Fossil records indicate sharks have inhabited the world for millions of years, and people have been recording their fascination with them for more than a millennium. Early drawings and stories depicted …
Win a trip to the Guy Harvey Outpost Grand Opening on St. Pete Beach, FL!
7 Aug 20127:24 PM
Win a trip to the Guy Harvey Outpost Grand Opening on St. Pete Beach, FL! The trip package includes
- Two round trip tickets to Tampa International Airport, 30 minutes from Guy Harvey Outpost, a TradeWinds Beach Resort.
- 4 Day /3 Night stay at Guy Harvey Outpost, a TradeWinds Beach Resort in a spacious Gulf Front Suite with views of the Gulf of Mexico and the white sand beaches of St. Pete Beach.
- 36″ giclee print signed by Guy Harvey personally!
- Exclusive invitation to our Grand Opening event on September 12th to include Cocktail Reception, Dinner, Entertainment, and a Meet & Greet with Guy Harvey himself.
Visit the TradeWinds Island Resort Facebook Page for details and registration!
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![](mailto:?subject=Billfish Invitational $300 Fuel Credit From Bahama Out Island Promotion Board&body=Register now for the <a title="TBF web site" href="http://www.billfishinvitational.com" target="_blank">Billfish Invitational</a> fishing tournament at the <a title="BBGC web site" href="http://www.biminibiggameclub.com" target="_blank">Bimini Big Game Club</a> and you'll receive a $300 fuel credit from the Bahamas Out Island Promotions Board! The offer is available to any registered boat participating in the Billfish Invitational, and the $300 fuel credit will be applied to the folio of the registered boat at the time of the tournament. The fuel credit offer is limited to one fuel credit ($300) per registered boat. For more information, call 800.867.4764.
<a href="http://www.billfishinvitational.com/"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1234" title="Register Now for the Billfish Invitational!" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/reels.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="412" /></a> https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/billfish-invitational-300-fuel-credit-from-bahama-out-island-promotion-board/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Spring Into Adventure with Mermaids and Manatees&body=<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3422" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12698307_10154157285116756_9106479937438679828_o.jpg" alt="12698307_10154157285116756_9106479937438679828_o" width="1280" height="853" />By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer
scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com
[Weeki Wachee, FL--] Sitting in a subterranean amphitheater watching through clear glass as young women wearing glittering mermaid tails swim gracefully more than 16 feet deep underwater can almost make you suspend disbelief in the supernatural.
"There's Ariel!" a little girl in the audience shouts in delight, and nobody in the audience scoffs. Indeed, we all start applauding.
We are watching one of the live daily performances of "The Little Mermaid" at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park on central Florida's west coast. Here, since 1947, generations of young women (and a few young men) have delighted audiences with their unique stunts and choreography-- all executed while taking intermittent breaths off free-flowing air hoses scattered around the spring that serves as their underwater stage.
It takes considerable skill to do this. Wearing neither buoyancy compensation devices nor dive masks, the mermaids must control their depth by the amount of air they inhale and exhale from the hoses-- all while dancing, miming and staging mock combat for the audience watching through the glass. Often they must deal with surprise intruders in the spring that threaten to upstage them-- manatees, turtles, a snook that just won't leave-- and several times-- drunken patrons from the adjoining Buccaneer Bay water park. Unflappable does not begin to describe their demeanor.
The Weeki Wachee mermaid shows were the brainchild of Newt Perry, a champion swimmer, diver and attractions promoter. In their heydays of the 50s and 60s, they drew large crowds, and fans included the late Elvis Presley and other celebrities.
Attendance suffered after Walt Disney World opened, but the shows still went on, albeit to smaller audiences. Buccaneer Bay was added in the 1980s, and the attraction also includes an animal show, gift shop, restaurant, riverboat tour, and kayak rental. It became a state park in 2008.
The spring itself is dazzling. Bubbling up from deep within the earth's core, more than 110 million gallons per day of fresh, clear, 72-degree water form a narrow river that flows west from the mermaid theater for about 7 1/2 miles to the Gulf of Mexico near Bayport.
A friend and I paddled a five-mile section of the river, renting from the <a href="http://www.weekiwacheekayakrental.com" target="_blank">Kayak Shack</a>. It was a fun, relaxing, non-strenuous three-hour float from the park to the shop's headquarters over water so clear it appeared invisible. Surrounded by cypress and shady oak, we glimpsed schools of bass, mullet and bream as well as heron, ibis, turtles and at least five resting manatees. Gorgeous.
