Chelsea and I both love sunrise. The world is so calm and quiet, the air is fresher and cooler, the winds are calmer, there’s the promise a new day brings. We love being up before the birds and watching them awaken; we love the gorgeous pink and gold and orange colors of the sunrise as it slowly spreads across the sky, reflecting in brilliant hues off the Florida coastal clouds.
A few months ago, as the days were getting shorter, the sun would rise as we were still heading east toward the ocean. We began thinking about how much we’d like to see the sun rise over the ocean, but that meant we’d have to leave the house before six. It didn’t seem too likely…it was hard enough just getting up before six.
But as the days got even shorter, and the sunrise got later, I realized that if we left by 6:20 and rode fast, there was a strong chance we could be at the Inlet bridge in time to photograph sunrise. It meant getting up even earlier, but the fun of accomplishing it, and the lure of photographing some potentially beautiful sunrises, made the extra effort worthwhile.
Buoyed by our enthusiasm, we set the alarm earlier and headed out on some of the darkest and quietest streets we’ve seen yet. It was both exhilarating and frightening. We loved the dark streets, the cool air, so few cars, the sense of passing though like ghosts, seeing but not being seen.
We didn’t love not being able to see the street, being afraid that every car that passed might not see us, knowing that cars pulling up to intersections, with sleepy drivers, would not be expecting two cyclists in the pitch black.
But we didn’t let the fear stop us. Riding with bright white headlamps and bright red taillights, we exercised hyper-vigilant caution, staying close together, slowing at every intersection when we saw a car, making sure we were seen before we moved across.
It was so worth it! That first day an eerie luminescent pearl-gray line demarcated the horizon where the dark ocean met the gradually lightening sky. We’d left a few minutes late, so we rode like banshees to make it to the Inlet before the sun cleared the horizon, following that luminescent stripe the whole way.
We arrived out of breath just barely in time for Chelsea to get the camera from her front bag, having just achieved our record time reaching the Inlet, and with an average of fourteen mph from home, another record. Fishermen were already set up on both the north and south jetties, silhouetted against the light, as the construction workers began their jobs on the north jetty. A lone helicopter headed down the coastline, black against the clouds.
We had so much fun that first day that we decided we’d try the same “run” to the Inlet every riding day until daylight savings time ends. That would give us about three weeks.
Each day was different. Overall our speed saw a steady and noticeable jump. The first day we saw fifteen mph average twice on the way home (a big first). We saw fourteen mph at the Inlet, and ended that day with 14.8 mph average – our record time so far. We beat our time one day by a full two minutes to the Inlet, and beat it by another full minute the next day. We’ve dropped our return time to a consistent forty-six minutes – another record.
We love the early quiet traffic, with Saturday and Sunday empty compared to Tuesday and Thursday. We have quite a bit of cycling traffic on the weekends, especially on Sundays, primarily group rides with five to thirty riders in each pace line.
One Sunday a motorcycle policeman, with all lights flaring, led a pace line of cyclists along A1A, with another lights-flaring motorcycle bringing up the rear. We’re still puzzled about what it was, as it didn’t appear to be an event, and was a relatively small crowd of cyclists.
The weekdays tend to have only the hard-core riders, especially as early as we ride. One of our favorite sights – I look for it every Tuesday and Thursday – is a group of six cyclists that appears out of the dark on A1A just north of Delray Beach. If we keep our eyes open for them, we spot the wavering bright lights of their headlamps first, then ghostly shapes quickly materialize out of thin air. We hear only the click of shifters and the fizz of the tires on the road as they disappear into the dark again.
A particularly spooky morning for riding was a weekday last week, perhaps day six of our sunrise expeditions. The pre-sunrise day was darker than usual, causing us to be extra vigilant, but we didn’t realize until we hit the downtown Delray area that it was due to some very heavy clouds rolling in. Within minutes the drizzle started, but we’d gotten so far we wanted to keep going.
We made it another two miles, but finally had to stop to transfer our camera and phones to my back rack, which has a built-in rain-proof cover for emergencies. As we huddled under the overhang of a few huge mangrove and oak trees along A1A, effecting the switchover of the camera and phones, small flickering lights in the distance caught our eyes. Within seconds the spectral shapes of six cyclists appeared out of the dark, rain shimmering off their bikes and helmets, their tires whooshing on the wet pavement. A few seconds later they were gone as though they had never existed.
