as an inverted V, which is how I'd tuned the thing originally. While it's resonant on those three bands, it's kinda narrow on 40.  With the LDG tuner, all of the 40m band is available, along with 15m & 17m -- definitely worth the extra weight and hassle.

Six Minutes of Sci-Fi Horror

 DECOMISSIONED, at Vimeo.  Six Minutes.

Synopsis: A "suitsat," made from radio components stuffed into a decommissioned space suit and launched off the ISS (yes, this has actually been done a couple of times), takes on a life of its own and doesn't take kindly to being discarded.  The station commander's eyes are perfect: first wide-open in wonder at the universe, then wide-open in terror.

Your Good New Fix for Today

 Moderna vaccine seems to work on recent coronavirus variants, at the BBC.

OK, that's enough happy for now.  Back your your regularly scheduled winter gloom.

To Tate's Hell and Back

 Nothing astonishing, just a nice gravel road ride in Tate's Hell Forest to the Dwarf Cypress Forest (earlier blogged about here) and beyond.  Here, have some pics:

That is all for today.  But it was a good day!

The Word on Apalachicola Bay Oystermen & The State of the Bay

Dispatch from Eastpoint: Requiem for an oyster and a way of life at The Times.

It's pretty depressing, but this is how things are rolling out.  Go RTWT.  Things could turn around, but it's going to take time, work, and a fair measure of luck.  The problems are far deeper than a few ecological missteps with the Bay or the double-whammy of a forest fire and a hurricane.

Worth your time: The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society site

 link here

Especially noteworthy is their Dark Adventure Radio Theater series of Lovecraft's stories re-cast as 1930's radio plays.  Dig around and see what you can find.

File it under 'books' and 'scifi,' though many other labels could apply.