Visiting Weeki Wachee is but one of many fun outdoor adventures to be savored around Florida's Springs Coast. Visitors should also make it a point to explore nearby Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park where they can see a hippopotamus, a Florida panther, and a black bear as well as other mammals, reptiles and birds --and view fish and manatees in an underwater observatory. Dr. Guy Harvey and fellow marine artist Wyland painted the colorful mural that decorates the outside wall of the visitor center in 2000.
Bicyclists will enjoy pedaling the Withlacoochee State Trail-- a 46-mile-long former railroad track that's been turned into a multi-use path. A good place to start is the Inverness trailhead and bike either north or south.
All this activity tends to stimulate an appetite. Here are several recommendations for après-adventure food and drink in or near Crystal River, FL:
-West 82 Bar and Grill at the Plantation on Crystal River
-Peck's Old Port Cove Seafood Restaurant
-Vintage on 5th
Here's to happy trails-- paddling, hiking, biking-- and to putting a spring in your step.
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Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/. For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling camping, sailing and powerboat racing. She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women's world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit.
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Share your photos, videos and experiences with Guy Harvey Outpost by hash tagging #OutpostAttitude to all of your social media posts. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/spring-into-adventure-with-mermaids-and-manatees-2/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Guy Harvey to Receive Artists for Conservation’s 2011 Simon Combes Conservation Award&body=
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ghtsl1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-919 " src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ghtsl1.jpg" alt="" width="495" height="329" /></a>Guy Harvey painting on location at Tropic Star Lodge in Panama.
GRAND CAYMAN—OCTOBER 19, 2011— A unique blend of artist, conservationist, scientist, diver, angler and explorer, <a title="Guy Harvey Inc. web site" href="http://www.guyharvey.com" target="_blank">Guy Harvey</a>’s lifetime of extraordinary support of conservation through artistic excellence is being recognized by the <a title="AFC web site" href="http://www.natureartists.com/" target="_blank">Artists for Conservation</a> (AFC) during a November festival gala in Vancouver, BC Canada.
One of the most recognized and celebrated marine wildlife artists in the world, with his art adorning everything from clothing to large-scale murals to the walls of museums, Harvey has been named the recipient of the <a title="About the Simon Combes Conservation Award" href="http://www.artistsforconservation.org/programs/awards" target="_blank">2011 Simon Combes Conservation Award</a>. He joins the likes of <a title="David Sheperd's web site" href="http://www.davidshepherd.com/" target="_blank">David Shepherd</a> and <a title="Robert Bateman's web site" href="http://www.robertbateman.ca/" target="_blank">Robert Bateman</a>.
Harvey will receive the award, a trophy design created by <a title="About Peter Gray" href="http://www.natureartists.com/peter_gray.asp" target="_blank">Peter Gray</a> of South Africa, on November 5th, during the opening weekend of the <a title="About the 2011 Artists for Conservation Festival" href="http://festival.artistsforconservation.org/" target="_blank">2011 Artists for Conservation Festival</a> at <a title="About Grouse Mountain" href="http://www.grousemountain.com/" target="_blank">Grouse Mountain, North Vancouver, Canada</a>.
The AFC created the Simon Combes Conservation Award in 2005 to honor Simon Combes, a world-renowned painter, author, instructor and dedicated conservationist. He served as Director of the Kenya chapter of the Rhino Rescue Trust. Combes was tragically killed by a charging Cape Buffalo (wounded by poachers), while hiking near his home in Kenya in 2004.
“The great significance in receiving this year’s Simon Combes Conservation Award is being included among other artists whose work I have admired over many years,” says Harvey, who over the years has received numerous awards and accolades. “We are living in times when artists can make important statements about the condition and over-exploitation of the natural world around us.”
Also a professor of marine biology, Harvey’s conservation efforts embrace many threatened and endangered species of marine wildlife, including sharks, marlin, bluefin tuna, Nassau grouper, sea turtles and other species.
