Merry Christmas from Mashes Sands

by Mark Silva

PANACEA, Fla. -- At this time of year, the sun rises at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River and casts a long reflection out where the wide river meets the Gulf of Mexico. At dawn, thousands of black and white Scaup fly downstream, coasting about a foot above the glassine river surface, and out to Ochlockonee Bay. Dolphins swim along with them.

This is the Florida which the rest of the world has overlooked, the Florida beyond the Interstates. And we are thankful for that.

This is where we've come to rest for a spell.

And here, with a few snapshots from the real swamp, we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful celebration of every other holiday at this tumultuous year's end.

On the northern point of the river mouth, the tide washes marshes and beaches with a fresh coat of salt over a long, low flatland known as Mashes Sands.

Great Blue Heron, Great Egret and plain old Sandpipers feed in the mucky bottom of Marshes Sands at low tide.

The southern point of the river mouth is known as Bald Point, and beyond that Alligator Point reaches around the barrier peninsula which protects the woodland along this remote shore from the open gulf and its ferocious hurricanes.

Hurricane Dennis barrelled up the mouth of this river a few years ago and tore docks from their pilings, washed out low-lying houses and blew the windows out of our favorite restaurant, Angelo's, seated over the water at the foot of the bridge that spans the river mouth. A bright new Angelo and Son's has rebuilt, high above the river on three-story pilings, and our family dined on fried oysters and grouper throats the other night.

This part of Florida is better known for its pine forests than for its beaches. The landscape is simple: Saw Palmetto and Scrub Pine and an occasional hardwood hammock of Live Oak and Southern Magnolia. Wild boar roam these woods in a corner of the Gulf Coast where the panhandle meets the peninsula, known, for lack of a more inspiring slogan, as The Big Bend.

The fishing is what draws most people to these parts -- that and the serenity of the river and the bay. The marshes behind Bald Point also draw their share of world-class mosquitoes, even on these cool, dry winter days. It's been in the 70s, mostly, and sunny.

We have come here for Christmas, for a welcome respite between the fall campaigns and the winter caucuses and primaries. All of that will rev up with a fury following New Year's Day, a fury which somehow seems insignificant in comparison with the wrath of the storm which ripped open the mouth of the Ochlockonee River a few years back.

But there is a lesson to be learned from this serene river and the morning feedings in the muck of Marshes Sands: Even the greatest storm is followed by peace, if only one is willing to search for it. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a Happy New Year from the point.