I ran into Jimbo Meador at a grocery store a few weeks ago. After exchanging pleasantries, we decided to meet for coffee and a visit. I left looking forward to it like a kid waiting for Christmas. I wasn’t sure what we would discuss. I planned to listen and learn and relish in the moment. Any time spent with Jimbo is memorable.

Connect to Your Coast, is the motto of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Mobile. It makes a coastal impact message throughout the state of Alabama and beyond.

As a young boy growing up on the coast, Fairhope resident Don Bates’ favorite spot was the family fish camp in Manchac, Louisiana, built by his grandfather in the 1940s, where he ran his Uncle Charlie’s fishing lines usually tied to an old cypress tree that, more often than not, was also home to an osprey nest. Back when he was young, Bates says, “sighting an osprey was about as common as sighting a unicorn,” due to the threat of extinction posed by DDT usage.

I’m beginning to better understand the nuances and relationships of the many organizations involved with conservation efforts in the Scenic 98 Coastal area. One that has been on my radar for a while is Coastal Conservation Association-Alabama. I met to get up to speed with its Executive Director, Blakeley Ellis at The Sloop in Gulf Shores.

On Tuesday, July 18, a big announcement was made at a press conference held at Julep Point at the Grand Hotel, regarding The Eagle Reef Project. You may recall the story of John Shell, who took on the task of placing manufactured mini-reefs under wharves and piers around the Scenic 98 Coastal area, to help facilitate the growth of oysters and barnacles that, in turn, would filter water and attract fish and crabs.

Oyster farming has always fascinated me. I remember as a boy going fishing out of Dauphin Island and seeing small skiffs with men with long tongs pulling up wild-grown oysters from the oyster beds and piling them up on the decks of their boats. It looked like hard work, which it was. They would take their harvest to Coden or Bayou La Batre for processing, whether sold by the bag or shucked in pints, quarts, or gallon containers.

As a lifelong resident of Mobile who spent my summers, from Memorial Day through Labor Day, in Point Clear, Alabama, I’ve seen much change in my lifetime in the waters surrounding the Scenic 98 Coastal area. These changes are a cause for concern, and I’ve tried to gain a better understanding of what has happened and what can be done to preserve and protect these waters that we all enjoy.

God drove Man out of the Garden of Eden and into a life of toil. He loves us, so He created the northern Gulf Coast. He brought forth wild beasts of the forest, birds of the air, and Red Snapper. In fact, there are so many fish, beasts, and birds along our coast that some men hardly toil at all.