Collaboration between Harvey and <a title="NSU's web site" href="http://www.nova.edu/" target="_blank">Nova Southeastern University</a>’s (NSU)<a title="About NSU's Oceanographic Center" href="http://www.nova.edu/ocean/" target="_blank">Oceanographic Center</a> resulted in the creation of the <a title="GHRI web site" href="http://www.nova.edu/ocean/ghri/" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Research Institute</a> (GHRI) in 1999, with a mission to provide scientific information necessary to understand, conserve and effectively manage the world’s marine fishes and their ecosystems. In 2008, Harvey started the <a title="GHOF web site" href="http://www.guyharveyoceanfoundation.com" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation</a>, a non-profit dedicated to funding leading scientists as they develop new strategies for sensible fisheries management, and educators, who will create novel instructional programs to stimulate futures scientists and new stewards of the marine environment.
To see the <a title="GHOF 2011 Highlight Video" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyYMSc05MQ" target="_blank">GHOF 2011 highlight video</a>, visit the <a title="Guy's YouTube Channel" href="http://www.youtube.com/drguyharvey" target="_blank">Dr. Guy Harvey Channel on YouTube</a>.
https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/916-2/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Guy Harvey Outpost Outfitter, Ray Rosher, Teaches Kite Fishing at the IGFA&body=Learn from the master, <a href="http://www.guyharveyoutpost.com/ray-rosher.html">Capt. Ray Rosher</a>. Kite Fishing Techniques is part of the <a href="http://igfa.org/Educate/School-of-Sportfishing.aspx">IGFA's School of Sportfishing </a>series, Tuesday, December 2nd, 7-10pm. Kite Fishing is particularly effective for targeting Sailfish. Ray runs the Miss Britt charter boats out of Monty's Marina in Coconut Grove, Miami FL. He and the Miss Britt team are winners of over 50 billfish tournaments. We are proud that Ray is also one of <a href="http://www.guyharveyoutpost.com/adventures/fishing.html">Guy Harvey Outpost's Fishing Outfitters</a>.
While kite fishing is famous for catching sailfish it can be used to catch other billfish, tuna, dolphin, kingfish and sharks. The kite adds to the excitement by keeping the bait near the surface where anglers and crew can often see the bite. Kingfish and Spanish mackerel often skyrocket on the bait from below launching like missiles. Hammerheads can be brought close to the boat for a photograph. With practice the kite can be used to bring sailfish within casting distance with a fly rod.
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/key-west-winners-2014.png"><img class="wp-image-2415 size-full" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/key-west-winners-2014.png" alt="Key West Winners 2014" width="600" height="400" /></a>Ray Rosher, Miss Britt Key West Winners 2014
The class takes place at the <a href="http://igfa.org/">International Game Fish Association's </a> Headquaters in Dania Beach, FL. Cost per class is $100 USD for IGFA members and $150 USD for non IGFA members. The fee covers the cost of the class, course materials, and tackle used for activities during each class. For more details call Anthony Vedral at 954-924-4254 or e-mail <a href="mailto:avedral@igfa.org?subject=IGFA%20School%20of%20Sportfishing">avedral@igfa.org</a>
For Fishing with Guy Harvey Outpost: <a href="http://www.ghofish.com/" target="_parent">www.ghofish.com</a>
More Information on Guy Harvey Outpost & their great resorts: <a href="http://www.guyharveyoutpost.com/" target="_parent">http://www.guyharveyoutpost.com/</a>
For the Guy Harvey Outpost Blog <a href="http://www.guyharveyoutpostnews.com/" target="_parent">www.guyharveyoutpostnews.com</a>
For Guy Harvey Outpost on Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GuyHarveyOutpost" target="_parent">https://www.facebook.com/GuyHarveyOutpost</a>
For Guy Harvey Outpost on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/GHOutpost" target="_parent">https://twitter.com/GHOutpost</a>
For Guy Harvey Outpost on YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/GuyHarveyOutpost" target="_parent">http://www.youtube.com/user/GuyHarveyOutpost</a> https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/guy-harvey-outpost-outfitter-ray-rosher-teaches-kite-fishing-at-the-igfa/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Mako: Your Ultimate Dive in Isla Mujeres&body=
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/makoIsla.mp4">https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/makoIsla.mp4</a>
You're standing in an underwater cage only about three feet below the ocean's surface, breathing from a hookah when, suddenly, a streamlined, 600-pound torpedo armed with lots of teeth comes shooting by. Then, without warning, it does a 180 and swims straight toward you. What do you do?
If you are Dr. Guy Harvey--marine scientist, artist and conservationist--or cinematographer George Schellenger, or one of the many guests who've chartered the Keen M Blue Water fleet in Isla Mujeres, Mexico over the past decade, you thank your lucky stars for this opportunity to observe the shortfin mako shark up close.
