The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper


Vol. 16 No. 18 - March 2, 2016

FEATURE

Griffin discusses his mystery/suspense books

Anna Maria Island Sun News Story

tom vaught

H. Terrell Griffin holds up a copy of his latest book, “Mortal Dilemma”
at his lecture at the Island Branch Library.

 

HOLMES BEACH – He talks with a soft southern drawl, but this Georgia-born, Longboat Key resident is a best-selling author who likes to use real-life characters as models for those in his books. He has published more than 10 Matt Moore books. The lead character is a retired attorney who solves mysteries.

For the second time in two years, H. Terrell Griffin spoke at the Island Branch Library about his two careers, as a lawyer and a writer and how the two are connected.

ß Griffin’s wife, Jean, accompanied him and sat in the audience. He said he started writing after he retired from law.

“My wife was afraid I would be underfoot so I began writing,” he said, “I generally do my writing at the Starbucks over a cup of coffee after talking with acquaintances.”

Griffin said he is a veracious reader.

“I always wanted to write a book, and she said, ‘Why don’t you,’ and so I wrote “Longboat Blues,” he said. “I had a hard time getting a publisher to read, so I self-published and by the time my third book came out, a publisher called me and said they wanted to publish it.”

Griffin said he had a lot of action in court in his first book, but got away from court scenes after that. He said his next book, due in September 2017, has quite a few scenes in a courtroom, something with which he is familiar due to his background.

Griffin said he models a lot of characters after people he knows, including his wife and a woman who attended the lecture. He also gets details of police work from the Longboat Key Police and is good friends with the chief.

Griffin says when he starts a book, he has no set plan. He might write all day and after he sees that he’s written himself into a corner, he’ll have to back out and start in another direction. He also says it got easier as he went along.

“The first book was difficult,” he said. “When you’re done, you want to get it into the general stream of consciousness.”

He added, writing a book is easier than he thought it would be. He said he has no set schedule, but when he writes, he might write a thousand words at a time.

When asked who thinks up the titles for his books, he said his wife. His favorite authors are John D. McDonald, who was once an Island resident; Florida fishing guide Randy Wayne White and James Lee Burke, who grew up in Louisiana. He also singled out Southern writer Pat Conroy, who wrote “Prince of Tides” and “The Great Santini.” He said he likes the way Conroy “paints the south.”

Saving seashells on the seashore

Anna Maria Island Sun News Story

CINDY LANE | SUN

Starfish are popular as window decorations, but can you –
and should you – take them and other shells off the beach?

 

Seashells are one of the few free souvenirs you can take home.

But should you?

Some shells are homes themselves – like hermit crab shells – and some are animals themselves – like sand dollars and starfish – and Florida law prohibits taking as many as you may want.

And one study shows that even legal shell collecting is actually bad for the beach and its inhabitants.

Home sweet shell

In Manatee County, which includes Anna Maria Island, a person may not harvest or possess “more than two live shellfish of any single species per day,” according to Florida Administrative Code 68B-26, which applies only in Manatee and Lee counties.

In addition, to take those shells, you must have a Florida recreational saltwater fishing license (resident or non-resident as applicable), according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The license also is required for non-residents who saltwater fish from the shore. You can buy a three-day, seven-day or annual license at sporting goods stores, retailers that sell fishing equipment or county tax collectors' offices.

The two-shell limit applies to shells with animals living inside, like hermit crabs, as well as sand dollars and starfish, according to the FWC.

It’s easy to tell if you have a live sand dollar – live ones are brown and fuzzy; dead ones are white and smooth. Live starfish have flexible arms; dead starfish have rigid arms. You can often find dead sand dollars and starfish where there are live ones, and let the living ones propagate.

The law does not apply to oysters and hard clams, but they have different bag limits and are subject to regulations on closed seasons, size limits and approved harvesting areas.

The two-shell limit also does not apply to sunray venus clams or coquinas, according to the FWC.

You can find plentiful coquinas on the Island; they’re easy to spot as they burrow into the sand in the tidal zone after waves wash over them, with their violet, pink, blue, yellow and other vivid colors.

But when you find live coquinas, look nearby for empty coquina shells, which look like butterfly wings – you may not have to take live ones. And keep in mind that the color of coquinas, like most other live shells, will fade when the animal is no longer in residence.

It’s illegal to take Bahama starfish, live bay scallops or queen conch in Manatee County, but it is not illegal to take empty queen conch shells, as long as you didn’t kill or remove living queen conch to make them empty.

The law allows taking a shell “if the shell does not contain a live shellfish at the time of harvest and a live shellfish is not killed, mutilated or removed from the shell prior to the harvest of the shell.”

Bad for the beach?

But even when it’s legal, it may not be wise to take shells from the beach, according to a 2014 study on the effects of tourism on seashell loss.

Shell collecting causes beach erosion because shells help stabilize the beach, and it negatively impacts birds and invertebrates that live on the beach, according to the study, led by Michael Kowalewski of the University of Florida’s Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Barcelona.

Shell collecting affects birds that use shells as nest-building material, and marine organisms that use shells to hide from predators, according to the study.

A 70 percent decrease in the loss of shells on Llarga Beach in Spain from 1978 to 1981 and from 2008 to 2010 correlated to increased tourism on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, Kowalewski discovered.

But beachcombers aren’t the only reason for shell loss, the study says; beach grooming with heavy machinery and driving vehicles on the sand – like law enforcement vehicles that drive on Anna Maria Island beaches – also destroys shells.

Some countries recognize the negative effects of shell removal, including the Bahamas, which limits the quantity of shells tourists can export without special permits, the study says.

The study suggests that all shells on the beach should be left where nature intended.

So legal or not, living or not, free or not, please don’t take bagfuls of shells home; they’re better off on the beach than in the basement.


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