Brevard College Division of Science and Mathematics Chair Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert has authored a new book exploring the relationships she discovered between humans and nature, and land and sea, while sailing the southeastern coast of the United States.
Combining insights from ecology and sailing, Waterways: Sailing the Southeastern Coast documents the environmental changes and interactions of plants and animals found while she and her husband sailed from Charleston, S.C., to Palm Beach, Fla., and across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas
Waterways explores an enchanting world of coastal animals that few ever experience. From the gleaming decks of her sailboat, Dr. Frick-Ruppert describes the wriggling spines of sand dollars, fiddler crabs making their mechanical noises, and bioluminescent flashes of plankton in the Gulf Stream. Through her stories, readers learn that living in the ever-changing environment of the open sea requires patience, reflection, evaluation, and adaptation. Once embraced, the rhythm of the waves and tides and cycles of sun and moon become second nature. A state of resonance is discovered between nature and the harmony of body and being.
Dr. Frick-Ruppert, who joined Brevard College’s faculty in 1997, teaches biology, ecology and environmental studies. She earned her doctorate degree in zoology from Clemson University and frequently gives lectures and presentations in the area that focus on natural history. In 2010, Dr. Frick-Ruppert published Mountain Nature: A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern Appalachians, a finalist for the Phillip Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment.
Waterways: Sailing the Southeastern Coast is available from online booksellers, in bookstores and directly from University Press of Florida at www.upf.com. Frick-Ruppert will be signing books at Highland Books in Brevard this summer.