"It was cool," Harvey said after a trip last year. "Most of them are really interactive. You have a fantastic opportunity to film mako sharks."
Then, after your dive, if you're not ready to say goodbye to the fastest sharks in the ocean, Keen M owner/operator Captain Anthony Mendillo will take you on a catch-and-release fishing excursion. Trolling with lures and natural baits will usually result in a hook-up, and if you keep alert, you can snap a photo or video clip of a mako breaching the surface.
"A lot of adrenaline," Mendillo noted.
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/makocage.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4523" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/makocage.jpg" alt="makocage" width="960" height="539" /></a>
The mild Caribbean waters off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula are the prime destination for mako catching and diving between mid-March and early May. Harvey plans to be back there for about two weeks in April when he and Mendillo and scientists from the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University will try to implant some makos with satellite tags in their dorsal fins. These SPOT tags transmit the shark's location to a satellite whenever the fin pops above the surface. That movement data is then downloaded to computers at the institute near Fort Lauderdale where researchers post it online at the <a href="http://cnso.nova.edu/sharktracking/">GHRI shark tracking web site</a>. Mendillo built a special mobile platform on the stern of his boat so the sharks can be tagged in the water-- minimizing stress on the animals.
Harvey and colleagues Mahmood Shivji, Jeremy Vaudo, Michael Byrne, and Brad Wetherbee recently published a first-of-its-kind research study on 26 shortfin makos that they tagged and tracked for up to two years in the Western North Atlantic and the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The sharks-- tagged and released off Isla Mujeres and Ocean City, Md. -- travelled through the waters of 17 nations where at least seven were harvested by commercial fishers. The scientists warned that makos-- prized commercially for their meat and fins and recreationally for their fish-ability--may be at higher risk of being overfished than previous conventional tagging studies suggest.
Harvey and his colleagues recommended a "cautionary interpretation of past stock assessments" of the shortfin mako and the need for close cooperation among Western North Atlantic nations to devise "regionally and seasonally-specific management strategies"-- in other words, not taking a one-size-fits-all approach to conserving the species.
To book your adventure interacting with makos go to <a href="http://www.GHOExpeditions.com">www.GHOExpeditions.com</a> or call the Outpost Travel Desk at 800-513-5257. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/mako-your-ultimate-dive-in-isla-mujeres/){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Wayne Nelson: An Everglades Warrior Lays Down His Shield&body=The following editorial about <a title="Everglades National Park web site" href="http://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm" target="_blank">Everglades</a> activist Wayne Nelson was posted to the blog "<a title="Eye on Miami blog" href="http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Eye on Miami</a>" after Nelson's <a title="Wayne Nelson's Obituary" href="http://www.tributes.com/show/Wayne-L.-Nelson-93742562" target="_blank">death</a> last week. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions may be made to the <a title="GHOF web site" href="http://www.guyharveyoceanfoundation.org" target="_blank">Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation</a>, 10408 West SR 84, Suite 104, Davie, FL 33324.
<a href="http://guyharvey.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/wayne.jpg"><img title="Wayne Nelson Photo courtesy of the Sun-Sentinel)" src="http://guyharvey.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/wayne.jpg" alt="" width="428" height="286" /></a>
By gimleteye:
When Wayne Nelson, 88, died this week, the liquid heart of Florida - <a title="About Lake Okeechobee" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Okeechobee" target="_blank">Lake Okeechobeee</a> - lost a fierce and knowledgeable advocate. Wayne was of a generation of modern-day Everglades activists; including, recently, the late Johnie Jones and his wife, Mariana, who were young in the 1940's and 1950's and experienced the Everglades firing on all cylinders.
Wayne was Korea War veteran and a retired air conditioning contractor whose advocacy for Lake Okeechobee led <a title="Nelson's Supreme Court Case" href="http://www.eswr.com/docs/courts/ussc/01-196/FOEpetition.pdf" target="_blank">all the way to the US Supreme Court</a>. He began fishing in West Palm Beach and Lake Okeechobee in the 1960's. He organized one of the first bass fishing clubs in Florida and was the organizer of the small group, Fishermen Against the Destruction of the Environment (FADE) that was a co-plaintiff in federal Clean Water Act litigation challenging the South Florida Water Management District and Big Sugar. Wayne was at the first meeting of the Everglades Coalition at Port of the Islands in 1984 and was once a member of the board of <a title="Friends of the Everglades web site" href="http://everglades.org" target="_blank">Friends of the Everglades</a> <> (of which I am now president).