We continued our ride in the dark, avoiding the brutally slippery white lines on the pavement, watching the water drops from our bike tires fling up ahead of us, reflecting like sparkling jewels in the oncoming headlights. We made it to the Inlet, but the camera never came out of our bag (heavy clouds, no sunrise, heavy drizzle). We made it home without incident, avoiding the pooling water from the heavy rain we’d just missed, saturated with grit thrown up by passing cars, and wet to the bone. Chelsea had a rooster tail of dirt right up her back from the splatter of her rear bike tire.
The winds were nearly dead calm on our first “racing sunrise” day (a Tuesday) but by the weekend we had some stiff winds. It’s a challenge riding in fifteen to twenty-plus mph winds, but it sure builds strength. The birds love it – that first weekend we spotted a frigate bird soaring in the thermals over the Inlet, a rare sight for us. The same day we spotted hundreds of vultures playing in the thermals, riding them for hundreds of feet.
We never know what we’ll see at the Inlet. Our second day we made such good time that we had time to kill before the sun rose, so we hung out over the bridge and watched the rising tide. When the winds are calm and the tide is low we can easily see the bottom of the inlet.
This day we hit a bonanza – Chelsea spotted a huge manta ray feeding right under us. Despite the occasional boat disrupting its feeding, the ray stayed in the same area for nearly fifteen minutes, giving us a total delight. The ray was easily ten feet across. Our photos show only a dark shape, though in one of them the two white “feeders” can be seen, but check out this link for some beautiful photos of manta rays. http://picsicio.us/keyword/big%20manta%20ray/
We always go over to the other side of the bridge down to the park area and sea wall overlooking the Intracoastal to watch the fishermen and eat our snack, so we’ve gotten to see a wide variety of fish and fishermen over the months. We know the regulars by sight. We love the varying styles of communication…this last Sunday a group of very talkative guys asked if we would share our peanut butter with them. I told them sure, absolutely yes, we were just waiting for their fish fry later. They laughed pretty hard at that, but then didn’t talk so much to us for awhile. Maybe they had performance anxiety.
The only excitement in fish the last two weeks was the morning a fisherman caught two sting rays, one while we were there; other than that, it was pretty quiet, just small fish.
The birds at the Inlet are abundant and are hilarious. Overnight and before sunrise the pier is often crowded with fishermen; those fishermen often leave the place a total mess. They discard the usual fishing line, hooks, food wrappers, drink cans and bottles, and they leave the fish remains – either their bait, or fish they caught and didn’t clean – one morning we found raw hamburger and raw chicken pieces. Shortly after sunrise the ibis, gulls, and grackles descend en masse on the pier, jockeying for the fish remains. Within an hour the place is nearly picked clean.
We see more ibis in our area of the pier than other birds, but grackles are common, as are ring-necked doves. Off the pier are gulls, terns, osprey, pelicans, an occasional white egret and blue heron, a little blue heron or two, and a faithful little green heron. We also have a night heron who’s a regular.
Mind you, when we first started our bird watching we never saw a night heron. Then one day we saw one on the shore of the Intracoastal in Manalapan, hiding in the bushes. We began to realize that it had a regular haunt there, so we started looking for photo opportunities. In all our times of trying, we only got two or three blurry photos of that bird.
Imagine our delight to realize lately that the local pier has recently acquired a regular night heron. Not only does our favorite section on the Intracoastal have its own night heron, there’s another one that hangs out on the beach side of the Inlet, guarding its territory vigorously. A week ago our night heron was there when we arrived, quite bravely hanging out next to us as we sat on our picnic table eating our almond butter rice cakes. We got some truly wonderful photos, as he was so close (and Chelsea put on the long lens). Then much to our surprise we discovered that the beach night heron had decided to check out the Intracoastal, so now we had not one, but two night herons.
We spent the next half hour laughing at the night herons’ antics. They’d pose, then chase away the ibis, then pose again. Check out the great photos we got of both night herons. We’ve now gone from a few blurry photos to a photo album of great shots of night herons.
We’ve completed eight rides so far on our “racing the sunrise” project; we have only two rides left till the time changes. We’ll try again in late December or early January when we might be able to make sunrise at the Inlet by leaving the house at 6:15 (unh huh…). We’d have another two-week window of opportunity before the days start getting longer again, and sunrise gets earlier.
Meanwhile we’ve had more fun than we’ve had in a long time. We love the feeling of mystery in the early mornings; we’ve shaved our riding times steadily; and our average miles-per-hour has gone up from twelve to fourteen-plus. And, we have the allure of a gorgeous sunrise waiting for us. What’s not to like?