Trails in the Sand
Blurb:
A Family Saga Filled with Love Triangles, Sea
Turtles, and an Oil Spill
When environmental writer Caroline Carlisle
sets off to report on endangered sea turtles during the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill, the last thing she expects is to uncover secrets - secrets that threaten
to destroy her family, unless she can heal the hurts from a lifetime of lies.
To make matters worse, Caroline's love for her late sister's husband, Simon,
creates an uproar in a southern family already set on a collision course with
its past.
Using real-life events as the backdrop,
Trails in the Sand explores the fight to restore balance and peace, in nature
and in a family, as both spiral toward disaster. Through it all, the ancient
sea turtle serves a reminder that life moves forward despite the best efforts
to destroy it.
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About P.C. Zick:
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P.C. Zick began her writing career in 1998 as a journalist. She's won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction. She describes herself as a "storyteller" no matter the genre.
P.C. Zick began her writing career in 1998 as a journalist. She's won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction. She describes herself as a "storyteller" no matter the genre.
She's published four works of fiction and one
nonfiction book. Prior to 2010, she wrote under the name Patricia C. Behnke.
She was born in Michigan and moved to Florida
in 1980. She now resides in Pennsylvania with her husband Robert.
Her fiction contains the elements most dear
to her heart, ranging from love to the environment. She believes in living
lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion.
"This is one of the most exciting times
to be an author," Ms. Zick says. "I'm honored to be a part of the
revolution in writing and publishing."
Guest Post:
Saving Sea Turtles One Nest at a Time By P.C. Zick
The idea for my novel Trails
in the Sand began formulating in my mind soon after the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill when I still worked as a public relations director for Florida’s
wildlife managers.
During the last week in April 2010, I received a panicked
call from a wildlife biologist.
“Audubon is certain the nesting birds will be threatened by
the oil spill,” she said. “They’re planning on doing a news release.”
Crap, I thought.
The wildlife biologist was one of my colleagues at the
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The oil spill was on
its way to becoming the worst offshore oil spill in the history of the United
States. Since the FWC was responsible for the health and safety of Florida’s
wildlife, the media was going to be calling as soon as Audubon suggested
Florida’s birds might be in danger. While we were working on efforts to rescue
any wildlife that might be impacted, it was still in the early days of the oil
spill, and no one knew where the oil was going or how long it would gush. The
pictures of oiled wildlife weren’t yet inundating the nightly news.
“What are you doing to save those poor defenseless birds?” I
imagined hearing from reporters. “Why aren’t you doing more?” and “Why are you
spending state resources when oil hasn’t come ashore yet?” would send me
bouncing between the bungee cords of media frenzy.
I’d already started to develop fact sheets on oil-drenched
wildlife and talking points for scientists and public relations staff to follow;
I was writing news releases in anticipation of what might or might not happen.
I spent the next months in the same pattern of trying to
dodge bullets while making sure we were fully informed and proactively getting
in front of the news that became worse each day as the oil continued to gush
into the Gulf of Mexico. Several weeks after the oil spill began, another
concern reared its head, which sent both the scientists and the public
relations folks scrambling.
I received a call in early May from one of our sea turtle
biologists.
“I’m worried about the turtles,” she began.
Sea turtles begin nesting near May 1 on Florida’s beaches,
including the Panhandle beaches, exactly where many feared the oil would appear
in Florida. The biologists worried about the hatchlings that would begin their
long journey from the nest to the surf after approximately seventy days of
incubation.
Within the month, I received the assignment to handle the media
for a risky and nearly unprecedented attempt to save the hatchlings from
certain death.
The scientists feared what might happen if the hatchlings
made it to the shallow waters and into the grasses where they spent the first months
of their life growing and feeding on the very stalks where the oil and tarballs
might first appear.
The turtles, mostly loggerheads but some Kemp’s ridley,
green and leatherback turtles, usually lay approximately 700 nests on the
Panhandle beaches each year. The scientists – state and federal – began
formulating Sea Turtle Nest Translocation Project to move the eggs as they
neared maturity. Implementing the plan went against every grain embedded in the
scientist’s brain. How could they test it? They’d have no sample base lines
from years of study and research. This project became the test pilot, the base
line, and the standard, if this situation ever arose again. For several months,
I dealt with some very nervous scientists who pored over every single word I
wrote on the project.
Each nest contains approximately 80-120 eggs. The scientists
predicted a modest 50,000 hatchlings for the Gulf beaches during the 2010
season.
The plan consisted of a very strict protocol. Nests were dug
up somewhere near the fiftieth day of incubation – normal incubation time is
generally seventy days. Once the eggs were removed from the nest, they were
packed in specially prepared Styrofoam boxes, and transported by specially
equipped FedEx trucks to Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida. Once there,
the boxes were placed in a climate-controlled building. Once the hatchlings emerged,
they were released into the ocean at night.
By the end of the project in August 2010, approximately 250
nests were relocated, and nearly 17,000 hatchlings made it safely into the
Atlantic Ocean away from the oil.
The whole project was a success as far as can be told at
this point in 2013. While in the nest, the turtles receive a magnetic imprinting
of the location. When the female matures, at approximately thirty years old,
she usually returns to the same beach where she hatched. Scientists hope by
keeping the eggs in their original nests as long as possible, the magnetic
marking occurred, and they will return to the Gulf beaches to continue the
cycle.
Once I left the agency, I knew I needed to find a way to
incorporate the saving of sea turtles into a novel. I started Trails in the Sand on the day of the oil
spill in the life of environmental writer, Caroline Carlisle. She wrote about
the sea turtle project, as her family’s history encroached on the present
threatening to destroy all it touched. As the oil gushes in the Gulf, Caroline
rushes forward to save her family from the brink of disaster.
Trails in the Sand puts
a personal face on a very real environmental disaster, which I hope will help
people remember to protect and preserve all the treasures of their world.
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