My recommendations for books
Available at the house
Each has an Amazon link
HURRICANES
If anything shaped history on the island, it was their hurricanes
This is the story of the 1900 hurricane that decimated the island. It was the worst disaster in our country's history.
There are three parts to this story:
1. The people and their story.
2. The forecasting and lack thereof.
3. How a hurricane works.
This is such a good book!
A furious sky, the five hundred year history of hurricanes
Like above, this book is about how hurricanes form, how they are forecast and their effects on the population.
Pay attention to the description of early storms. How a French fleet intent on attacking the Spanish in the Carolinas were near certain to take over that area. Until the hurricane.
PyRATES
Two hundred and fifty years ago a pirate ship
might have been careened on that beach.
They May have been camped on the beach.
john Lafitte SAILED BY. MANY TIMEs.
This is the story of the pirate Black Bart. More importantly, it describes why people became pirates. Many did not want to but were forced into service on slave ships. To get out of the horrible conditions, many signed on with the pirates. It talks of the pirate’s democracy. How they elected captains. How they determined shares. This is a GREAT book!
A general history of the Robberies & Murders of the most Notorious pyrates
Captain Johnson wrote this book in the 1700s. It is a GREAT book and well worth the read.
THE REPUBLIC OF PIRATES - BEING THE TRUE AND SUPRISING STORY
OF THE CARIBBEAN PIRATES AND THE MAN WHO TOOK THEM DOWN
Colin Woodward writes not only about pirate life, but about the brutality and politics that led to their destruction. There is a good deal in this book about Edward Teach, Blackbeard, who later in his time spent a good deal of time cruising the waters you are looking out at from the condo balcony. You'll also learn about Woodes Rogers, a trader who rallied the resources to route what is in almost every way the Mafia of the 1700s. A FRIGGIN' AWESOME READ.
HOW THE GULF OF MEXICO WORKS
You think you have tides figured out, do you? You have eight or ten years of post graduate education, do you? This book is for you. There’s more going on regarding tides than I will ever understand. Just watching the tides in front of the condo confounds me. Not as much as this book confounds me, but close.
a field guide to the southeast coast and gulf of mexico
Beaches and what lives on them aren’t at all static. The come. They go. They change, even from day to day they change.
PLEASE, if you don’t understand how the Gulf of Mexico can form rip currents that can wash the best of swimmers out to sea, WATCH THIS VIDEO. I subscribe to print and on-line to Galveston news and there isn’t a summer’s week that goes by without someone [sometimes] getting rescued. This is not available on Amazon.
Here is a link to the National Weather Service's RIP current education page.
shorebirds of the southeast and gulf states
Just when you think you know what bird you’re looking at, another flies by that you’ve never seen before. This book will help. It might also drive you crazy as a lot of shorebirds look the same.