"jeff" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang wrote:

snip

that was a fun read...excellent. that the coast guard even dispatched a
boat is big news. private company franchisees...like sea tow...have
assumed most of the responsibilities for mere groundings and tows now.
but...gotta watch those salvage laws...lotsa new boat owners become former
boat owners real quick.

Once they arrive on the scene, it quickly became evident that the Coast
Guard had no interest whatsoever in dealing with the grounded boat itself.
Their mission was simply to ensure that the people were safely
removed......and they were notably casual even about that. A far cry from
what I remember of the search and rescue detachments during my tenure.
Presumably, the owners of this vessel tried to make arrangements with the
salvage company that sent out the boat on Sunday (or perhaps another) to
send out a more powerful boat to effect the salvage. The boat would
certainly still be worth saving.

Interestingly, the guy on the surfboard knows the hapless sailors. They are
from Chicago and have spent the last year or so restoring this old boat.
They had intended to sail it around the world. The surfer is in the process
of building his own boat, with the same final intention. While being
interviewed by the TV crew he spoke authoritavely (although I can't vouch
for his accuracy) about the matter of ownership of an abandoned vessel. He
said speficially that the stranded vessel was now "anybody's boat."
Personally, while I have no real evidence to back this up, I suspect that
leaving a boat sitting off the beach for a night hardly constitutes
abandonment.

the birds are beginning to appear and move about down here. temps have
dropped the last two days. but...the false albacore, spanish and king
mackeral, speckled trout, and drum still have center stage. i suspect,
though i'm uncertain of your flyway, some of your birds may find their way
to mattamuskeet. you notice any identifying marks? g

Migratory waterfowl in North America are separated into several major groups
by geographic distribution, depending in large part on where they breed and
overwinter, which factors are in turn closely connected to which of several
major flyways they use. We've gotten huge resident populations of geese,
and some varieties of ducks, here in recent decades but as I understand it
the bulk of our migrant geese belong to a breeding colony that spends the
warm months up around Hudson Bay. According to the naturalists at Horicon
Marsh (two of whom I pumped for information for a total of around eight
hours over the course of the three days I've spent up there recently) they
overwinter at various locations throughout the states in the Mississippi
flyway.....from southern Illinois and Indiana through portions of Missouri,
Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and on to Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and
Texas. Only an odd stray, what birders refer to as an "accidental" would
make it over your way, I think.

As a matter of fact, there ARE identifying marks......although not natural
ones as far as I know. Birds are routinely banded as part of a monumental
annual effort to establish good census data which is then used to allocate
allowable harvests for all of the states in the flyway (as well as for other
research). The ones with the orange neck bands, so I was told after
reporting sightings to one of the naturalists, are from the Hudson Bay
breeding colony. I didn't enquire about any other details of banding
projects. However, there is a brochure available which lists all the
details for various methods (telephone, email, etc.) for reporting
sightings. I didn't get close enough to read the bands of any of the birds
I saw this fall, but have done so in the past. Members of the general
public who report sightings of banded birds can get the specific information
concerning where and when the birds they report were banded and any other
details available, if they wish. Pretty cool stuff.

Wolfgang