Friends of the Everglades, Nelson's FADE, and other conservation groups brought citizen suits under the Clean Water Act against the US Environmental Protection Agency to require the South Florida Water Management District to obtain permits in order to discharge polluted canal water into Lake Okeechobee. (FADE and Friends of the Everglades have been involved in several federal CWA lawsuits, with important implications for the nation's water policies, not just the Everglades.)
This practice is known as "back-pumping" and its purpose is to make sure that the 700,000 acres of the Everglades Agricultural Area -- dominated by Big Sugar-- are never too wet in rainy season. Back-pumping controls water levels on sugar land and through the extensive canal system, forcing water uphill as it were, against gravity, into Lake Okeechobee.
At the same time, the water management practices that deliver immense benefits and profits to sugar barons like the billionaire Fanjuls also deprive the natural system of the rainfall cycle that nourished the Everglades and Florida Bay with clean, fresh water at the right time of year.
He launched his boat in Belle Glade and would fish through the weekend. "To get to the Lake," Nelson testified in a Friends' affidavit filed with federal court in 2011, "you have to cross the rim canal and enter the Lake through one of the cuts. I would typically see the pumping while I was going out to fish or coming back in from fishing and was traveling in the rim canal to the boat ramp. You can see the turbulence and tinged color of pumped water all the way across the rim canal and into the Lake."
Wayne Nelson was a fierce supporter of grass roots environmentalism. His friend, Jim Harvey, says, "If people were classified like naval ships, Wayne Nelson would be the Warrior Class. He never faltered to say it like he saw it. He believed in watching the ass not the lips to ascertain where things were going. You didn't go fishing with Wayne. He went, listening to him. He loved Lake Okeechobee and held no quarter or gave no quarter when it came to saving the Lake."
Wayne didn't seek out the spotlight. He could be cantankerous and prickly. But anyone who loved the Everglades, fought battles against industry pressure, endured endless delays by government, obfuscation, and false declarations of progress while the liquid heart of Florida turned into a sewer would be spewing comets and fury at the misdirection.
"Water transfers of polluted, nutrient-rich water to Lake Okeechobee results in increased nutrient pollution in the Everglades system,"
Nelson said in his affidavit. "Nutrient pollution is one of the biggest threats to the Everglades today. Nitrogen and phosphorous from the canal waters feeds algae growth that chokes out sea grasses and other native plants. Algae also depletes oxygen, resulting in "dead zones" below the the surface where few native Everglades species survive. Invasive flora and fauna are increasingly taking over the niches created by the degredation of the water quality in the Everglades."
It has been nearly forty years since the historic agreement between the federal government and state of Florida to end the pollution of the Everglades, and its results keep a permanent incumbency in place; from local county commissions, to the state legislature -- that still refuses to hold Big Sugar accountable for the costs of its pollution and won't even impose the most rudimentary system to honestly account for polluting farming practices -- to Congress and the White House.
"We don`t need any more studies of Lake Okeechobee or the Everglades,"
Nelson told the Sun Sentinel in 1988. "We know what the problems are and we know what the solutions are. We need action. The farmers are hiding behind (government agencies they control)." ("Lake Okeechobee Scientific Group Back In Business", Orlando Sentinel, July 14, 1988)
Wayne knew that the environmental warriors were badly outmatched by the Great Destroyers, and he understood the clock was ticking. He didn't stand for niceties; he wanted environmentalists to do more and he had no tolerance for waving banners. He strongly believed that grass roots organizations were the key. Jim Harvey says, "He was pure passion and "old school" on freedom of speech. He hated equivocation and figured political correctness was being accurate. Period. He was in the truest sense, an egalitarian warrior with little regard for large national environmental groups that danced around to keep the Everglades ball in play."
Wayne Nelson just wanted to go fishing, and it made him angry that pollution deprived him, Florida and the nation of that opportunity.
Nelson told the Sun Sentinel in 1990: "Reagan missed the boat when he called Russia the Evil Empire". Thrusting a finger toward the sugar cane farms ringing Lake Okeechobee, he said, "I'll tell you where the goddamn Evil Empire is... it's out there!" (A Sweet Deal Has Become The Source Of A Bitter Poison, The Sugar Dynasty, Sept. 16, 1990) And it still is. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wayne-nelson-an-everglades-warrior-lays-down-his-shield/){kind=link}
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